The Australian Ballet: Moving the Artform Towards Inclusion
Oscar, The Australian Ballet’s groundbreaking production exploring the life of Oscar Wilde, the first full-length ballet to centre an explicitly and authentically queer narrative in the artform’s history.
Industry: Arts
Services Provided: Leadership & Staff Training, Consultation
Impact: Organisational Change
the challenge
As one of Australia’s most iconic and respected cultural institutions, The Australian Ballet has long been synonymous with creativity and artistic excellence. However, the artform of ballet has deep roots in the gender binary, from technique, to storylines, and even job titles. As a result, the company recognised the need to evolve in order to be inclusive to their teams and dancers, to keep moving the artform forward and to reflect the social climate of today.
The leadership team approached Queer Town with a clear goal: to ensure that every department, from dancers to finance to wardrobe, shared a foundational knowledge and language when it came to LGBTIQA+ identities, language, history, and allyship. They wanted to equip their team with the confidence to foster an inclusive workplace and extend that commitment to their audiences and broader community.
our approach
Queer Town worked closely with The Australian Ballet to design a company-wide LGBTIQA+ 101 training rollout, ensuring the program was relevant, practical, and engaging for every department.
To ensure the training was impactful and tailored, we:
Consulted with the executive leadership team to assess existing challenges and opportunities.
Developed a customised training program focused on language, lived experiences, and actionable allyship.
Rolled out sessions across all departments, ensuring every team member had access to foundational learning.
Facilitated open discussion to encourage engagement, reflection, and commitment to long-term change.
The training focused on:
Building a shared language: Understanding terminology, lived experiences, and the history of queer representation in the Arts.
Unpacking systemic barriers: How tradition and industry norms have excluded or sidelined LGBTIQA+ identities and what can be done to shift this.
Real-world allyship: Practical strategies for inclusive communication, workplace interactions and audience engagement.
Lived experience storytelling: Firsthand perspectives from the queer community, fostering deeper understanding and empathy.
“Queer Town’s support gave us the tools and confidence to start reshaping our artform’s approach to gender. The impact of their workshops has been profound across our organisation. Gender diverse staff feel safe to be themselves at work, and on stage we are proud to present performances that explore the LGBTQIA+ experience. With Queer Town’s friendship, we know ballet has a richer, more exciting, more accepting future.”
the impact
The response to the training was overwhelmingly positive, sparking conversations that extended far beyond the sessions themselves. Staff from all levels of the company engaged in open discussions, and for many, this was the first time they had the language, tools, and space to consider LGBTIQA+ inclusion in their field.
Notably, after the training:
Dancers felt confident to share their pronouns with coaches and peers for the first time, knowing their identities would be understood and respected.
Class names were updated to reflect dance techniques rather than gendered roles, making language inclusive without compromising artistry.
Job titles were revised to remove unnecessary gendering.
Momentum extended beyond the workplace, building towards the successful delivery of Oscar, a groundbreaking production exploring the life of Oscar Wilde, the first full-length ballet to centre an explicitly and authentically queer narrative in the artform’s history.
MAKE IMPACT WITH US
If you’re keen to explore how your organisation can achieve similar outcomes to the Australian Ballet, schedule a chat with Alex Delaney (he/him), Queer Town’s Head of Partnerships and Operations.
Alex has weekly slots available to jump online for 30 mins, no obligations. We’d love to help!