She started dancing at Dubbo Ballet Studio and now Ella Havelka has made it onto the big screen.
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Ms Havelka is the star of documentary ‘Ella’.
It follows her career across a year, from dancing Swan Lake in China to basket weaving with her family.
The dance star graduated from the Australian Ballet School in 2007. From there she went to Bangarra, before making her way back to The Australian Ballet in 2013.
Ms Havelka was the first indigenous dancer to join the company.
The ‘Ella’ movie could now be screened in Dubbo if enough tickets are sold.
Despite finding it hard to watch herself, Ms Havelka said she fought to have it shown in Dubbo.
“It’s hard to watch yourself on screen because I’m so self-critical. I never really get an opportunity to watch myself dance and it looks different to how it feels,” Ms Havelka said.
“But in saying that the main reason I wanted to do it was because of my family. It was good for my mum to have her story and her hard work recognised.
“People ask me ‘why did you say yes?’ and that would be the main reason. I knew that if I didn’t I would regret it. It was a way to celebrate all the hard work.”
Ms Havelka said she had always wanted to pursue a career in dance. Whenever a ballet would be on in Bathurst or Orange she would drive to see it.
However it didn’t go exactly as she had planned.
“I always had in mind that I wanted to do ballet first and then join contemporary,” she said.
“But I’m very grateful for joining Bangarra first because otherwise I wouldn’t have known anything about my culture or had that connection to my Aboriginal heritage. It made me grow up a little bit.”
While she knew it was going to be hard, Ms Havelka said she never realised just how hard a career in ballet would be.
Thankfully, the ballerina said she had the strong support of her loved ones, both financially when she was young and now emotionally.
Tickets for the documentary are available at tickets.demand.film/event/1717.