Australia Dancing - Carroll, Jacqui (1943

Carroll, Jacqui (1943 - )

Vining Brown, Leone: Patrick Harding-Irmer and Jacqui Carroll in Christine Koltai's 'Asylum', Ballet Australia , 1972

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Jacqui Carroll was brought up in Sydney where she was classically trained at the Scully Borovansky School under the direction of Nellie Potts and Kathleen Daintree.

Her professional dancing career began at 15 when she joined the Sydney-based Company Ballet Francais under the direction of Robert Pomie, performing in works such as Pomie's Ballet Surf and the pas de deux from Aurora's Wedding with Gerard Sibritt. In 1966 she appeared with the Queensland Ballet in a program of Classical and Modern Ballet, performing both solos and duets with Ronne Arnold.

In the early 1970s Carroll performed in various musicals, in nightclubs, in operettas, and on television shows such as Chanel 9's Sound of Music where she and Karl Welander appeared as a featured duo. She also worked as a choreographer and teacher with the Australian Opera and choreographed and staged opera and operetta for ABC TV.

Carroll joined the Dance Company of NSW in 1972 and in 1973 she choreographed something to do with a circle on the floor, performed by this company for the opening of the Sydney Opera House. After time in New York performing with the Mary Anthony Dance Company she returned to the Dance Company of NSW under the direction of Jaap Flier in 1975 and 1976, dancing roles such as Columbine in Glen Tetley's Pierrot Lunaire. Her own choreography for this company included True Grit and Test Picture.

Carroll's choreographic repertoire then extended to works for Australian Dance Theatre (Fragments - 1977; The Lotos Eaters – 1978) and West Australian Ballet (Summer Dances and Night Songs – 1978), following which she was named by London Times critic John Percival as "most promising choreographer" In 1979 she worked in London with leading contemporary choreographers such as Glen Tetley and was the Australian representative at the Gulbenkian International Summer School for Professional Choreographers and Composers Surrey University, UK under Tetley's direction. While in the UK she created Playback for EMMA Dance Co.

During the 1980s Carroll created works for Australian Dance Theatre (Missing Film), Kinetikos Dance Theatre (Equinox, Edge, Streetline), Queensland Ballet (Persephone, Carmina Burana, A Christmas Carol, Scheherazade, Firebird, Transfigured Night, Four Seasons, Othello), The Australian Ballet (Canzona) and West Australian Ballet (Stabat Mater, Night of the Full Moon). She directed her own company, Dance Group Adelaide, in 1981 and was appointed Head of Dance at Adelaide's Centre for the Performing Arts in 1984.

In 1991, after witnessing the training and aesthetic of theatre director, philosopher and writer Tadashi Suzuki, Carroll was inspired to break away from pure dance to develop theatre works combining text, movement and music. With John Nobbs she founded the acting ensemble OzFrank Theatre for which she has created numerous works since 1992. Following the creation of The Tempest and Bolero for the Queensland Ballet in the early 1990s she has concentrated on developing theatre works such as Doll Seventeen, Up Jumped the Devil and Briefings for a Descent into Hell.

Research Materials

Moving picture | Oral history | All

Other resources

Find more about Carroll, Jacqui in:

Internet - Google
Libraries - Libraries Australia