Lisner, Charles (1928 - 1988)

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Charles Lisner was the founder and first artistic director of the Queensland Ballet. Born in Paris, Lisner emigrated to Australia with his parents in 1937 and began taking ballet lessons with Edouard Borovansky in 1943. Shortly afterwards he joined the Borovansky Ballet. A period of working in England followed, which included performances with Sadler's Wells Ballet and an appearance in the film The Red Shoes.

On his return to Australia, Lisner established the Lisner Ballet Academy in Brisbane in 1953. This school provided a nucleus of dancers for Lisner's company the Lisner Ballet, a privately-owned company established in 1960 and the forerunner to the Queensland Ballet. The company gave its first performance under the name the Queensland Ballet in 1962.

Lisner created over thirty ballets for the Queensland Ballet including Danses sacrees et profanes, mounted in 1972 for the Australian Ballet under the changed title Images classique (sic). After his resignation as artistic director of the Queensland Ballet, Lisner wrote a number of dance books including an autobiography, My Journey through Dance (1979), and a brief history of and commentary on the first twenty-one years of the Australian Ballet: The Australian Ballet: Twenty-one years (1983).

Bibliography:

Lisner, Charles. My Journey through Dance (St Lucia: Queensland University Press, 1979). This autobiography contains a list of Lisner's choreography for the Queensland Ballet from 1960 to 1974 at pp. [182]-[183]

See also: Australian Ballet, The ; Borovansky Ballet ; Borovansky, Edouard ; Queensland Ballet, The

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