This former dancer is on a mission to help young people reach their dreams. BY AMANDA DUNN
Lisa Pavane was destined for a life in dance from the moment she made her precarious entry into the world in 1961. Her mother seemed to know this when she named her tiny daughter - born at 28 weeks and weighing less than a kilogram - Lisa Pavane-Taylor.
"I was actually baptised two hours after I was born, because they didn't think I was going to survive," Pavane recounts. But her mother knew better: "She's going to survive and she's going to be a dancer," she announced.
Pavane is not the family name but an old European dance. Eventually, when her mother's prophecy came true, Pavane dropped the Taylor as she shot through the ranks of the Australian Ballet, becoming a principal artist in 1986 and forming a famous and much-loved partnership with her then-husband, Greg Horsman. Now, after a career that has taken her to London to dance, then to secretarial school and into a property management business, Pavane becomes just the fourth director in the Australian Ballet School's 50-year history, following the retirement last year of Marilyn Rowe. 
It's not difficult to spot a former ballerina: they retain a certain way of walking and carrying themselves that comes from years of hard work and discipline. So it is with Pavane, who arrives at Japanese restaurant Sake at Hamer Hall wrapped elegantly in a pink shawl, her hair kept short and neat now that a bun is no longer required. We decide to share an excellent tuna tasting plate, then Pavane opts for the seared barramundi on buckwheat noodles while I decide on that Japanese classic, teriyaki chicken. We also share a plate of delicious vegetables in a wasabi and pepper sauce. Pavane wonders how we will get through it all, and I think "quite easily", which is just one of the reasons she is a dancer and I am not.
At any rate she is friendly and chatty, talking of her childhood in Newcastle as the second of four children, with two brothers and a sister. At age 3, her lung capacity was poor, and so a doctor suggested she take up either swimming or ballet. Her mother, of course, decided on ballet, which Pavane kept taking, in part to offset the severe asthma that dogged her early years. The condition caused her to spend much time in hospital and, always feeling "a bit different", it probably exacerbated her natural introversion. Her love affair with dance was by no means an immediate one. She hated ballet as a child, she says, mostly because she was made to do it. But as she matured, and under the guidance of highly regarded dance teacher Tessa Maunder, eventually something shifted and she realised it might be her calling. So at 14, Pavane received special permission to leave school (to the dismay of her language teachers, who thought she had a flair for their subjects) and studied dance full time with Maunder, before being accepted into the Australian Ballet School at 15.
Now, 37 years later, she understands what a big move it is for some of the 102 current full-time students to take a position within the school, particularly those who have to move away from home at such a young age (while some full-time students enter the school at year 9, the largest cohort enters at year 10 equivalent).
"I think it's a really vulnerable age to be living away from home, going into a new environment, living in a new state, a new city," she says, and so they are mindful of taking young people who will be able not only to cope but to flourish. Towards that aim, the school is hoping to open the doors on its boarding program early next year, which will house 37 students. Work is underway on the $4.7 million Parkville mansion purchased last year, with the refurbished space plus a new wing being added to create student accommodation. As a student, Pavane was billeted to a homestay with her good friend Liz Toohey (who also went on to become a dancer with the Australian Ballet), and set her sights on joining the company. That was not without its challenges. "I was really always admired or noticed for my classical physicality, but I was really quite shy, so it took a long time for me to be able to express myself on stage. I'd often be picked up [for] 'Yes, she's got all the facility, but there's no warmth or too closed-off'. So I had to really work on that," she says. And she was still working on it when she joined the company in 1981. "I remember [then artistic director] Maina Gielgud taking me down to Studio 69 at the Sydney Opera House. We got in front of the mirror and we were looking at facial expressions. So there was a lot that went into it."
Pavane rose through the company's ranks swiftly, becoming a soloist at the end of her second year and a principal just three years later. Along the way she fell in love with Horsman, her dance partner, and the couple became a major drawcard for audiences. "That was fraught with tough times as well, working that closely with someone," she says. "When we're both perfectionists, the way we are, we could certainly come to blows in rehearsal.
"I think that sometimes it was probably too much but ultimately the product that we delivered on stage was a product of the incredible work and, probably, fighting."
At 30, Pavane had her daughter, Cassandra - a bold move for a dancer in her prime, particularly at a time when many female dancers who had children did not return to the stage. At the time, she recalls, there were plenty assuming that she would do the same, which made her all the more determined to continue her career.
With her sister moving in to help with baby Cassie, Pavane was back on stage six weeks after giving birth, which she now acknowledges was "crazy stuff". There were changes with being a mother, too: she found that her ease with the performance side of ballet was greatly enhanced; on the down side, though, her back was never the same, a problem that would continue throughout her career.
After reported disagreements with Gielgud, Pavane and Horsman left Australia in 1994 to take up positions with the English National Ballet (ENB). She is reluctant to dwell on that now, talking only of wanting to be challenged and the "opportunity to regenerate".
At 39, with her back plaguing her, and having separated from Horsman, Pavane decided to call it quits and focus on raising their young daughter: "I was really happy that I did that. I felt like I stopped dancing when I was still on top."
Wondering what she might do next, Pavane worked as a nanny and completed a secretarial course, before returning to the ENB as an administrator. By then she had a new partner, former dancer Robert Marshall, and the couple decided it was time to return to Australia. They bought a property management business in Queensland (Marshall still works in the industry) and had no intention of walking away, until Cassie, an oboist, was accepted into the Victorian College of the Arts music program. The couple did not want to separate Cassie, then 14, and their young son, William, four, and so Pavane contacted the Australian Ballet School's director, Marilyn Rowe, who immediately offered her a job. Pavane has been working in an administrative position at the school since 2007.
Her own plans for the school include, not surprisingly, the desire to keep producing young classical dancers who will find places in companies around the world and, on a practical level, the launch of the boarding program.
She would also love to conquer the ongoing battle to lure more talented boys into pursuing a career in ballet, a task that is hindered not only by many competing interests (her son William, now 12, is not in the least bit interested in ballet) and a lingering cultural obstacle about boys and dance.
Pavane says her children are great guides for her in managing the young dancers in her care, and she is mindful of providing them with as broad and rounded a view of world as possible, despite their talents and the rarefied realm in which they are trying to find their places in the world. "I want to remember what it's like for young people growing up and the challenges that they go through, and the heartaches and the obstacles and all the things that they do when they're going through their lives, as they're growing up."
Australian Ballet School students will perform at the Playhouse on   December 11-12. australianballetschool.com.au
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