Resident Choreographers
Stephen Baynes
Resident Choreographer
Adelaide-born Stephen Baynes trained with Joanne Priest and graduated from The Australian Ballet School in 1975. He joined The Australian Ballet the following year and left in 1981 to join the Stuttgart Ballet. There he had the opportunity to work with leading choreographers such as Kenneth MacMillan, John Neumeier, William Forsythe and Hans van Manen, as well as dancing in the John Cranko repertoire. He returned to The Australian Ballet in 1985 and was promoted to Soloist in 1992.
His talent as a choreographer was first displayed in 1986 with Strauss Songs, created for a company choreographic workshop. For The Australian Ballet’s 25th Anniversary Choreographic Competition in 1988 he presented the winning work Ballade, which entered the company’s repertoire and was performed during its 1988-89 season. Also in 1988 he received the Qantas Youth Award for professional development enabling him to travel overseas and view the work of Europe’s major choreographers.
Stephen’s first commissioned work for The Australian Ballet, Catalyst, was performed nationally and on the company’s tours of the United States during 1990 and 1994. It was also performed on the 1992 tour of London where it received a nomination for Best New Dance Production at the Laurence Olivier Awards. During 1990, his work Andante was performed at The Australian Ballet’s International Gala. In 1993 he was commissioned to create Four Reflections of a Quintet for The Dancers Company tour. New work Souvenirs premiered on that company’s tour the following year.
Stephen was appointed Resident Choreographer with The Australian Ballet at the beginning of 1995 and in November was awarded the Kelvin Coe Memorial Scholarship. His commissioned works for that year included Episodes for La Scala Ballet Milan, and Beyond Bach, which received its world premiere in Melbourne. His work for Sydney Dance Company, Into Dharma, premiered in May 1996; in June Shadow in the Facet, set to music by Ravel, was given its world premiere by The Australian Ballet; and in October he created Into the Darkness for the West Australian Ballet.
In 1997 Stephen was commissioned to create a work on The Australian Ballet for the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts: At the edge of night was shown on ABC Television at that time. In 1998 his first full-length work 1914 premiered in Sydney by The Australian Ballet. In 1999, At the edge of night made its international debut to critical acclaim in New York and Washington on The Australian Ballet’s US tour.
He has been commissioned by The Queensland Ballet (The Fold, 1999), West Australian Ballet (Lachrimae, 2000) and last year by Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle and New York City Ballet. He also restaged Beyond Bach for The Royal Ballet.
In August 2003 Stephen Baynes’ new work Molto Vivace premiered in Melbourne by The Australian Ballet. His restaging of the classic ballet Raymonda premiered in Melbourne in September 2006 and his Constant Variants premiered as part of The Australian Ballet’s New romantics programme in Sydney, May 2007.
Stanton Welch
Resident Choreographer
In July 2003, Australian Stanton Welch assumed leadership of Houston Ballet, America’s fifth largest classical ballet company. Stanton is one of the most sought after choreographers of his generation, having created works for such prestigious international companies as Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Australian Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and Royal Danish Ballet.
Stanton was born in Melbourne to Marilyn Jones and Garth Welch, two of Australia’s most gifted dancers of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1986 he began his training at the late age of 17, quickly winning a scholarship to San Francisco Ballet School. In 1989 he was engaged as a dancer with The Australian Ballet, where he rose to the rank of leading soloist, performing such principal roles as Des Grieux in Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, Lensky in John Cranko’s Eugene Onegin, Camille in Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow, and Alan Strang in Equus. He has also worked with internationally acclaimed choreographers such as Jiří Kylían, Nacho Duato, and Maurice Béjart.
Stanton ’s choreographic career developed during his time with The Australian Ballet. In 1990 he received his first choreographic commission from the company, marking the beginning of a series of commissioned works over the next 14 years and developing his diverse choreographic style. For The Australian Ballet he has created The Three of Us (1990); Of Blessed Memory (1991) for which he was voted best new choreographer in 1992 by readers of the British magazine Dance & Dancers; Divergence (1994), which has been preformed at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and City Center in New York; full-length productions of Madame Butterfly (1995) and Cinderella (1997); Red Earth (1996); X (1999); and Velocity (2003). He will also create a new production of The Sleeping Beauty for The Australian Ballet in 2005. Madame Butterfly has become a signature work for Stanton internationally and is in the repertoires of Houston Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Atlanta Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, and Boston Ballet.
In 1995, Stanton was named Resident Choreographer of The Australian Ballet. That same year, he was commissioned to create Corroboree for The Australian Ballet to perform at United We Dance, a dance festival in San Francisco celebrating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter and featuring major companies from across the world premiering new works.
Stanton has been extremely active internationally, receiving numerous commissions from the world’s leading companies. For Houston Ballet, he has choreographed Indigo (1999), Bruiser (2000), Tales of Texas (2004), Blindness (2004), Bolero (2004), and Nosotros (2005). For San Francisco Ballet: Maninyas (1996), Taiko (1999), Tutu (2003), and Falling (2005). For American Ballet Theatre: Clear (2001), two songs from Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison (2002); and a new version of Carmina Burana as part of the evening-length work Hereafter (2003).
For BalletMet: Evolution (2004) and Don Quixote (2003), both full-length works. For Atlanta Ballet, A Dance in the Garden of Mirth (2000). For Royal Danish Ballet: Ænsket (1998), and Ander (1999). For Birmingham Royal Ballet: Powder (1998). For Moscow Dance Theatre: Green (2000) and OPUS X (2001), both created for Ms. Nina Ananiashvili’s group.
Stanton has also staged works for Colorado Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Texas Ballet Theater, The Royal Ballet School, Singapore Dance Theatre, Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Dance Galaxy.
In 2005 Stanton choreographed The Australian Ballet’s largest commission so far, The Sleeping Beauty.
