Dancer David Hallberg: ‘I tried to do too many things, all at once’

1. What is your earliest memory?
   Dancing on the top of my parents’ lounge-room coffee table in a shower cap — don’t ask me why — and my mother’s workout gear.

2. Who was or still is your mentor?
   Kee Juan Han, my first ballet teacher. He instilled the drive, the work ethic, the determination, the discipline that I carried forward throughout my entire dancing career, and now as an artistic director.

3. How fit are you?
   Fit-ish. I still crave sweat — the act of sweating. That’s what I loved the most in the rehearsal studio. I exercise six times a week: I do Peloton, I am at the gym, I am still very active — though not nearly as active as I used to be as a dancer, when staying fit was my profession.

4. Tell me about an animal you have loved.
   I grew up with golden retrievers. I don’t have a golden retriever in my life now, but every time I see one, I become a puddle on the street. I immediately lie on the floor, I pet them, I let them lick me. It brings back every childhood memory.

5. Risk or caution, which has defined your life more?
   Unquestionably RISK, with capital letters. Risk in moving to France to study when I was a young boy, risk in moving to Moscow to join the Bolshoi ballet, risk in love and risk in moving to Australia to be the artistic director of this company.

6. What trait do you find most irritating in others?
   Inability to listen. I really respect ideas and thoughts and exchanges when someone is a good listener, and therefore I try to be as best a listener as I can be.

7. What trait do you find most irritating in yourself?
   Self-centredness, at times. I get very self-critical when I feel something I’ve done, a decision I’ve made, has been because of self-centredness, not thinking about the other person, the group, the situation.

8. What drives you on?
   There’s always more to do, harder to work, another avenue to take. What drives me forward is that it’s never enough and it’s never good enough.

9. Do you believe in an afterlife?
   No.

10. Which is more puzzling, the existence of suffering or its frequent absence?
    Its frequent absence. One has to believe in the beautiful traits of the human condition, and one word that I strongly live by is empathy. I think if you are empathetic, the existence of suffering can lead to empathy for others.

11. Name your favourite river.
    Sand Creek, on the border of Wyoming and South Dakota, an hour from where I was born. Family friends have an idyllic cabin next to this creek, which I hear at night when I visit them. Sand Creek brings me back to my land, to where I’m from. Figuratively, the raging river of passion for what you do. My passion is dance, is art. It’s always felt like an active river, flowing forwards. Sometimes I’m swimming upstream, sometimes with its current.

12. What would you have done differently?
    I would have slowed down and committed to one thing. In my dancing career, I tried to do too many things, all at once, and I suffered the great physical price of injuring myself. Had I focused on one thing, I realise that I would have done more — it would have been more productive and fulfilling.

David Hallberg is artistic director of the Australian Ballet, which performs George Balanchine’s “Jewels”, Royal Opera House, August 2-5; roh.org.uk

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