Ella Havelka (born 1989) is an Australian ballet dancer who is the first Indigenous person to join

The Australian Ballet The Australian Ballet (TAB) is the largest classical ballet company in Australia. It was founded by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1962, with the English-born dancer, teacher, repetiteur a ...

Early life

Havelka was born in Dubbo,

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, and is a descendant of the Wiradjuri people. She was raised by a single mother. She started ballet at a local studio after she watched a video of ''

Swan Lake ''Swan Lake'' ( rus, Лебеди́ное о́зеро, r=Lebedínoje ózero, p=lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə, links=no ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failu ...

''. At age 15, Havelka and her mother moved to Melbourne to train at the

Australian Ballet School The Australian Ballet School is the premier ballet training facility in Australia, located in Melbourne. History The Australian Ballet School was founded in 1964 as the primary training facility for The Australian Ballet by Dame Margaret Scot ...

and graduated in 2007.

Career

After graduating from the Australian Ballet School, she was not offered a place with

. Therefore, in 2009, she joined

Bangarra Dance Theatre Bangarra Dance Theatre is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance company focused on contemporary dance. It was founded by African American dancer and choreographer Carole Y. Johnson, Gumbaynggirr man Rob Bryant, and South African-bor ...

, an Indigenous Australian

contemporary dance Contemporary dance is a genre of Concert dance, dance performance that developed during the mid-twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly stron ...

company, and made her debut with ''Fire – A Retrospective'', and continued to perform in the company's other productions. In 2012, Havelka danced Stephen Page's ''Warumuk – in the dark night'', a collaboration between Bangarra and

, in honour of the latter's 50th anniversary. The following year, she joined The Australian Ballet, at the invitation of artistic director David McAllister, making her the first indigenous person to do so. In 2019, she returned to Bangarra as a guest for its 30th anniversary. Havelka was the subject of the

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

'' Ella'', which premiered at the

Melbourne International Film Festival The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is an annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was founded in 1952 and is one of the oldest film festivals in the world following the founding of the Venic ...

in 2016. In 2018, arranged by the Australian Consulate-General, she visited

Nouméa Nouméa () is the capital and largest city of the French Sui generis collectivity, special collectivity of New Caledonia and is also the largest Francophone city in Oceania. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main i ...

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

for NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee). Outside of dancing, Havelka learnt

weaving Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal ...

when a production requires her to weave her own mat, she later started making and selling Aboriginal woven baskets to raise funds for Oxfam Australia. She also makes jewellery and

linocut Linocut, also known as lino print, lino printing or linoleum art, is a printmaking technique, a variant of relief printing in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for a relief printing, relief surface. A design i ...

Awards

Havelka won the Deadly Award dancer of the year in 2013 and the Women of Style Award in 2017.

References

External links

Official website

Australian Ballet profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Havelka, Ella Living people 1989 births Australian ballerinas Dancers of the Australian Ballet People from Dubbo Indigenous Australian dancers Wiradjuri people 21st-century Australian ballet dancers Australian Ballet School alumni