Alana Haines Australasian Awards
Providing Career Opportunities & Financial Support Since 1991
The 2025 AHA event will take place at the St James Theatre over Easter weekend from the 18th to the 21st of April and feature guest performances from four special dancers from prestigious companies both at home and abroad.
Delivering the pas de deux Diana and Acteon from La Esmeralda are Alice McArthur and Marcus Morelli of The Australian Ballet. Raised in Auckland, McArthur won the AHA scholarship in 2017 to the John Cranko Schule in Stuttgart, Germany as well as gold awards at the Asian Grand Prix International Ballet Competition in 2019 and The Margot Fonteyn International Ballet Competition in 2021 before joining The Australian Ballet in 2024. Morelli grew up and studied in Melbourne, joining The Australian Ballet in 2014 before being promoted to principal artist in 2024.
Alfie Shacklock of Queensland Ballet will perform a variation of Le Talisman from Ballet Fantastique. The Australian performer was an AHA Junior Winner 2017 before taking home the Supreme Gailene Stock Award in 2019. After graduating from the Royal Ballet School, he joined the Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2023 and the Queensland Ballet in 2024.
Performing the original version of Odile from Swan Lake, Aucklander Lauren Wycherley was the Supreme Gailene Stock Award in 2023 and has since been studying at the Royal Ballet School in London.
Performing as part of the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB) are principal artists Kate Kadow and Laurynas Vėjalis with a grand pas classique. Kadow attended Kirov Academy in Washington DC before becoming principal artist at State Street Ballet in California and joining the RNZB in 2018. Born in Lithuania, Vėjalis studied at the Austrian Ballet in Tokyo and the Royal Ballet School in London, after which he joined the National Ballet of Canada in 2015 and the RNZB in 2018.
