From dancing for the royals to being Billy Elliot
Australian dancer Aaron Smyth has had an impressive career so far — dancing for the Royal Family and in New York — but he’s come home to star as Billy in the upcoming Adelaide musical Billy Elliot.
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When Australia’s Aaron Smyth danced with celebrity American ballerina Misty Copeland in Disney’s 2018 film The Nutcracker And The Four Realms – starring Keira Knightley and Helen Mirren – the dancers were already friends.
Smyth, who plays the older Billy Elliot in the hit musical which is on its way to Adelaide, met Copeland when he first went to the US as a young dancer from the Gold Coast, still in his teens.
“When I moved to America to study at the American Ballet Theatre, I knew her back then,” says Smyth. “Eight years later we ended up dancing together, which was a very beautiful movement. She’s a very powerful and beautiful person.”
After training in the US, he went on to dance with the American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company in New York, The Royal Ballet in London and the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. He memorably danced at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in the 2009 American Ballet Theatre Spring Gala, introduced by the then US First Lady Michelle Obama.
So he is not easily starstruck. But when Elton John came onstage for a curtain call last week after a performance of Billy Elliot The Musical at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre, Smyth and all the cast were beside themselves.
John’s unexpected decision to take a bow with the cast, accompanied by husband David Furnish, was a coincidence of timing; John wrote the music for Billy Elliot The Musical and happened to be in Sydney before his Australian tour.
“It was certainly a moment to remember. I’m not often starstruck but we were not even really aware – no one told us because I don’t think even he knew that he was coming,” says Smyth, who along with the other cast were tipped off by social media that Elton John was in the audience. “He wanted to come and bow in the curtain call. He just stepped on stage. It was a very last-minute thing but he was so in love with the show and he really enjoyed our interpretation of it. It was a pinch-me moment for sure.”
After 10 years overseas, Smyth is back in Australia to dance the role of older Billy in the heartwarming stage show which opened in October in Sydney. The story about a small boy from an English mining town who defies cultural expectations by pursuing a career in ballet, had a special appeal for Smyth because of his own story.
Smyth was raised on the Gold Coast by a single mother who poured all her support and encouragement into her son’s passion for dance, which began with dance lessons at eight years old. “I knew at that moment, this is what I want to do,” Smyth says.
Smyth says his mother, Helena Smyth, went everywhere with him as a child, including when his skills strengthened and he began to compete overseas. He credits her with putting him on a pathway to the success he has enjoyed after leaving Australia at 17 to chase his dream.
“Mum is the reason why I’m here today,” Smyth says in a rehearsal break at Sydney’s Carriageworks. “I would go to dance, and then come home and dance for another three hours.”
In the musical, the younger Billy is encouraged by a dance teacher called Mrs Wilkinson. Smyth says all his teachers and coaches have been his real life Mrs Wilkinsons, starting with his first dance teacher Dianne Talbot. “She really brought out the love of dance and was the first one to really train me,” Smyth says.
“Then I had Prudence Bowen and the Ransleys (Ransley Ballet and Dance Centre).”
But no one gets as much credit as Helena, who works in real estate on the Gold Coast and was in the audience on opening night.
At 28, with the 2008 Gold Medal he won at the Genée International Ballet Competition and the 2012 silver medal at the Cape Town International Ballet Competitions behind him, he felt perfectly ready to relate to the role of the adult Billy.
“It’s always been on my bucket list to be in Billy Elliot and I always wanted to play the older Billy,” he said. “I didn’t know quite when that was going to happen.”
He auditioned from the US, got the role and is now back in Australia for a year-long tour. He utterly relates to that fictional child, whose role is shared by four dancers, all aged 12, who were cast after extensive auditions and have since been through intensive rehearsals.
“I’ve kind of been through what Billy wants to achieve, dancing with three really big companies around the world,” he says. “I feel like I resonate with the story a lot, a boy and his dreams, wanting to be a professional ballet dancer. I followed my passion and I was brave enough just to be myself.”
Today, working with the child dancers, he can see how far he’s come.
“When I look back it’s like, I’ve done a lot,” Smyth says.
Now he is home in Australia, he is not sure what the future holds. Having lived and worked in the US and the UK, he will follow the work and the opportunities wherever they take him.
“To be honest, I’m really open to what is to come,” he says. “I’ve been a true nomad for quite a while so I guess I’d better surrender to that.”
Billy Elliot The Musical, at Adelaide Festival Centre’s Festival Theatre from December 29. Special opening night on NYE. Tickets at BASS, bass.net.au or phone 131 246.
Originally published as From dancing for the royals to being Billy Elliot