FIRST FRIDAY BOOK CLUB | SOAR: A Life Freed By Dance by David McAllister AM

Join The Friends as we begin 2021 with our First Friday Book Club.

Following the success of David McAllister’s presentation at the Annual General Meeting, The Friends will now have the opportunity to review and discuss his book. In “SOAR: A Life Freed By Dance”, David McAllister, until recently artistic director of the Australian Ballet, gives us a reflective memoir of his upbringing in Western Australia, his discovery of ballet, his highly successful stage career, his equally inspiring career off-stage and his personal life.

Throughout his career, McAllister made numerous guest appearances worldwide, dancing with Bolshoi Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, the Georgian State Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre and, in 1992, as part of a Royal Gala performance in London in the presence of the Princess of Wales. In 2000, he completed a Graduate Diploma in Arts and Entertainment Management and in 2001 took his final bow as a dancer. In 2004, he was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours List. McAllister stepped down from his current position at the end of 2020 to take on freelance staging and choreographing ballets and he will be staging a new production of Swan Lake for the Finnish National Ballet in 2021.

Learn more about his career in ballet, with a twenty-year tenure as Artistic Director, while McAllister reflects on his dance journey and the combination of talent, timing and sheer perseverance that gave rise to his transformative career.