• Jayne Smeulders and Milos Mutavdzic in Don Quixote. Photo: Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders and Milos Mutavdzic in Don Quixote. Photo: Jon Green.
  • Jayne Smeulders & Andre Santos in Pinocchio. Photo Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders & Andre Santos in Pinocchio. Photo Jon Green.
  • Jayne Smeulders, Christian Luck and Jiri Jelinek in Onegin. Photo: Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders, Christian Luck and Jiri Jelinek in Onegin. Photo: Jon Green.
  • Jayne Smeulders in Taming of the Shrew. Photo: Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders in Taming of the Shrew. Photo: Jon Green.
  • Jayne Smeulders and Jiri Jelinek in Onegin. Photo: Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders and Jiri Jelinek in Onegin. Photo: Jon Green.
  • Jayne Smeulders and Jiri Jelinek in Onegin. Photo: Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders and Jiri Jelinek in Onegin. Photo: Jon Green.
  • Jayne Smeulders and West Australian Ballet dancers in La Sylphide. Photo: Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders and West Australian Ballet dancers in La Sylphide. Photo: Jon Green.
  • Jayne Smeulders and Sergey Pevnev in Diamonds. Photo: Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders and Sergey Pevnev in Diamonds. Photo: Jon Green.
  • Jayne Smeulders, Christian Luck and WAB dancers in Onegin. Photo: Jon Green.
    Jayne Smeulders, Christian Luck and WAB dancers in Onegin. Photo: Jon Green.
  • Filip Barankiewicz and Jayne Smeulders in West Australian Ballet's production of Cranko's The Taming of the Shrew.  Photo:  Jon Green.
    Filip Barankiewicz and Jayne Smeulders in West Australian Ballet's production of Cranko's The Taming of the Shrew. Photo: Jon Green.
Close×

Much-loved West Australian Ballet principal dancer Jayne Smeulders will retire from the stage when the company’s season of Beauty and the Beast closes this May, bringing down the curtain on a professional performance career of over twenty years.

Smeulders was born in the WA Pilbara town of Dampier but her dance training was taken in Perth, firstly at Jody Marshall Dance Company and then at the Graduate College of Dance. In 1993 she received a scholarship to complete her training in Germany at Hamburg Staatsope GmbG Ballettschule.

Smeulders began her career with Nederlands Dans Theatre II, where she worked with acclaimed international choreographers such as Jiří Kylián, Hans van Manen, Paul Lightfoot, Nacho Duato, Ohad Naharin, Lionel Hoche, Johan Inge and Gideon Obarzanek.

In 1999 she returned to Perth and joined West Australian Ballet. She has danced numerous lead roles with the company, including Kate in John Cranko’s The Taming of the Shrew, Clara in Ivan Cavallari’s The Nutcracker, the title role in Giselle and Kitri in Lucette Aldous’s Don Quixote.

Smeulders was nominated for a Helpmann Award in 2003 and awared the West Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer in 2008. In February of the same year she was promoted to Leading Artist (now principal dancer). In 2009 she was awarded West Australian of the year in the arts and entertainment category.

Smeulders has been choreographing for West Australian Ballet since 2004 and presented her first full-length work for the company, Cinderella, in 2011. Together with WAB artistic director Aurelien Scannella and ballet mistress Sandy Delasalle she will be choreographing The Nutcracker for WAB in November 2016.

Dance Australia wishes Jayne Smeulders all the best – like many WAB supporters, the WA correspondents will miss seeing her on stage!


comments powered by Disqus