Lucinda Dunn - Infinite Women

Born: 10 December 1973, Australia
Died: NA
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: NA

This biography is republished from The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia. Written by Grace Edwards, The University of Melbourne. See below for full attribution.

Born in Sydney in December 1973, Lucinda Dunn received her early training in Sydney with Janece Graham and Tanya Pearson. After winning a Prix de Lausanne scholarship to study at The Royal Ballet School in London, performing regularly with Birmingham Royal Ballet during this period, Dunn joined The Australian Ballet in 1991. She was promoted to Principal Artist in 2002.

In 2011, Lucinda celebrated 20 years with The Australian Ballet, becoming the company’s longest-serving ballerina. Married to Danilo Radojevic, Associate Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet, Dunn has spoken about the challenges she faced returning to elite performance after the birth of her two daughters, Claudia and Ava in 2008 and 2011 respectively. After the birth of her first child, Dunn was back in the studio in three weeks, back in rehearsal in three months and back to performance in five months (Australian, 30 July 2011). Though aged in her late thirties at the time of her pregnancies, roughly the accepted age of retirement for female ballet dancers, Dunn expressed her intention in interviews to continue until her body is no longer able to withstand the demands of ballet (Dance Informa, Aug/Sept 2008). She has cited former Royal Ballet principal and mother of two, Darcey Bussell, as inspiration, alongside fellow mothers Julie Kent and Alessandra Ferri, both ballerinas with the American Ballet Theatre (Australian, 30 July 2011).

In addition to lead ballerina roles in all of the major classical ballets such as Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake and Coppélia, Dunn performed in the world premiere of Stanton Welch’s The Sleeping Beauty in 2005 and danced in Graeme Murphy’s Firebird and Nutcracker – The Story of Clara. She has toured with The Australian Ballet to London, Tokyo, Italy, Shanghai and New York, and has danced lead roles in contemporary works by Christopher Wheeldon, Jiří Kylián, Jerome Robbins, George Balanchine, Twyla Tharp, Nicolo Fonte and Stephen Baynes.