Juliet Burnett grew up in Sydney, while spending considerable time in Indonesia. Dancing was in Juilet’s blood; her grandmother, was the Sultan’s star dancer at his court in Jogjakarta. At the age of five her parents enrolled her in ballet school to see if she took after her grandmother.

Juliet Burnett, portrait by Shed Mojahid wearing family heirloom batik!

Later, Juliet studied at The Australian Ballet School, before joining the company in 2003. Juliet has worked in creations by Wayne McGregor, Stanton Welch, Alexei Ratmansky, Krysztof Pastor, Nicolo Fonte, Maina Gielgud, Rudolf Nureyev, Peggy van Praagh, Matjash Mrozewski, Stephen Baynes, Gideon Obarzanek, Graeme Murphy and Stephen Page.

In mid-2015, Juliet left The Australian Ballet after her final show as Giselle. She left to become a freelance dancer performing in Australia and Indonesia, working with a range of people including Melanie Lane, a childhood friend.

In 2016, Juliet made the move to Europe to join Ballet Vlaanderen, Belgium's premier dance company, under the directorship of renowned choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

Since 2016, Juliet has been a First Soloist with Ballet Vlaanderen, where she has had new creations made for her by Édouard Lock in The Heart of August and The Heart of August ... continued and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui in his Requiem. Other roles include the title role in Akram Khan’s Giselle, in William Forsythe's Approximate Sonata and Workwithinwork, Pina Bausch's Café Müller, in Benjamin Millepied’s Bach Studies, as Marguerite in Jean-Christophe Maillot's Faust, as Queen Fabiola in Jeroen Verbruggen's Ma Mére L'Oye, Trisha Brown’s Twelve Ton Rose, in Alexander Ekman’s Joy, in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Firebird, Memento Mori, Exhibition and Fall, and the Snow Queen in Demis Volpi's Nutcracker. In 2017 she danced as Guest Artist with Dutch National Ballet, in Remi Wortmeyer's new creation, Passing Shadows.

Juliet is also a writer, having been a regular contributor for Dance Tabs, MDM Dancewear's website and The Australian Ballet's blog Behind Ballet. She has written for other publications including Vogue Australia, Dance International and Gourmet Traveller magazines. You can find Juliet on Instagram and on her website.

With such an extensive career and so many interesting things to talk about this interview is presented in two parts. This is part one, part two can be found here.

You can find a written transcript of this episode here.

Delving into Dance is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. If you enjoy Delving into Dance please consider leaving a contribution. Contribute here.

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