The  Dance Development Centre  is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary with a gala production, Now & Then, at the Canberra Theatre.

One of Canberra’s most successful dance schools, the centre has thrived under its artistic director Jackie Hallahan, who has been widely honoured in the dance world with the Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance Education, a Stuart and Norma Leslie Churchill Fellowship and a Canberra Critics Circle Award.

Past students have gone on to dance with The Australian Ballet, Bangarra, West Australian Ballet, Chunky Move, Buzz Dance Theatre, Tasdance, Royal New Zealand Ballet, English National Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Béjart Ballet Lausanne. Recent student success is Hayden Baum, now dancing in Japan and Sydney.

But it wasn’t always “her” school, as Hallahan explains.

“When I began, it was the Gay Harding School of Dance. Gay wanted to move on, so I looked after it and renamed it the Canberra Dance Development Centre in 1985. In 2017 it became just the Dance Development Centre. I wanted to offer excellent training across a wide range of styles, led by professional teachers, with genuine opportunities for performance and career development.”

These days, she says, the focus is increasingly on collaboration and mentoring.

“I wanted to create a school where excellence in dance would be balanced with respect for individual artistry – valuing self-expression in every child we teach – and to nurture a lifelong love of dance.”

Recently, alumna Isabelle Roberts, now working in musical theatre, returned to create a new suite with students. Other alumna still involved include Lauren Morford and Sara Black, who works with the Australian Dance Party.

“Yes, there’s definitely a link,” Hallahan says. “We prepare students to be ready for the industry – and to have them come back here is a wonderful thing.”

Among the many dancers the centre has nurtured, none is more prominent than Paul Knobloch, who has maintained a close connection throughout his international career, notably with The Australian Ballet, where he his hard at work on Storytime Ballet.

“Paul still comes back to teach and mentor, and he’s now my artistic associate – he’s wonderful with the kids,” Hallahan says. He is also curator of the forthcoming production Now & Then, with his creative ideas shaping the program.

“When I thought about a 40th anniversary gala, I came up with about 30,000 ideas – how do you put everything you feel about the school into one show?” she says. “Luckily Paul had some very good ones.”

Costumes have often been made by parents over the years, and Hallahan admits the centre doesn’t have a large wardrobe. “I have a room full of boxes, that’s about it,” she says. “But now I have someone helping to source costumes.”

So what can audiences expect? The gala will celebrate 40 years of creativity and movement – looking back, of course, but with the main focus firmly on the present and future, the generations now coming through the doors.

Without giving too much away, Hallahan reveals that the opening sequence will symbolise the centre’s beginnings in 1985, set to the famous waltz from The Sleeping Beauty, complete with scenic shifts. The closing section represents where the centre stands today – a more contemporary perspective on four decades of work.

Dance Development Centre 40th Anniversary Gala: Now & Then, Canberra Theatre, December 2.