Keith Bain

Keith spent his early years in Wauchope, NSW and from an early age, was involved in Scottish and ballroom dancing. After graduating from teacher training college he took up an appointment as a music teacher in Sydney. At the age of twenty seven Keith took his first modern dance classes with Gertrude Bodenwieser at her Sydney studios. He went on to dance with the Bodenwieser Ballet and had a number of works created on him by Bodenwieser including the male role in Central Australian Suite and the last work Bodenwieser created, a solo called The Heretic. After Bodenwieser’s death in 1959, Keith, along with Margaret Chapple, took over the running of the Bodenwieser Studio in Pitt Street, Sydney. Over the course of the next few years, Bain taught modern, primitive, jazz, and ballroom dance classes at the Bodenwieser Studio. He also choreographed several works including Primitive Suite for Ballet Australia in the 1960s, and danced in many Ballet Australia productions.
Keith was founder the Australasian Teachers Contemporary Dance Association (COA), the Society of Dance Artists (SODA) and Dancers’ Picnic (forerunner to the Australian Dance Awards). Keith was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Medal for services to dance and theatre (1977) and received an OAM in 1988. Keith has received Australian Dance Awards for Services to Dance Education (2003) and for Lifetime Achievement (2011).