Our Team
A multinational faculty of former professional artists and career educators.
Artistic Faculty
View all
Jiayin Du
Founder | Artistic Director | Balletmaster
Adam Thurlow
Senior Classical Ballet Instructor | Balletmaster
Hanna Lazarieva
Classical Dance Teacher | Master of Dance Education | Choreograph Expert
Susan Sargison
RAD Exam Instructor | Senior Classical Ballet Instructor
Hiroko Kaneko
Classical Ballet Instructor
Ariane Quellier
Resident Choreographer | Character Dance Instructor
Isabella Rose Cort
Dance Teacher | Contemporary & Ballet
Management & Operations
View allStrategy, communications, family engagement and long-term student pathway planning.
Angelbaby Liu
Director | Strategy, Communications and Development
Andrea Wong
Dancer | Educator | Administrator
Guest Teachers
View allPrincipal dancers, ballet masters and teachers from leading companies, who have taught at the academy since 2013.
2026
Photo: Chris Hardy Yuan Yuan Tan
Artistic Director, Suzhou Ballet Theatre; former Principal Dancer, San Francisco Ballet
Trained at the Shanghai Dance School and the John Cranko School in Stuttgart, Yuan Yuan Tan joined San Francisco Ballet in 1995 and became a principal dancer two years later, the youngest in the company’s history. She danced her farewell there in 2024, now directs Suzhou Ballet Theatre, and led a masterclass at the academy in February 2026.
Read more · Prix de Lausanne
Photo: The Australian Ballet Annabelle Watt
Coryphée, The Australian Ballet
Annabelle Watt trained in Brisbane and at The Australian Ballet School, where she was School Captain in 2020, and joined The Australian Ballet after graduating. Promoted to coryphée in 2024, she performed with American Ballet Theatre in New York in 2026 on the Walter Bourke Scholarship.
Read more · The Australian Ballet
2025
Photo: The Australian Ballet Yaru Xu
Artist, The Australian Ballet
Born in Xiamen, Yaru Xu trained at John Curtin College of the Arts in Perth and won The Australian Ballet School Scholarship Award in 2018. She completed her training at the School and joined The Australian Ballet in 2024.
Read more · The Australian Ballet
Artistic Patrons
View allThe academy is supported by patrons drawn from the international ballet community.
Photo: The Australian Ballet Artistic Patron
Dale Baker
Dale Baker danced as a principal with The Australian Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and Zurich Ballet, and as a soloist with The Royal Ballet.
As Senior Ballet Master of The Australian Ballet School he trained generations of the company’s dancers. He was Balletmaster there when Jiayin Du arrived as a student in 1999.
Read more · The Australian Ballet
Photo: Bern Schwartz, 1976 Artistic Patron
Ann Jenner
Ann Jenner trained at The Royal Ballet School and became a Principal Dancer of The Royal Ballet in 1970, dancing the classical repertoire.
She is remembered above all as Lise in Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Read more · Bern Schwartz