A CANBERRA dancer has been shortlisted for the $20,000 Telstra Australian Ballet Dancer of the Year award, the company’s most sought-after award.

Jasmin Durham joins fellow dancers, Benedicte Bemet (Mackay, QLD), Robyn Hendricks (Port Elizabeth, South Africa), Ako Kondo (Nagoya, Japan), Amanda McGuigan (Summer Hill, NSW), and Marcus Morelli (Brighton, VIC) in a lineup nominated by their peers, staff and former winners of the award, including Canberra’s Lana Jones.

Now in its 13th year, the Telstra Ballet Dancer Award was created to help nurture the talent of Australian ballet dancers. It has uncovered some of The Australian Ballet’s brightest stars, including seven previous winners who have risen through the ranks to reach Principal Artist status.

On learning of her nomination, the former St Clare’s girl from Gordon told “CityNews” by phone that it hadn’t really crossed her mind that she might win, as some of the others shortlisted were older and soloists in the company, but that if she did take out the award, she would probably use the money to help save up for a house – “and I’d buy myself a nice handbag… we get paid well enough to live comfortably, but we don’t get a lot of luxury.”

Born in Hong Kong, Durham, now aged 22, is in the corps de ballet of the flagship ballet company.  She lived in Canberra from 3 months old, and, after starting to learn   ballet at the age of 3 years at the Lisa Clark Dance Centre, later studying jazz, tap and contemporary dance.

In 2009, after finishing her Year 10 studies at St Clare’s, she moved to Melbourne to study for what she calls “three vigorous training years doing ballet all day every day” at The Australian Ballet School, with which she performed on The Dancers Company tour in 2010 and 2011. After completing her diploma, she joined the Australian Ballet in 2012.

“I’m privileged to be there,” she says of her role in the company. But she is looking forward to the day when she can take centre stage as a soloist with her eyes on the roles of the “bad girl” Baroness in Graeme Murphy’s “Swan Lake” and Tatiana in “Onegin.” While she is learning discipline by being in the corps de ballet, she has had the opportunity to do a few solo roles and is getting rather excited about being in emerging choreographer Tim Harbour’s new ‘stripped-down’ work, contemporary work “20:21.”

While it’s early days for Durham and she is physically at the height of her powers, like all sensible ballet dancers these days, she is looking to the future. “I’d love to teach ballet,” she says, but apart from that, she is also interested in studying the art of makeup.

In the meantime, there’s a while to go before the 2015 Australian Ballet Dancer of the Year is announced in December, but Durham is patient. “It feels like a huge honour or a dancer like me to be valued among the dancers of The Australian Ballet. It feels like a dream,” she says.

In a unique move, this year has Telstra engaged leading artists and designers, including installation and sculpture artist, Dion Horstmans, photographer Jez Smith, the fashion duo from Aje (Adrian Norris and Edwina Robinson), graffiti artist Anthony Lister, contemporary painter Zoe Porter and renowned typographer, Luca Ionescu to create works representing the stories of the six nominees.

Above, readers can see one of the photographic installations showing Durham in action.

Telstra Group General Counsel, Carmel Mulhern, said the artist partnerships were introduced this year to enable Australians to see ballet in a whole new way. “Our partnership with The Australian Ballet is one of the longest-running arts partnerships in the country, and for over thirty years now we’ve sought to take ballet beyond the stage to connect more Australians to its joys and beauty,” she said.

The Australian Ballet’s artistic director, David McAllister, said the collaboration between dancer and artist would allow Australians to explore the exchange between different art forms.

The 2015 Telstra Ballet Dancer Award winner will be announced on Thursday 3 December. The winner of the People’s Choice Award, decided by public vote, will receive $5,000. To watch the video series and enter the People’s Choice Award visit telstra.com/ballet