Australia Dancing - Alder, Alan (1937

Alder, Alan (1937 - )

Stringer, Walter: Alan Alder in Garth Welch's 'Othello', the Australian Ballet, 1972

Born in Canberra, Alan Alder initially studied tap and Scottish highland dancing with June Hammond, in Canberra and later ballet with Barbara Todd. Winning a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in 1957, he studied there for a short time before joining the Covent Garden Opera Ballet, where he worked for the next twelve months. In 1958 Alder joined the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet. He was promoted to soloist and toured extensively with the company throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Africa over the next four years.

Alder returned to Australia to join the Australian Ballet in 1963 as a senior soloist at the invitation of Peggy van Praagh. He was promoted to principal artist in 1969, and was a guest artist with the company from 1978 to 1980.

Alder has danced many principal roles in a wide selection of ballets. He scored particular success as Alain in La Fille mal gardee, a role he danced initially with the Royal Ballet in 1961, and again with the Australian Ballet on many occasions from 1968 onwards. With the Australian Ballet he also danced the lead in many other productions, including Threshold, Sebastian, Giselle, Lady and the Fool, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Yugen, and Carmen.

Alder married fellow dancer Lucette Aldous in 1972. In the mid 1970s both Alder and Aldous were invited by the Russian ministry of culture to study teaching methods in the USSR. In St Petersburg they studied Boris Kniaseff's floor barre and the Vaganova system of training.

Following his departure from the Australian Ballet in 1980, Alder took up part-time teaching with Dame Margaret Scott and Anne Woolliams at the dance school of the Victorian College of the Arts. In 1983 he was appointed to head the dance department at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University, a position he held until 1991. Alder currently teaches in Perth.

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Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
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