The History of The Australian Conservatoire of Ballet

The Australian Conservatoire of Ballet was originally founded in 1991 under the name Christine Walsh Dance Centre and subsequently changed to the Australian Conservatoire of Ballet due to the organization having grown to encompass multiple entities - school, training program ballet productions. Christine Walsh AM and Ricardo Ella brought to the school a wealth of experience from their dance careers. With both possessing a desire to pass on knowledge and having adventurous and entrepreneurial spirits, the school developed rapidly.

From the outset, the School aimed to provide quality training in classical ballet and other dance styles, giving honesty, care and individual attention to the students. A training program based on the Russian method was devised to cater for all ages, and this program grew and developed along with the school itself. This method was named Ballet Conservatoire and is now in demand by many teachers worldwide.

Within the first two years of the original school being opened, Christine and Ricardo choreographed and produced The Nutcracker, which was the first of many major productions for which the school has become well known

With the growing reputation of the school came new opportunities in the form of the Melbourne Youth Orchestra and the Australian Pops Orchestra inviting the school to perform with them, the first of which was the Nutcracker in 1995 with the 90 musicians of the Melbourne Youth Orchestra.

The bringing together of young aspiring musicians and dancers in rehearsals and performances was a memorable and beneficial experience for all. It was decided that this experience should be repeated on an annual basis. Consequently, further productions with the collaboration of Melbourne Youth Orchestra have followed, such as the full-length production of Swan Lake at the Arts Centre and Melbourne Town Hall and Romeo and Juliet at the Melbourne Town Hall. The success of these full-scale productions led to an extensive public following for all the schools performances and events, including tours and regular performances with the Australian Pops Orchestra.

As the reputation of the school grew, new productions followed - Christine Walsh's production of Paquita, Hansel and Gretel and A Midsummer Night's Dream and Harry Haythorne's La Sylphide and since 2006 Christine Walsh's full length productions of The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Romeo & Juliet, The Nutcracker and Maina Gielgud's Coppelia performing at Melbourne's premiere venue, Arts Centre Melbourne with international guest artists and its own 65 member ACB Orchestra.

Always with the quality of the training as a priority, Christine Walsh and Ricardo Ella made the decision in 1999 to relocate the school to an inner city location whilst streamlining the student cohort, retaining only the most dedicated to train in the ACB’s Specialised Coaching Program. In 2001, the school introduced three full-time nationally accredited courses to the programs offered, two of which were designed to enable students to undertake daily dance training whilst continuing academic studies in academic schools.

Running alongside the ACB’s accredited courses, the ACB’s part time syllabus was gaining national and international recognition with a growing number of teachers worldwide becoming members of the training program. Due to its widening and international scope, it was decided to give the syllabus the name of Ballet Conservatoire.