Australia Dancing - Bain, Keith (1926

Bain, Keith (1926 - )

Burden, Peter: Keith Bain as the Physician in Gertrud Bodenwieser's 'Imaginary Invalid', Bodenwieser Ballet, 1950

Keith Bain was born in Sydney and spent his early years in Wauchope, New South Wales. As with the rest of his family, Bain was involved from an early age in Scottish and ballroom dancing and took part in local pageants. After completing secondary school studies in Kempsey, Bain entered a teacher training college in Armidale. After graduation he took up an appointment as a music teacher in Sydney.

At the age of twenty-seven Bain took his first modern dance classes with Gertrud Bodenwieser at her Sydney studios. He went on to dance with the Bodenwieser Ballet in Australia during the last six years of that company's existence. He had a number of works created on him by Bodenwieser including the male role in Central Australian Suite and the last work Bodenwieser created, a solo called The Heretic. After Gertrud Bodenwieser's death in 1959, Bain along with Margaret Chapple took over the running of the Bodenwieser Studio in Pitt Street, Sydney. Over the course of the next few years, Bain taught modern, primitive, jazz, and ballroom dance classes at the Bodenwieser Studio. He also choreographed several works, including Primitive Suite, for Ballet Australia in the 1960s, and danced in many Ballet Australia productions.

In 1968 Bain founded the Australasian Teachers Contemporary Dance Association (CDA), and the Society of Dance Artists (SODA). Later, he was appointed chairman of the dance panel of the Australia Council. In 1986 Bain founded the Dancers' Picnic, the forerunner to the Australian Dance Awards. The Dancers' Picnic was established to celebrate International Dance Day, to honour Australians working in the dance field, and to bring together the New South Wales dance community. Bain was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the 1999 Australian Dance Awards, and an award for services to dance education at the 2003 Awards. Previous awards include the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Medal for services to dance and theatre, which Bain received in 1977, and an OAM in 1988.

Keith Bain established and was for many years head of the movement studies course at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA). This course has assisted experienced dancers find new careers as teachers, consultants and physical theatre specialists. Beginning in the 1950s Bain pioneered similar courses, initially at the Independent Theatre, Sydney, at the request of Doris Fitton, and later at the Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, and the Old Tote Theatre Company, Sydney.

The son of a talented ballroom dancer, Bain followed his father's footsteps into competition ballroom dancing. Here Bain's creative variations on set dances caused a rift with the genre's hierarchy. This story, a struggle for acceptance of innovation, was the basis of Baz Luhrmann's film Strictly Ballroom starring Paul Mercurio, Tara Maurice and Bill Hunter. In 2010 Bain's writings on dance, movement and teaching were collected by close friends, edited by Michael Campbell and published as Keith Bain on Movement. In 2011 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Australian Dance Awards for his services to dancers, actors, singers and directors and to the performing arts community of Australia at large. The artists he influenced as a teacher, mentor or colleague include John Bell, Cate Blanchett, Mel Gibson, Darren Gilshenan, Miranda Otto, Richard Roxburgh, Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sharman and Lurhmann.

Bibliography: Keith Bain on movement by Keith Bain; edited by Michael Campbell. Strawberry Hills, N.S.W.: Currency House, 2010

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