Paul Hammond, OAM

A LARGE number of Australian dancers have been taught by Paul Hammond in a ballet career spanning more than 60 years.

The Melbourne octogenarian danced in the 1948 film The Red Shoes, tutored latter-day stars David McAllister and Steven Heathcote at the Australian Ballet School and ran his own dance school for 20 years.

Born in 1922 in Sydney, at age 16 Hammond was thrilled watching the Ballet Russe company from Russia perform on an Australian tour. He started dance class in 1939, and a year later was studying under Ballet Russe ballerina Helene Kirsova, who had defected.

At 21, Hammond joined Kirsova's Sydney company, the Kirsova Ballet, and in the 1940s and 1950s had regular stints dancing with the Melbourne-based Borovansky Ballet. From 1948 to 1950 he was principal dancer at the Metropolitan Ballet in London, dancing Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, Prince Florimund in Sleeping Beauty and the title role in Pygmalion.

He opened the Paul Hammond Ballet School in Melbourne in 1953. Between then and 1976 he trained many future stars, including Walter Bourke and Gailene Stock.

One of his proudest achievements is choreographing and directing 30-minute ballets for ABC television in the late 1960s.

At the Australian Ballet School from 1975 to 1995 he was a senior tutor of classical ballet, archivist and dance history teacher. After retiring in 1996, aged 73, Hammond went into volunteer work He still adjudicates for competitions.

CAROLYN WEBB