The company will grow to 79 full-time dancers this year to perform “large scale repertoire more comfortably.”

The Australian Ballet has announced that it will be bigger and better than ever before in 2016, as the company welcomes eleven new full-time dancers. Expanding its ranks to 79 members, up from 68 last year, brings the Australian Ballet up to a size comparable with the major European and American companies, as well as affording the opportunity to introduce repertoire of a previously insurmountable scale. “Increasing the company means we can do the really large scale repertoire more comfortably, but it also means we can offer more productions, like the Storytime children’s ballets we’ve introduced this Christmas,” Artistic Director David McAllister says. “We’ve been wanting to do those productions for three years, and the major hurdle was being able to access more dancers.”

The plan to increase the size of the company is part of a recently developed five year strategy, McAllister shares. “We’re funding the extra dancers from a range of things we’re doing – some extra revenue from our new children’s ballets, and also some internal restructuring. This is essentially us licking our finger and...