Queensland Ballet has announced Leanne Benjamin as its new Artistic Director.

Benjamin will be the sixth Artistic Director to take the helm at Queensland Ballet and the first woman to assume the role. She succeeds Li Cunxin, who has served for 11 years at the helm of the company.

Leanne Benjamin. Photo © Jason Bell

Benjamin comes to the role after a top-flight dancing career. She was a principal of The Royal Ballet for 21 years, before retiring in 2013.  She then coached for major companies around the world including American Ballet Theatre and The Australian Ballet.

Born in Rockhampton, Benjamin joined The Royal Ballet School aged 16 and the following year, she won the Prix de Lausanne. She joined Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet as soon as she left school and was made principal dancer there in 1986, at the age of 22, before joining first English National Ballet and then the Deutsche Opera Ballet in Berlin, in both cases as principal dancer.

In Berlin, she met the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan; he invited her back to The Royal Ballet where she stayed until her retirement, aged 49. By then,...