La Trobe and The Australian Ballet partnership

What happens when Australia's most renowned ballet company joins forces with a university known for excellence in research and learning experiences? A multifaceted partnership that's making gravity-defying leaps in the realms of sport, art and education.

Professional ballet is one of the most physically demanding art forms, but research on injury prevention techniques and rehabilitation programs is limited. As The Australian Ballet's Research Partner, we have brought together La Trobe's acclaimed researchers in exercise medicine with the ballet company's internationally recognised medical team.

The partnership’s research program investigates the athletic capacity of leading ballet dancers, with the aim of:

• optimising dancer performance and health
• informing injury prevention and rehabilitation programs throughout the community.

Our students are contributing to research that's uncovering the strength, agility and endurance of the performers, leading to revolutionary injury prevention and rehabilitation programs for dancers and sportspeople alike. The research involves The Australian Ballet's elite dancers and provides valuable industry insights for La Trobe students wanting to develop a career in ballet, performing arts or sport.

Why La Trobe?

Leading research expertise

• La Trobe’s Centre for Sport and Social Impact (CSSI) research expertise extends beyond the physical health and wellness of athletes and the community. The centre examines the broader social and economic impact of sports participation, events and organisations through real-world research and engagement with industry and government.
• The Gait Laboratory is a state-of-the-art research facility within La Trobe’s Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Centre. The laboratory facilitates research into the structure and function of the musculoskeletal system, and causes, prevention and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries and disease. This is the largest lab of its type in the southern hemisphere, and features a motion analysis system comprised of ten high-speed cameras that collect detailed precision information about physical movement.

Why The Australian Ballet?

Experts in preparing elite athletes for the stage

• The Australian Ballet is one of the busiest dance companies in the world, with demanding national and international touring schedules requiring dancers to maintain peak performance year-round while mastering and performing the rigours of a diverse repertoire.
• The Australian Ballet’s Artistic Health Team includes physiotherapists, myotherapists, a strength and conditioning coach, a Performance Lifestyle Advisor, psychologists, sports and exercise physicians and general practitioners. They provide essential support to keep performers strong and healthy and are recognised as world leaders in injury prevention and management.
• The company has an extraordinarily low rate of injury and highly sought-after expertise by Olympians, elite athletes and other international ballet companies.

Our partnership journey

La Trobe and The Australian Ballet have informally collaborated on research since 2015, with the official partnership announced in March 2017. The partnership evolved through a collaboration between La Trobe’s professor in musculoskeletal health, Emeritus Professor Jill Cook, and The Australian Ballet’s then-Director of Artistic Health and Principal Physiotherapist and Adjunct Research Fellow, Dr Sue Mayes AM. Both are leading international experts in their respective fields. The research partnership now forms part of La Trobe’s Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Centre (LASEM).

A partnership as flexible as the elite dancers it supports

Our sport and exercise scientists have collaborated with the Australian Ballet's Artistic Health Team to prevent injury and optimise dancers' health on stage. Now, our partnership supports dancers off-stage, too. La Trobe provides career transition support for The Australian Ballet, including access to seminars, La Trobe academics, researchers and students.

Opportunities for La Trobe students

The partnership offers La Trobe students unique opportunities to gain experience with The Australian Ballet. These opportunities include student placement opportunities, working with the ballet’s elite athletes and experiencing the ‘behind the stage’ business world of creating spectacular performances.

Research growth and development

Since our partnership began we’ve expanded our number of research projects, broadened our focus and increased the diversity of our research collaborators.

We launched four research projects in 2017, mostly driven by Professor Jill Cook and Dr Sue Mayes. The projects aimed to investigate key concepts linked to musculoskeletal health in dancers. Now,  postgraduate students are conducting research as part of the partnership. We’ve developed strong, external research collaborations with elite sporting clubs and various La Trobe departments and our research focus has broadened to incorporate dancer wellbeing.

*Photos by Ren Pidgeon