Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name and photographs of a person who has died.
Vale Noel Tovey AM: quick links
Australia’s first Aboriginal ballet dancer, the author, actor, choreographer, director and gay rights activist Noel Tovey AM, has died aged 90.
News of his death was first announced on social media on the evening of Monday 11 August.
‘Uncle Noel Tovey’s life and legacy shine as a beacon of courage, artistry, and cultural leadership, especially for queer and fair-skinned Blakfellas like myself,’ says Jacob Boehme, a Melbourne born and based theatre, dance and ceremony-maker of the Narangga and Kaurna Nations.
‘I first met Uncle in the 90s as a NAISDA student, when his classes and own example as an international actor, dancer, choreographer, writer, director and designer lit a fire in me about what was possible for a First Nations artist. Uncle Noel was a mentor and dear friend, offering generous career guidance, especially when I stepped into the role of Creative Director at Yirramboi. His wisdom, warmth and stories of survival and triumph continue to guide me,’ Boehme tells ArtsHub.
In a statement released earlier today (12 August), ILBIJERRI Theatre Company paid tribute to Tovey, calling him, ‘A pioneering Aboriginal elder, extraordinary performing artist, mentor, and advocate whose life journey was marked by resilience, courage, and profound creativity’.
The statement continued in part: ‘Born in Melbourne in 1934, Uncle Noel’s childhood was shaped by hardship, abandonment, and abuse, yet he rose above these challenges to become Australia’s first male ballet dancer of Aboriginal heritage, becoming principal dancer with Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet in London and also a director on Broadway. Over a remarkable 60-year career, he excelled as a dancer, actor, singer, choreographer, director, designer, writer, and teacher across Australia, Europe, and the UK.
‘Among his many achievements, Uncle Noel directed The Aboriginal Protestors, performed in Germany with an all-Aboriginal cast, also directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, also an all-Aboriginal cast for The Dreaming Festival at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Arts Festival – a powerful celebration of Indigenous culture on the world stage.
‘We offer our heartfelt condolences to Uncle Noel’s family, friends, and community. His spirit, courage, and creativity will continue to inspire and guide us all.
‘Rest in power, Uncle Noel – travel safe to the Dreamtime,’ ILBIJERRI’s tribute concluded.
Noel Tovey: born in Carlton
Tovey, who would have turned 91 this December, was born in the slums of Carlton on 25 December 1934, during the Great Depression. After he and his siblings were abandoned by their parents at a young age, they were sent to the Royal Park Welfare Depot for Children, and then to a foster home, where Tovey was both physically and sexually abused – though sadly, not for the first time.
‘I’m often called a member of the Stolen Generation,’ Tovey told The Age in 2015, ‘but I like to call it the Survival Generation.’
Tovey wrote about his sometimes harrowing childhood and subsequent years of his life – including his entry into Melbourne’s post-war Bohemia, where he learned French from artist Mirka Mora – in the acclaimed memoir, Little Black Bastard, which he also turned into a one-man show of the same name, first performed at La Mama Theatre’s Carlton Courthouse in 2001.
The memoir itself was not published by Hachette Australia until 2004, and was praised for its ‘often astringent honesty and tone of self-deprecation … The detail in the book is prodigious and this is part of its pleasure.’
The stage production of Little Black Bastard subsequently toured to Darwin Festival in 2003, Perth International Arts Festival in 2005, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2010, and many Australian theatres and venues as well, including Belvoir, Arts Centre Melbourne and Arts House.
Tovey told this writer in a 2015 radio interview promoting the then-latest revival of the play, that he could only perform Little Black Bastard for short runs, as the traumatic memories it stirred up – often manifesting as nightmares – rapidly became too painful for him to bear.
Noel Tovey: living on the streets and finding work
After leaving school aged 12, Tovey lived on the streets of Melbourne in his early teens before finding work at Collins Book Depot when he was 15 years old. The money from this job enabled Tovey to see his first ever ballet performance: inspired, he studied ballet as a teenager under the Russian-born Madame Xenia Borovansky at the National Theatre Ballet School (having dyed a pair of long johns black in lieu of tights, and not knowing what a jock strap was).
He subsequently made his dance debut with Laurel Martyn’s Ballet Guild in the choreographer’s seminal Australian ballet, The Sentimental Bloke, according to the detailed article Noel Tovey’s Dance Journey, published online in June 2020.
Noel Tovey: moving to London
Thereafter Tovey changed artforms, moving into acting and making his professional debut in Paint Your Wagon at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1954, though his artistic reputation was forged overseas – Tovey moved to London in 1960, where he lived and worked for the next 30 years.
In London, Tovey’s choreographic career was launched in 1966 with a production of Sandy Wilson’s The Boyfriend. A great success, the production subsequently toured Britain and Australia in 1968. Tovey went on to direct and choreograph numerous British theatre productions; he also taught – including at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art – as well as co-founding the London Theatre for Children.
Tovey also co-founded an influential London antiques gallery, L’Odeon (which specialised in 20th Century Decorative Art), with his partner, the late David Sarel, whom he met in a production of the nude revue Oh! Calcutta and who subsequently died of an AIDS-related illness in 1986. L’Odeon closed four years later.
Noel Tovey: back in Australia
Returning to Australia in 1991, a year after the gallery’s closure, Tovey reconnected with his Indigenous heritage and set up a performing arts course at the Eora Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Sydney.
In 2004, Tovey established the Noel Tovey Scholarship Fund at the Flying Fruit Fly Circus (having connected with the company when making the Fruities’ 25th anniversary production, Skipping on Stars, based on the life of First Nations tightwire walker Con Colleano).
Anni Davey, Artistic Director of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, tells ArtsHub: ‘Uncle Noel Tovey AM was a great champion and supporter of young people in the arts. He appeared as Con Colleano the elder in the Fruit Flies show Skipping On Stars in 2004 and has maintained a deep connection with our program ever since. He was keenly interested in arts education for young people and particularly First Nations young people.
‘Flying Fruit Fly Circus has offered a scholarship in Uncle Noel’s name for 20 years which has enabled more than 30 students to pursue dreams of a career in the circus. We remember him as a generous performer, a proud and courageous elder with a sly wit!’ Davey says.
Noel Tovey: gay activism
Tovey also played a prominent role in gay activism after his return to Australia, including the 2014 Victorian campaign to expunge the criminal records of gay men found guilty of having consensual homosexual sex when the act was still illegal in his home state. Tovey himself was arrested and charged with ‘buggery’ in 1951 (ater claiming he was pressured into signing a false statement) and imprisoned in Pentridge before his trial, aged 17. The expungement scheme passed into law in 2015.
In January that same year, Tovey was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to the performing arts, to Indigenous performers, and as an advocate for the LGBTI community. Later in 2015, Tovey was also inducted to the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll; he was subsequently inducted into the Australian Dance Awards Hall of Fame in 2017.
In December 2021, Flinders University presented Tovey with an honourary Doctorate of Letters, with his friend Jenny Fewster writing and reading Tovey’s acceptance remarks to the students: ‘Noel’s friendships span the globe and all walks of life. His professional work seamlessly integrates arts and culture with the progress of human rights and social justice for Indigenous Australians, and indeed all Australians. His generous friendship, artistic work and mentorship continues to produce ripple effects across the globe influencing countless people’s lives. I’m incredibly honoured to have his love and friendship and to represent him here today.’
Noel Tovey: And then I found me
Having written about the first chapter of his life in Little Black Bastard, Tovey’s second memoir, And then I found me, focused on his London years (but also documenting his accidental presence at New York’s The Stonewall Inn in 1969, the night a routine police raid sparked the Stonewall Riots, sometimes erroneously described as the start of the modern gay rights movement), was published by Magabala Books, also in 2017.
In And then I found me, he wrote: ‘Maybe I didn’t achieve all that I wanted to but ultimately I achieved most of what I set out to do. I have inspired and helped many young Aboriginal people by telling my story. That knowledge gives me immense happiness and I proved that Indigenous actors can hold their own on any stage in the world … I learnt to understand my family and myself. I cannot forgive and forget the jealousy or racism that has been shown to me in this country that I call home, but I do not hate.’
On social media in his final years, Tovey posted occasional excepts from a third volume of memoirs, Not So Little Anymore – it must now be published posthumously, if it has been completed. At the time of writing, ArtsHub is unaware if Tovey had appointed a literary executor.
Funeral details are yet to be announced.
This article was edited after publication at 4:58pm on 12 August to include a statement by Jacob Boehme.
Discover screen, games & arts news and reviews on ScreenHub and ArtsHub. Sign up for our free ArtsHub and ScreenHub newsletters.
