Graeme Murphy - Biography

Biography

Murphy was born in Melbourne, and grew up in Tasmania, where he took dance classes with Kenneth Gillespie in Launceston. He began his career as a student at the Australian Ballet School at the age of fourteen. In 1968 he became a dancer with the Australian Ballet where he had opportunities to choreograph. He toured America with the Australian Ballet in 1970–1971 and created his first ballet, Ecco le Diavole (Ecco), to music by Nino Rota, presented at Melbourne's Princess Theatre in July 1971, featuring Roslyn Anderson, Roma Egan, Janet Vernon, and Wendy Walker.

The work was presented by the Australian Ballet Society at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne in July of that year. He later danced with the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (now Birmingham Royal Ballet), and Les Ballets Félix Blaska in France. In 1975 he worked as a freelance choreographer. He rejoined the Australian Ballet in the early months of 1976 as both a dancer and as a resident choreographer. He was appointed as Artistic Director of the Dance Company of New South Wales in November 1976 (in 1979 this company became the Sydney Dance Company).

Murphy has been compared to the dancer and choreographer Jerome Robbins because of the way he and his company have marketed dance to a wider audience, and brought contemporary dance into a more commercial arena. Apart from his work within ballet, he also did choreography for Torville and Dean.

On 18 December 2004, after almost 40 years together as artistic and life partners, he and Janet Vernon married on their rural property outside Launceston.