Born in Darwin, Meryl began ballet classes at a young age before heading to The Australian Ballet School. Shortly after being accepted into the company, Meryl took a leave of absence to work as a Principal dancer with the infamous Pina Bausch in Germany.
Eventually craving to be artistically challenged even more, Meryl then spent time between Germany and Australia appearing in television series for ABC television before finally returning to Australia to continue her love for choreographing as the Director of the Meryl Tankard Company in Canberra before moving onto the Director of Australian Dance Theatre in Adelaide.
Meryl's work is nothing short of varied and colourful; creating Bolero for the Lyon Opera Ballet, commissioned by Tiffany & Co to produce a piece for New York's Museum of National History, she was also responsible for Nikki Webster's debut and the entire Deep Sea Dreaming piece in the Sydney Olympic Games opening ceremony, a piece titled Ocean Dance to welcome the Dalai Lama to Australia, the choreography for Broadway's Tarzan The Musical and finally but not even close to covering it all worked with Sydney Dance Company, The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House and Netherlands Dance Theatre.
Honestly, what you just heard only scrapes the surface of Meryl Tankard's credits. I haven't even mentioned achievements like a Helpmann Award in 2000 or Officer of the Order of Australia in 2019. I've just chosen a handful to share with you as otherwise this would be a very long episode!
I think todays story is a beautiful example of following your gut and that 'chance encounters' often take time and patience... and aren't really 'chance' at all! It was obviously wonderful sitting down for a conversation with Meryl Tankard however it was an honour simply meeting her. Much respect.
Please enjoy this conversation and don't mind a little background noise as we were recording in the art gallery and a small child decided to run circles around us as we recorded...
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