Meet Our Australian Male Dance Ambassador

Matthew Lawrence former Principal Dancer with The Australian Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Queensland Ballet is our Australian male dance ambassador.

New Zealand born Matthew Lawrence began his dance career with The Australian Ballet in 2004 where he rose to the rank of Principal Dancer before relocating to the UK and Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2007, dancing there for the next five years also as a Principal Dancer. In 2013 he returned to Australia under the draw of working again as a Principal Dancer with Queensland Ballet Artistic Director Li Cunxin until 2014.

Since then Matthew has taught ballet for The Australian Ballet and QUT (Queensland University of Technology) where he remains today as an Associate Lecturer. Indeed throughout his career Matthew has taught extensively and been involved in many major dance projects such as the Dance for Parkinsons program at Queensland Ballet.

During his time with Birmingham Royal Ballet Matthew worked with Principal Dancer Iain Mackay who is the RAD male dance Ambassador in the UK. Iain is responsible for creating the choreography for Project B to engage boys and men of all ages and abilities with dance. This draws on his experience as a dancer, a teacher, and as a father. Find out more about Iain Mackay on our UK website.

Matthew developed his own interest in Project B earlier this year when he heard the UK’s announcements and we are thrilled to have him on board as our Australian Ambassador. Since January 2018 Matthew’s has been leading Project B workshops around the country on behalf of RAD.

“I think ProjectB is an exciting initiative by the RAD, and a cause I am proud to support. Often young male dancers are  – as I was – the lone boy in class. So, by creating these opportunities for boys to mix with other boys and male figures in dance, they will hopefully not feel so alone, but inspired to further pursue their passion for dance.”

• Read more from Matthew in this interview with Dance Informa Magazine.
• Matthew shares this thoughts on teaching boys in this article with Dance Australia Magazine.
• Matthew talks about fighting the parody in this blog for Bloch Australia.