Amber Scott is one of the Australian Ballet’s most beloved dancers and the company’s principal ballerina. Born and raised in Brisbane, Amber moved to Melbourne at the tender age of 11 to join the prestigious Australian Ballet School, paving the way to begin her illustrious dancing career with the Australian Ballet in 2001.
Amber was just four years old when her love of ballet began and was entranced when her parents took her to her first ballet, Swan Lake. This iconic performance gave Amber a preview of things to come and her family fondly recalls her waving her arms enthusiastically in her seat.
Amber’s rise through the ranks of the Australian Ballet was fast, reflecting the dancer’s beautiful artistry, classic lines and perfect technique. She was promoted to the top rank of principal artist within a decade of joining the company in 2001.
Amber particularly enjoys classical story ballets – career highlights include dancing alongside Adam Bull in Graeme Murphy’s gut wrenching and beautifully staged Swan Lake, which toured Paris, Manchester, Tokyo and Nagoya; performing Tatiana in John Cranko’s Onegin; the titular role of Manon in Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, the Sugar Plum Fairy in Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker; andJuliet in Graeme Murphy’s Romeo+Juliet.
Critics have also praised her precision and ability to master complex choreography including her ‘star turn’ in this year’s production of Wayne McGregor’s ultra cool Chroma (Amber cites as a career highlight the chance to work with Wayne on Dyad 1929, a ballet he choreographed on the Australian Ballet in 2009), Stephen Baynes’s Molto Vivace and Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain.
Amber has won numerous awards throughout her career and has been invited to perform with Royal New Zealand Ballet and guest star at the Fall for Dance Festival in New York and Stuttgart Ballet’s 50th anniversary gala.
In part two of her interview (watch part one here) with Jane Albert, Amber chats about life outside tutus and pointe shoes and shares her favourite designers for red carpet events and opening night parties.
The principal artist reveals she’s close friends with some of Australia’s top designers. She can often be spotted wearing signature pieces from labels ‘Lover’ and ‘Toni Maticevski’ at some of the post-show parties and awards ceremonies. Amber is also lucky enough to have been hand-picked by Paspaley to showcase the Australian jeweller’s beautiful pearls.
Life on stage requires a demanding beauty regime and Amber shares her make-up secrets and the one product you would always find in her make-up bag. And her skincare choice for those rare days off? It’s moisturise, moisturise, moisturise.
Credits:
All performance vision and photographs courtesy of The Australian Ballet.
Swan Lake – Stephen Baynes
Suite en Blanc – Serge Lifar
After the Rain – Christopher Wheeldon
Molto Vivace – Stephen Baynes
CHROMA (2006)
Choreography: Wayne McGregor
Restager: Antoine Vereeken
Music: Joby Talbot and Jack White III
Costume design: Moritz Junge
Set design: John Pawson
Lighting design: Lucy Carter
Reproduced for The Australian Ballet by Simon Bennison
