The recipient of the Royal Academy of Dance’s top award has embraced his honour’s implications for the Australian dance community.

Former Artistic Director and Principal Dancer of The Australian Ballet David McAllister has been awarded the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.

He told Deborah Knight the award caught him off-guard.

“I was going along just to have a lunch, I thought … but they had a few surprises up their sleeves.

“It was like my life was flashing before my eyes!”

The high honour ‘closes the circle’ on his nearly forty year career, he said, and also “in some ways [is] an award for all Australian dancers”.

“Australia is one of the most prolific producers of world-class dancers.”

Press PLAY below to hear the full interview

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