Former Royal Ballet superstar Leanne Benjamin arrived at Queensland Ballet in mid-January as the company’s sixth artistic director. On August 2 she leaves the building. In a statement released by QB on July 31 Benjamin said: “Ultimately, as we have worked together to design a vibrant season for 2025, it has become very clear that my artistic aspirations for our company, including the opportunity to engage diverse choreographic voices, both international and Australian, and venture outside of the traditional theatre environment with immersive opportunities, is not immediately possible within the funding constraints faced by the company.”

The company, via executive director Dilshani Weerasinghe, was gracious in response to this bombshell. “Queensland Ballet’s circumstances are such that Leanne has not been able to infuse our 2025 offerings with her own artistic aspirations as much as she was hoping. This has been understandably dispiriting for Leanne and, although she might not be sitting with us as our Artistic Director in 2025, we will most certainly feel her legacy in Queensland Ballet’s investment in Australian and female voices, amongst other elements that she has inspired.”

Long-serving QB artistic team member Greg Horsman, who was promoted to assistant artistic director in 2023 without fanfare, becomes acting artistic director in charge of getting the 2025 program together. 

What that will look like is hinted at in a further part of Ms Weerasinghe’s statement: “Although Queensland Ballet’s management team has workshopped several scenarios for the 2025 Season, it is evident that the company needs to lean heavily into its existing repertory in the near future, while also in-housing more activity into our newly revitalised home, the Thomas Dixon Centre.” 

What this means will become clear in October when the 2025 season is announced but it’s worth noting that the vastly expanded Thomas Dixon Centre has its own terrific theatre, the Talbot although it has only 350 seats compared with QB’s usual venue, QPAC’s Playhouse. The Playhouse has 850 seats. It’s worth noting too that Horsman is also a choreographer whose version of The Sleeping Beauty (Royal New Zealand Ballet 2011; QB premiere in 2015) is singled out by Ms Weerasinghe for special mention as holding the company’s record for box office. So that’s probably a good bet for 2025.

What isn’t clear is how QB got from appointing a new artistic director, who was presumably asked during interviews to lay out her ambitions for 2025, to finding it has such limited resources that she feels impelled to leave and it has think about staying at home more and relying on the tried and true. 

A glance at QB’s annual report for 2023 shows it had a total comprehensive loss of $1.570m compared with the total comprehensive income of $3,766m reported for 2022, but the company knew that when appointing Benjamin.

It’s a mystery. As is the question of whether QB will think it necessary to reduce its dancer numbers to help improve the “circumstances” that led to Benjamin’s deciding she could no longer stay.

QB has to generate about three-quarters of its income in a climate of increasing pressure on household spending and the continuing effect of Covid shutdowns, during which many people got used to staying at home. The company is far from alone in finding it hard to manage. There are jitters everywhere, although not as prominently on show as QB’s are today.

When Li Cunxin took over as artistic director 11 years ago the company underwent a speed-of-light expansion from the small, unambitious company it was then to an undeniably glamorous organisation with interests beyond the ballet stage. It’s possible QB was therefore particularly vulnerable to the external circumstances that beset the whole sector, but what’s done is done. Any contraction will be painful – indeed dispiriting, to use Ms Weerasinghe’s word.

In this context the  sign-off from Ms Weerasinghe and Board chair Brett Clark in the 2023 annual report is rather poignant. “From the leadership team and the Board, thank you once again to our supporters, and we look forward to sharing news of our Company’s next steps as we continue to flourish into our new chapter.”