page_title: Lucinda Dunn
section_title: The Australian Ballet Company
hierarchical_section_title: Lucinda Dunn / Career / The Australian Ballet Company
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Oper in Sydney
context_page_description: Lucinda Dunn OAM is an Australian retired ballerina and current principle teacher at the Tanya Pearson Academy.
  Dunn was trained initially at Tanya Pearson Academy, before proceeding to train at the Royal Ballet School in London after winning a scholarship at the Prix De Lausanne in 1988, age 15. At the age of 17 Dunn signed a contract with the Australian Ballet Company in 1991. She stayed with the Australian Ballet throughout her entire career, being promoted to a principal dancer in 2002. Dunn is currently Australia’s longest-serving ballerina, after spending 25 years with the Australian Ballet, she performed her final role in April 2014.
  Dunn is currently pursuing her career as a mother of 2, teacher and author, while also supporting a number of Australian dance institutions – including being the Artistic Director of the Tanya Pearson Classical Coaching Academy.
context_section_description: After accepting the Australian Ballet Company’s offer to train with them, Dunn began her career as a member of the Corps De Ballet, however rapidly accelerated up the ranks. After one year with the most junior rank of a ballet company, Dunn was promoted to Coryphée in 1992, then in 1993 to soloist. In her 4th year with the company Dunn was titled a Senior Artist in 1995, followed by her acceleration to Principal Artist with the Australian Ballet Company in 2002. She remained a principal artist for 13 years. 
  
  Dunn’s first performance as a Soloist was as Aurora, Sleeping Beauty, a role given to her after only 18 months with the company. From there she has performed the majority of all classical roles, including Odette in Swan Lake, Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Giselle in Giselle and Kitri in Don Quixote. In total Dunn has performed as over 60 roles from over 93 different ballets. Dunn describes one of her highlights being performing Odette in Swan lake when she was age 39. Although she received advice to perform as a guest artist with whichever company was performing Swan Lake in order to book this role, she believed “If I wasn’t meant to do it, I wasn’t meant to do it.”  In 2012 Stephen Baynes of the Australian Ballet created a classical interpretation of Swan Lake, casting Dunn to play Odette.  Her final role with the Australian Ballet was as Manon in L’histoire de Manon. This role was chosen by her to be her final role as she described; “I wanted to end my career on a wonderful ballet that suits my physicality.”  In total Dunn has performed in 93 ballets across the course of her career. 
  Dunn came to the decision to retire while dancing her Debut in Manon in Brisbane early 2014. She describes Manon as “a beautiful ballet to end on. It’s a fantastic vehicle to display all the emotions and physically and the artistry that has accompanied my career, a fitting way to finish.”  Additionally, Dunn describes the growing presence and emphasis of her family life as a contribution to her decision to retire – stating “I want to spend time with my husband and my daughters. I want to put on my runners and power down the beach. Some more outside activities might be nice! I’m looking forward rather than back.” Dunn concluded her final ballet with a 10 minute standing ovation at the Sydney Opera House on the 23rd of April 2014.
caption: Sydney Opera House where Dunn's final performance took place
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