‘Swan Lake” famously pivots around a prince who can’t find a suitable partner. Many members of the Australian Ballet have no such problem.
“I’m always the last to know,” says David McAllister of the eight offstage couples in his company, which returns to New York tomorrow for its first performances in more than a decade.
So family-friendly is the troupe that McAllister, its 48-year-old artistic director (whose own partner is Queensland Theatre company artistic director Wesley Enoch), has helped overhaul the company’s maternity policy so dancers can work within the organization on “safe duties” before and after giving birth.
“It’s great for the company when you see a new young relationship bloom,” he says of his 69-member troupe. “They’re all so close — there’s a huge friendship pool, and even a bit of matchmaking going on.”
The Lincoln Center program includes four North American premieres: an all-Australian mixed bill (“Luminous,” “Dyad,” “Warumuk”) and Graeme Murphy’s critically acclaimed reimagining of “Swan Lake” — inspired by the unhappy triangle of Princess Diana, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Here are a few (happier) real-life couples from Oz you’ll see onstage in New York.
JARRYD MADDEN LOVE AMY HARRIS
Four years ago, Amy Harris and Jarryd Madden found themselves partnered in Act 1 of the company’s “Swan Lake.” Bingo.
“We were spending a lot of time together inside the studio and at rehearsals, and it blossomed into a nice romance,” says Harris, a 28-year-old senior artist. “He also gives great calf massages.”
This year, both dancers are up for Australian ballet’s highest honor, the Telstra Ballet Dancer Award. Even so, they insist, they don’t consider themselves competitors.
“Whenever I get a good role or Amy gets a good role, we’re really stoked for each other,” says the 24-year-old Madden, a coryphée (part of a small group of dancers). “What’s mine is hers, anyway.”
He says he dreams one day of partnering with his girlfriend in the lushly romantic “Merry Widow.”
Look for them in the “Divergence” excerpt in “Luminous,” and again in “Swan Lake.”
KEVIN JACKSON LOVE CALVIN HANNAFORD
Principal dancer Kevin Jackson still remembers what he and his Romeo were wearing in 2009, when they met during a triple bill of Stravinsky ballets: He was in “a weird devil-creature costume,” and Calvin Hannaford was dressed as a bear.
“The first production Calvin did was ‘Petrouchka’ and he was a big dancing bear,” says Jackson, 28. “I was doing ‘Firebird,’ and we met backstage just laughing at each other. It was a good connection.”
Soon after, they had their first date at an organic pizza restaurant; last year, they bought an apartment together.
Jackson — who’ll star as Prince Siegfried in “Swan Lake” — says he can’t wait until his 23-year-old partner, a member of the corps de ballet, rises through the ranks to join him.
“We’d both love to dance a contemporary piece for two guys — that would be beautiful,” he says. “It’s not very often you dance with a guy in the ballet, but it would just be nice to be onstage performing in the same show.”
DANIEL GAUDIELLO LOVE LANA JONES
The 29-year-olds met more than a decade ago as students at the Australian Ballet School. They shared an apartment for a year before love came knocking.
Three years ago they married, after Gaudiello proposed on a mountain in Fiji. “It was like a cross between ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and ‘The Sound of Music,’ ” he laughs.
Promoted to principal artists in 2010, they’ll open the New York show with a dashingly costumed pas de deux.
“My favorite times onstage have been with Daniel, dancing,” says Lana. “There’s a certain calmness that comes over you, looking in [his] eyes . . . It’s special to be able to share what you love with the person you love, in the moment.”
The Australian Ballet performs “Infinity” tomorrow and Wednesday, and “Swan Lake” Friday through Sunday at the David H. Koch Theater; 212-496-0600; davidhkochtheater.com.