BIG BALLET NEWS, OLYMPICS ARTS FEST PUT AUSTRALIAN DANCE IN SPOTLIGHT.

After an international search for a new artistic director, the Australian Ballet found a leader among its own ranks. Principal dancer David McAllister, who has spent his entire seventeen-year career with the company, has been chosen to replace the outgoing Ross Stretton, who leaves in August 2001 to head London's Royal Ballet. McAllister, 36, was chosen from a list that included the Milwaukee Ballet's Australian director, Simon Dow, and the Frankfurt Ballet's Australian rehearsal director, Kathryn Bennetts.

The decision was greeted warmly by the company dancers. McAllister is a popular figure with audiences--an amiable personality and an ardent advocate of the company. The decision was greeted with more caution by critics and dance observers, who noted his lack of management experience and overseas contacts; despite its high standards, the company is far from Europe and America, and those types of contacts have proved valuable. But McAllister had impeccable references, including Boston Ballet artistic director-designate Maina Gielgud, who directed the AB for ten years before Stretton arrived; Gailene Stock, the Australian director of The Royal Ballet School in London; and Sydney Dance Company director Graeme Murphy.

McAllister says everything he has done so far has led him toward this job. "I have such a great knowledge of the company and its workings and people, which is the sort of experience you can't gain without having been here the length of time I have. Another director from overseas may have had more hands-on experience, but it still would have taken them some time to learn what I already know."

The announcement came just before the Olympic Arts Festival in Sydney, a busy time for dance in Australia. The lineup included Tanztheater Wuppertal's Pina Bausch from Germany, DV8 from England (the artistic director is Australian, and a combined Aussie/Brit cast was used), Cloudgate Dance Company from Taiwan and Bill T. Jones from the U.S. The Sydney Dance Company also joined the party, dancing Mythologia to a new score by Carl Vine, accompanied by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir.

The biggest draw was the French ballerina Sylvie Guillem, who made her first visit to Australia as a guest with the Australian Ballet. A barefoot Guillem danced Maurice Bejart's 1960 work Bolero on a small, raised circular platform, although some viewers later expressed disappointment that the work failed to showcase the technical virtuosity for which Guillem is known.

Dance was also a large and indispensable feature in the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Artistic director and Australian expatriate Ric Burch collaborated with David Atkins, a Sydney-based song-and-dance man responsible for such shows as Dancin' Dynamite and Hot Shoe Shuffle. Atkins enlisted choreographers Stephen Page, artistic director of the aboriginal contemporary company Bangarra, Tap Dogs director Dein Perry, and Meryl Tankard, former artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre.

Each choreographer was responsible for a section. Tankard, who has made a name for herself by dangling dancers from ropes, masterminded the fishbowl sequence. Page choreographed the indigenous dance section, while Perry choreographed a spectacular tap dance sequence using over a thousand tappers. They were fronted by the rising star Adam Garcia, star of the new Australian dance film Bootmen. (See story on page 60 on the current crop of dance movies, including Bootmen, and the exclusive online Bootmen review on www.dancemagazine.com)