The Enigma of David Hallberg
When I had the opportunity to interview ballet dancer David Hallberg a few years ago, I asked him to share one thing people wouldn’t know about him. The man often described as the “Nureyev of his generation” gave a knowing smile before revealing a surprising secret.
As a lanky 15-year-old in Phoenix, Arizona, he would sneak out of his bedroom at midnight to dance at warehouse techno raves. This was a much-needed escape from the strict, soldier-like training at ballet school. He described the experience as a release, saying, “I needed that mphh-mphh-mphh of the Techno beat.”
Now, as the artistic director of the Australian Ballet, David’s story continues to captivate those who follow his journey. When I recounted this anecdote to one of his colleagues, she simply shrugged and said, “Ah, the enigma that is David Hallberg.”
David reflects on his career with a deep sense of reverence. “It is a great thing to dance on the stage,” he says, “but it’s also a thing of absolute sacrifice and devotion. The stage is a sacred space. It is a space that is almost holy in a way to many. And I think it takes that kind of commitment to be able to really have great experience and success on a great stage.”
A Journey of Contradictions
I’ve known David Hallberg since he was first introduced to Australia in 2021 as the inheritor of our beloved company. Yet, he remains one of the great enigmas of Australia’s creative world. He is a man who was relentlessly bullied as a child but still retains an astonishing open-heartedness and optimism. He was a dancer who demanded and achieved absolute perfection from himself, yet walked onstage every time almost crippled by self-doubt.
He took incredible care of his extraordinary body—long elegant limbs, and feet that were described as the most beautiful of his peers—but pushed himself to such a point that those feet broke down, almost irreparably.
David has reshaped the Australian Ballet into a barnstorming group of classical and contemporary dancers. According to many in the industry, he has lifted the company to new heights. “I think the company dances with such a beautiful elegance now,” says David McAllister, the previous artistic director who appointed David. “He just has a way of being able to get that sense of his own dancing through the dancers, but they find it in their own bodies—not trying to just mimic David.”
An Unlikely Dancer
David Hallberg was an unlikely dancer. A kid who revered tap and worshipped Fred Astaire, he was schooled in the US before being accepted into the Paris Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre. Then, in a decision that was described as a “reverse defection,” he was invited to join the uncompromising Bolshoi Ballet in Russia. No other American had ever been asked to do that before.
“I understood the weight of it. I understood the enormity of a move like that,” he tells me. “The Bolshoi style is big and brassy, and I was more subdued, lyrical, and I thought—’That’s why I have to do this.’ I knew it would change my life. I knew I would be moving to a city that I didn’t connect with, that I would be alone in. And I knew I was making an enormous sacrifice if I said yes.”
He became the most in-demand male dancer of his time, flying 75,000 air miles in one year to dance with every major company, including Australia.
Expanding Horizons
Now, David sees an opportunity to expand the diversity of both dancers and repertoire at the Australian Ballet. He recently collaborated with Bangarra Dance Theatre and artistic director Frances Rings on Flora, a First Nations-led piece of contemporary dance. He is also actively recruiting dancers who may not have traditionally fit the ballet norm. He sees it as an extension of what Australian audiences love.
“I’ve always found Australian audiences to be very open and curious,” David says. “They don’t really wear the history—there’s an openness to new experiences. I think what I’ve been able to do is present new repertoire to audiences that maybe they have no idea what they’re going to watch, but there’s a sense of openness for them to experience something new.”
