When Ivan Gil-Ortega talks about Queensland Ballet’s future, his vision stretches well beyond the banks of the Brisbane River. “It’s not only Brisbane,” he says. “It’s Australia. What do we have here, who can we work with, what can we export?”
That outward gaze defines his first full season as Artistic Director: an ambitious program that unites international choreographers with Australian artists and orchestras with dancers in ways that signal both confidence and curiosity. Yet Gil-Ortega is quick to clarify that his goal is not to make Queensland Ballet look more European, but to help it speak more “languages.” “We should be multilingual in our art form,” he says. “That’s where I want to take the company.” He means it literally and figuratively. Having lived and worked across Europe, Gil-Ortega describes how learning the local language in each country changed the way he understood its people. “If you move to a country, you need to speak their language,” he explains. “You go to Spain, you speak Spanish. You go to France, you speak French. It is the same for dance. Queensland Ballet should speak many languages — classical, contemporary, theatrical — because each one lets us communicate with a different audience, a different emotion.”
It is an idea that reflects a broader shift across the ballet world, where companies are embracing a wider range of creative voices and movement vocabularies. For Gil-Ortega, that multiplicity is not a trend but a necessity. “The more languages we speak, the more connected we become,” he says.
The 2026 season, already noted for its breadth, is certainly a statement of intent. Christian Spuck’s Messa da Requiem opens the year with operatic scale and emotional charge, a co-production that will unite Queensland Ballet with the state’s Symphony Orchestra and, potentially, Opera Australia. Gil-Ortega calls it “a gift for the artists as much as for the audience.” He describes the experience as civic as well as artistic, an act of connection in an age of distraction. “If I can have an audience sitting for a couple of hours, not looking at their phone, that’s what makes the difference,” he says.
Behind the scale lies a pragmatic streak. Gil-Ortega is acutely aware of the financial pressures faced by major companies. “I’ve never heard anyone in the arts say we’re making too much money,” he says with a laugh. “So it’s about what we can do with the financial situation we’re in and still stay relevant.” His approach is collaborative, leaning on long-built networks in Europe and the Americas to open creative doors while keeping budgets realistic.
Risk, though, is non-negotiable. “No risk, no fun,” he shrugs. “If we hadn’t taken risks as humankind, we wouldn’t be where we are. And yes, I’ll make mistakes, but that’s how we learn.” This openness to experimentation extends to Bespoke, which he has reimagined as a laboratory for new ideas and emerging choreographers. For Gil-Ortega, the most radical act for a ballet company in 2026 is simply “to keep moving and be unafraid of change.”
Even his take on The Nutcracker, which will close the season in a new production by Derek Deane, reflects that philosophy. “I wouldn’t change the story,” he says. “People come to be transported. But if we can make a Nutcracker that is made for us, with our dancers, that’s what makes it ours.” His measure of success is emotional rather than aesthetic. “Whether people love it or don’t, I just want engagement. Indifference is the only failure.”
Still, there is an undeniable tension between Gil-Ortega’s expansive artistic ambition and the company’s recent turbulence. Queensland Ballet weathered significant internal and sector-wide upheaval over the past two years, and he is candid about the recovery still underway. “They’ve been in a roller coaster,” he says of the dancers. “What I’m trying to provide now is purpose, a goal, a direction. Some will love it, some won’t, but we’re going somewhere together.”
If his leadership is characterised by anything, it is the belief that ballet’s future lies in conversation between artists, disciplines and nations. As a regular judge at Prix de Lausanne and Youth America Grand Prix, he sees what the next generation is striving for and wants Queensland Ballet to match that pace. “I want to open eyes,” he says simply. “To show audiences and artists there are many spectrums of dance, not just one.”
That may sound idealistic, but Gil-Ortega’s sincerity is hard to doubt. His world is one where airports are metaphors—“arrivals and departures, people coming and going”—and ballet becomes a meeting place. Whether Brisbane is ready for that level of movement remains to be seen. But for now, Queensland Ballet’s new chapter feels very much in motion.