The Australian dance community has lost another of its enduring figures with the death of Colin Peasley, a foundation member of The Australian Ballet.

The news comes shortly after the annoucement of the death of Peasley’s contemporary Garth Welch earlier this week.

For more than five decades Peasley exerted a profound influence on the company, serving as dancer, character artist, ballet master and educator. Known for his warmth, intelligence and humour, Peasley helped shape what he proudly called an “Australian style” of classical dance.

Colin Peasley in Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake for The Australian Ballet. Photo © Lisa Tomasetti

Peasley joined the company in 1962, already an experienced performer whose eclectic background included ballroom, tap, acrobatics and modern dance. On stage he specialised in character roles: Gamache in Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote, Baron Mirko Zeta in The Merry Widow, Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet among them. He was insistent that story ballets should present thinking, feeling figures rather than posturing types.

His career traced the rise of the company itself. He danced under founding artistic director Dame Peggy van Praagh and toured with Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, including the celebrated American tour built...