June 2023

Nab a notecard, grab a greeting card! Forgive a quick promo for my exhibition remainder stock, now listed on eBay.

February 2023

Load up the Powerpoint and on with the show! It was great to speak at the Castlemaine Library about dance at Astley’s Amphitheatre.

November 2021

Three bad brothers, three nicknames and a spoiler: “no spoilers contained herein.”

October 2021

Five people are brought together under the watchful eye of the Supervisor. Who are they? What are they competing for? And what will happen to the candidate who passes The Audition … ?

August 2021

Scandal, fabric craft, a horror film and a tasty spot of liposuction. It turns out one obscure 17th-century opera dancer is really not like another…

July 2021

What happens when you commit to a career researching ballet, but you’re also bored, irked and fed up to the back teeth with ballet’s endless literary adaptions and rehashes of the classics? Simple. You write your own bloody ballets. Here’s one of mine.

January 2021

We have a fresh discovery to mark the beginning of 2021. Is it a bird, is it a bacchante? Yes, yes! It’s Giovanna Baccelli!

For over a century, Monte Carlo has been a haven for some of the world’s greatest dancers. Join me on a time-tripping escape from lockdown to the fabled seaside playground where the Ballets Russes made its home.

Couldn’t make it to the Ballerina symposium in March? Don’t be disappointed: New York’s Museum at FIT has kindly made all the presentations available on YouTube. Tagliomanes and fashionistas, this way please…

FORTHCOMING: 6 March 2020

Come along to New York’s Museum at FIT, where I’ll be joining other speakers for a revealing symposium to be held in conjunction with the exhibition, Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse. 

December 2019

My recently published article in the Dance Research journal probably isn’t on your Summer 2020 reading list. But it’s a rip-roaring read of sex, scandal and, ah, concentrated academic scholarship …

Not every dancer has the chance to be the subject of a dedicated biography, but every biography for a dancer is a contribution to our records for the future. This post salutes Anne Elder, one time dancer and accomplished Australian poet, whose memories of the Borovansky Ballet have been quietly published in a new biography.

15 June 2019

Cheer up a wintry Saturday this June. Come along to the Melbourne Arts Centre where I’ll be speaking on ballet at Astley’s Circus. There’ll be dancing on stage and on horseback – historically speaking, of course!

May 2019

This month let’s get reacquainted with the wonderfully angular Madame Rose Parisot, who raised hemlines and eyebrows with her performances in London in the 1790s.

It began as an experiment. The idea was to create activity sheets for dance students that would bring ballet’s history to life. Adelaide Simonet stepped up to be the prototype, and here she is, FREE to download and ready for feedback!