Michelle Potter

Michelle Anne Potter (born 1944) is an Australian dance writer, critic, archivist, and curator of historical materials. Her research and writing have focused on but have not been restricted to Australian dance history. She was honoured for her achievements with the award of Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2023 Australia Day Honours list.

Early life and education Born in Sydney in 1944, Michelle Anne Potter became interested in dance in her youth, after seeing a performance by the Borovansky Ballet. She began her dance training with Joan and Monica Halliday in her hometown, then went on for further study with jazz dancer and teacher Ronne Arnold and Valrene Tweedie, a pioneer in Australia of the Cecchetti method of ballet training. She also studied acting and theatre techniques at the Mina Shelley School of the Theatre in Sydney, a well-known school for professional performers. Having become an accomplished dancer by the time she was 15, she determined to get an early start in her theatrical career.

She earned a bachelor's degree with honours in social anthropology, and a diploma in education from the University of Sydney in the early 1970s.

In the 1970s and 1980s, after earning her degree and teaching diploma from Sydney University, Potter moved to Canberra and taught at the National Capital Ballet School.

Historian and filmmaker In the 1980s Potter received an art history undergraduate degree and PhD at ANU. to contemporary masters such as Merce Cunningham, whose work with John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns was the subject of her doctoral dissertation. She has also done intensive study on Robert Helpmann and on Pina Bausch.

In 1996, Potter curated the National Library of Australia's touring exhibition Dance People Dance. From 1997 until 2001, she managed the "Keep Dancing!" project at the National Film and Sound Archive. As part of that project, she co-scripted, researched, and produced two video documentaries and a film:

Curator In 2002, Potter was appointed inaugural curator of dance at the National Library of Australia. In this post she recorded over one hundred oral history interviews with eminent Australians working in the arts. She was also one of the original team of investigators for the research project Ballets Russes in Australia: Our Cultural Revolution, a four-year collaborative partnership of the Australian Ballet, the University of Adelaide, and the National Library of Australia, which began in 2005.

In 2006, Potter left the NLA to move to the United States and take up an appointment as curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, a position she held until 2008. During this appointment, she co-curated Invention: Merce Cunningham and Collaborators, a major retrospective exhibition for the New York Public Library in June 2007.

Since returning to Australia in 2008 Potter has worked as an independent dance writer and critic.

Awards Potter was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2023 Australia Day Honours List. She shared the award for achievement in dance on film with Sally Jackson, with whom she had collaborated on the video documentary Boro's Ballet.

She has also won an International Dance Day Award (1996), a Canberra Critics' Circle Award (1997), and two Australian Cultural Studies Awards (1998 and 2000).