Afternoon Reception in Support of Queensland Ballet

Queensland Ballet Chair, Julieanne Alroe; Artistic Director, Li Cunxin and Mary Li; Queensland Ballet Board, staff, alumni, donors and supporters.

I at once acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands around Brisbane, and extend respectful greetings to Elders and emerging leaders.

Kaye and I are delighted, once again, to welcome the Queensland Ballet family to Fernberg.

And I choose the word ‘family’ deliberately, because dedication and belief are in the very DNA of this unique company and have been passed down through successive generations of artistic directors, board members, staff, dancers and supporters.

Nobody knows that better than Mrs Valerie Lisner.

Kaye and I are delighted that she, in particular, can be with us today as a direct link to 1960, when Charles Lisner realised his dream of establishing not just the first professional ballet company in Queensland, but the first in Australia.

Keeping Charles’s dream alive has never been easy, especially over the past 18 months, but this company is built on drive and imagination so it was no real surprise to hear that ballet barres were delivered to the dancers’ homes last year so that they could continue their training during lockdown.

That delivery is just one example of the care, creativity, optimism and sheer tenacity I have observed, as increasingly proud Patron, over the past seven and a half years.

Under Li’s bold leadership, the company has taken La Sylphide to London; it has earned the right to stage MacMillan’s Romeo & Juliet; it has established the Queensland Ballet Academy at Kelvin Grove State College, which I was honoured to open; and it is transforming the Thomas Dixon Centre into an iconic building that will change the landscape of West End – all that and more, in addition to presenting hundreds of performances.

Kaye and I have had the privilege of attending many of those performances – in fact I think we may actually have established some sort of vice-regal record, having attended no fewer than six opening night performances of The Nutcracker since twenty-fourteen!

This experience has been a genuine pleasure for us both, but particularly for Kaye who has been able to introduce our grandchildren to the magic of ballet by taking them to performances.

During my term as Governor, Kaye and I have had the privilege of attending performances in Brisbane by many of the world’s great companies – The Bolshoi, La Scala, the American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet among them. But after every performance by a visiting company, we are left with the certain knowledge that, here in Queensland, we have a company of international standard.

That is due, in no small part, to the generosity, commitment and dedication of the people here this afternoon and, on behalf of all Queenslanders, I thank you.