Creative Careers: Libby Croker and Bonnie Neate

Posted on 8 January, 2020

A writer. An actor. A dancer. A singer.

They’re the professions that many of us spend our childhoods aspiring to—but what is the reality of life in the spotlight?

Sarina Talip finds out for HerCanberra’s Summer Magazine: Shine.

Credit: @askabanov

Libby Croker, a 15-year-old studying ballet fulltime at National Capital Ballet School (NCBS) in Phillip, is at the start of her career journey as a performer.

The minute Libby begins to dance she’s transformed from a slim, tall teenager with unusually long limbs, into a magical being. She could be one of the ballerinas she so admires, like Joy Womack, the American-born Bolshoi Ballet dancer. But behind the seemingly effortless movement lies a steely determination to do what it takes.

Libby has recently returned to Canberra after a year at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow. She was offered a place at the highly prestigious and competitive ballet school after she did a two-week summer intensive program there last year.

NCBS’ co-directors Zara Bartley and Daniel Convery—Libby’s de facto guardians, due to Libby’s decision to remain in Canberra while her family has relocated to the United States—travelled to Moscow with Libby, but it was the first time she’d been away from her family.

In Russia, Libby was understandably homesick.

“It was hard but at the same time everyone else was going through that and so we could talk about it and be really close with each other.” (Libby shared a room with three other dancers.)

The training and hours were intense. From Monday to Saturday she studied ballet, historical, character, pointe, repertoire and contemporary dance, and Russian language. Sundays were rest days, but often that time was spent catching up on study.

She “absolutely loved” her time at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, but when she was offered another year at the school, Libby had a heart-to-heart with her parents, and decided to return to Canberra and keep training with senior coach Daniel.

Libby’s life is full with training from 8 am in the morning, study and tutoring in the afternoon, then more dancing with the evening classes, all of which is focused on the next stage of her fledgeling dance career.

“The whole point of this is that it’s a transitional full-time program to get the students into the next level of the highest, most elite ballet schools internationally,” Zara says.

Libby has two dreams, to either go to the Paris Opera Ballet School, or the Royal Ballet School in London. She seems to know what it will take: “Lots of practice and hard work and determination and just love and passion for ballet.”

Someone who has lived the journey that Libby is currently travelling is Bonnie Neate, a former professional dancer who has created a life in dance beyond performing.

At 38, she’s the regional coordinator for all eisteddfod troupes at Dance Central in Phillip, and helps choreograph all the group, solo, duo and trio routines for the busy competition season.

The funny and frank Queenslander began dancing when she was four years old. She started with ballet then added jazz, tap, contemporary, acrobatics and gymnastics to her repertoire—“anything—because I had a lot of energy and my mum wanted to exhaust me”.

When she was 14 her “very strict” ballet teacher told her she wasn’t “too bad.”

“She also didn’t say I was too good either,” Bonnie says, laughing. Bonnie gave up acrobatics and gymnastics and began to take ballet seriously. She sat and passed her Royal Academy of Dance ballet exams, much to her teacher’s surprise.

But, even so, she was realistic about her talents, a theme she returns to.

“I was a harder worker then the talent that I had,” she says. “I wasn’t born with 180-degree turnout. I wasn’t born with super high arches.” Years of gymnastics and acrobatics also meant she had a “really arched” spine.

Bonnie committed to a full-time load of dance classes while studying Year 11 and 12. Fresh out of school, and only 17, she hopped on a plane to California to work as a dancer at Disneyland.

Bonnie Neate (standing) at Dance Central.

She wanted to stay longer than her visa allowed but it was a “firm no” from her parents. So she came home and started a Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

She says in her generation it was more possible to have a dancing career. “I knew that this wasn’t going to be forever. I had an existing ankle injury and you get over the travelling. I needed to have a stable income. You don’t know [when your next job is coming].

“Sometimes it’s few and far between, and you’ll have this hiatus.”

At those times? “Well, it’s tough—you wait tables, you do lots of different jobs, you do what you can.”

Bonnie decided to do another degree in Brisbane, a Bachelor of Secondary Education “in and around” her dance contracts and became a dance specialist and dance teacher.

Along the way she met her husband and they had two girls, now eight and 11. After a brief stint in Canberra in 2012 (where she met Dance Central’s director Julie Scheer), the family moved back at the beginning of last year, when Bonnie took up her job.

“Back then it was different. There was a lot of work to get, whereas I don’t think it’s quite like that now: there are a lot more dancers who can do bigger and better things, and the level of competition is much higher.”

While her job keeps her more than busy, she’d love to be the artistic director of a contemporary dance company one day but says it “depends on arts funding and where it gets allocated.”

She’s also a dance mum. She says, laughing, “While I’m really pleased that they enjoy dancing, I think we’ll let it play out with realistic expectations. I know how hard it can be.”

This article originally appeared in Magazine: Shine for Summer 2019/20, available for free while stocks last. Find out more about Magazine here.

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