She’s had to keep it quiet for seven months, telling only close friends and family. Now this Brisbane bayside ballerina can finally tell the world of her massive honour.
Phil Brown, arts editor, The Courier-Mail
AFTER a year as an apprentice dancer with the Royal Ballet in London, Brisbane’s Amelia Townsend has been officially confirmed as a full-time dancer with the world famous company.
Townsend, 20, moved to London in 2015 after being accepted into the Royal Ballet School, advancing to the RB’s elite Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme.
The next step was being signed for a year’s apprenticeship as a full-time dancer with the company and that happened last year.
Now, after touring to Tokyo and LA the company has announced that she has a contract as a full-time dancer with the famed company.
When The Courier-Mail spoke to her in London last August she said she was “living the dream” .
“I’m an apprentice for the first year and then I find out if I stay with the company,” she told us.
Now she’s home on holidays for a few weeks with her mum Annette, father Malcolm Townsend and sister Alicia, 22, who is also dancing overseas with a leading ballet company in the Czech Republic.
After sitting on her good news for six months Amelia Townsend says she can finally go public.
“I found out in December but it’s only just been announced by the company,” Townsend says. “I had to wait for the season to finish before I could tell anyone outside of close friends and family.
“I’m over the moon. It’s every girl’s dream. I couldn't be happier.”
Townsend is now an artist with the company and will dance in the ballet Manon at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London in October.
Her mentor and mum, Annette Roselli, who runs the Annette Roselli Dance Academy at Tingalpa is over the moon.
“She is the only Australian woman in the company,” she says.
“We’re very proud of her because she has worked extremely hard for this.
“It’s not like everything came easy. She had to work for it. She has great resilience and determination.
“In her apprentice year with the company she picked up the choreography very quickly.”
Townsend is from Brisbane’s bayside, and started dancing at her mother’s ballet school at the age of three.
At 16, she was offered a position with the Royal Ballet Upper School and moved to England, living in the ballet boarding house and slowly edging her way towards joining the company.
It was a hard slog, but it paid off, and soon she will be jetting back to England for her first season as a permanent part of one of the greatest ballet companies in the world.
The Courier Mail 1 August, 2019.
