ANATOMY OF A COLLAPSE
IT WAS at the end of an in-house Studio Sessions showing of contemporary works by full time students that Michael Pappalardo announced the immediate closure of Melbourne City Ballet.
It was the evening of June 27. Four days earlier, company members had received an email stating that activities would be suspended for 14 days.
This was the first they had heard that the company was in peril. By the next morning, MCB was no more. The company's wonderful purpose-fitted studios in Melbourne’s Pentridge precinct in Coburg bore a ‘breach of lease’ notice.
The company was debarred from entering the premises. It was all over.
In the following days there was an outpouring of sadness and sympathy for Melbourne City Ballet. Karen van Ulzen broke the story with an interview with Artistic Director Michael Pappalardo who cited lack of funding as a key factor in the company’s sudden closure after five years’
