A Creative Life Unfolding
Before Television:
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger
in
Australia’s Dirty Dancing Era
Most people who discover my work today know me as a photographer, exhibiting artist and the founder of ART1.
Many Australians know Sonia Kruger as one of the country’s most recognisable television presenters.
Few realise that before photography, before television and before our careers followed very different directions, we shared a remarkable period within Australia’s ballroom dance community.
For me, those years were never simply about dance. They became the foundation of everything that followed.
Looking back across more than five decades, I can now see they were the beginning of one continuous creative life.
Where It Began
It began climbing the stairs to the Froulop and Paton Dance School located on the second floor at 112 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney, in 1980.
Having arrived from country New South Wales, I was determined to learn everything I could about ballroom dancing. Studio 112 quickly became my creative foundation.
It was an environment where discipline, observation, precision, partnership and professionalism were expected every day. It was also a vibrant creative community where drag queens, theatre performers, ballet and tap dancers, acrobats and ballroom dancers all rehearsed under the same roof.
For me, Studio 112 became far more than a dance school.
It was where I learnt how to work.
How to observe.
How to practise.
How to collaborate.
How to pursue excellence.
Without realising it, I was also developing the instincts that would later become fundamental to my photographic practice.Looking back, I can see that many of the qualities I value most as an artist today were first learnt climbing those stairs in Darlinghurst more than four decades ago.
A Professional Partnership
During the mid 1980s I formed a professional dance partnership with Sonia Kruger.
Like many dancers of our generation, we spent countless hours rehearsing, competing, teaching and performing.
At the time, we were simply two young professionals pursuing opportunities within Australia’s dance industry.
Neither of us could have imagined where those paths would eventually lead.
Today, those photographs have become part of an important historical record.
They document not only two individual careers, but a vibrant period in Australian ballroom dancing that deserves to be remembered.
An Extraordinary Year
If one year defined that chapter of my life, it was 1988.
On 12 February 1988, Sonia Kruger and I won Australia’s Dirty Dancing competition in Sydney.
The year continued with television appearances, the production of our instructional video Learn to Dirty Dance, and performances during the Australian Louis Féraud fashion tour.
The year concluded with another extraordinary opportunity.
Sonia Kruger and I travelled to Hong Kong to represent Australia during the Australian Bicentenary celebrations.
Invited by the Australian Consul-General, we appeared as featured exhibition ballroom dancers, performing and teaching throughout the visit.
For a young dancer who had arrived in Sydney only eight years earlier, representing Australia internationally was an extraordinary experience.
Looking back, Hong Kong became a fitting conclusion to an unforgettable year.Taken together, those experiences now form one remarkable chapter in a creative life that was still unfolding.
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger at Studio 112 dance pose and modelling for the Daily Mirror photoshoot on 3 March 1988.
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger at Studio 112 a Dirty Dancing pose and modelling for the Daily Mirror photoshoot on 3 March 1988.
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger at Studio 112 dance pose and modelling for the Daily Mirror photoshoot on 3 March 1988.
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger at Studio 112 a Dirty Dancing action and modelling for the Daily Mirror photoshoot on 3 March 1988.
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger at Studio 112 dance pose and modelling for the Daily Mirror photoshoot on 3 March 1988.
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger at Studio 112 dance spinning action and modelling for the Daily Mirror photoshoot on 3 March 1988.
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger at Studio 112, a thank you message from the Fashion Editor of the Daily Mirror, Kerry Yates following the photoshoot on 3 March 1988.
Strictly Ballroom
In 1992 a truly unexpected opportunity arrived.
Strictly Ballroom.
Working as Assistant Choreographer, Ballroom Tutor and one of Kendall’s Studio dancers on Baz Luhrmann’s film became another unforgettable experience.
For audiences, Strictly Ballroom celebrated the colour and energy of ballroom dancing.
For those of us who had spent years living inside that world, it captured something much deeper.
The discipline.
The humour.
The rivalries.
The friendships.
The countless hours of rehearsal hidden behind every polished performance.
Looking back today, I see Strictly Ballroom not simply as a film credit, but as an important cultural moment that reflected a community to which I was proud to belong.
It changed my life.
Read the complete Strictly Ballroom archive at ART1.
Strictly Ballroom, Raymond Mather’s Crew Tag 1991.
A continuity polaroid of Paul Mercurio and Tara Morice on set at Mentmore Studios during the filming of Strictly Ballroom 1991.
Strictly Ballroom, Raymond Mather Assistant Choreographer 1991 on set at Mentmore Studios with actors Pip Mushin, Gia Carides, and Dina Gillespie from Ronin Films.
Strictly Ballroom archive items from Raymond Mather private collection.
Press Release for Strictly Ballroom from Dina Gillespie at Ronin Films, 1992.
M&A Film Corporation thank you letter to Raymond Mather for service and contribution to Strictly Ballroom from Tristram Miall and Popsy (Antoinette) Albert 1992.
Strictly Ballroom, Raymond Mather Assistant Choreographer on Choreoscope Barcelona Dance Film Festival Website Film Credits Ray Mather.
IMDB Mini Bio for Raymond Mather, including Strictly Ballroom.
Raymond Mather and Paul Mercurio on location during the filming of Strictly Ballroom 1991.
Raymond Mather IMDB Credit listing Assistant Choreographer, Strictly Ballroom 1991.
Raymond Mather IMDB Credit listing Ballroom Tutor, Strictly Ballroom 1991.
Raymond Mather IMDB Credit listing Kendall’s Dancer, Strictly Ballroom 1991.
Kendalls Dancers on set at Mentmore Studios in the final two weeks of Strictly Ballroom filming 1991. Raymond Mather Assistant Choreographer, Lauren Hewett, Jo Shintah, Simone Gage and Lee Becchiet.
Raymond Mather IMDB Credit listing Kendall’s Dancers, Strictly Ballroom 1991.
IMDB additional production credits for Raymond Mather
Building Dance Avenue
In 1992 I established my own ballroom dance school.
Dance Avenue.
Based at Drummoyne Civic Centre in Sydney, it became the place where I could share
everything I had learnt over the previous decade.
Teaching became every bit as rewarding as performing.
Students arrived with different hopes.Some wanted to compete.
Some wanted confidence.
Some simply wanted the joy of dancing.
Dance Avenue quickly grew into one of Sydney’s busiest ballroom schools. Classes of
one hundred people were not unusual.
Helping people discover their own creative confidence became one of the most rewarding
parts of my professional life.
Read the complete Dance Avenue archive at ART1.
A Different Medium
Photography entered my life organically in 1999.
People often describe that moment as a career change.
I no longer think that is true.
The medium changed.
The questions did not.
Dance had taught me rhythm.
Photography taught me light.
Dance taught me observation.
Photography taught me patience.
Both asked the same question.
How do we communicate emotion?
Everything I had learnt through dance simply found another form.
Why This Archive Exists
As the years passed, my creative practice expanded through photography, exhibitions, curatorial work, arts administration and writing.
Eventually, all of those experiences came together in ART1.
While building the ART1 Living Archive, I made an unexpected discovery.For decades I had carefully kept programmes, newspaper articles, letters, photographs, posters and memorabilia from those years.
They had travelled with me through house moves, changing careers and different chapters of life.
Quietly waiting.
In 2026 I opened those boxes again.
Rediscovering them became one of the defining moments in building the ART1 Living Archive.
Memories that had softened with time were suddenly supported by tangible evidence.
Newspaper articles.
Official programmes.
Personal correspondence.
Original photographs.
Without consciously planning it, I had spent decades preserving my own creative history.
The archive was no longer simply my memory.
It had become a documented record.
That rediscovery reinforced why ART1 exists.
Not simply to preserve photographs, but to preserve the stories, relationships and creative lives that surround them.
Wallflowering media coverage Zootango Theatre Company Hobart 1990 featuring Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger
Wallflowering media coverage Zootango Theatre Company Hobart 1990 featuring Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger. The Mercury Newspaper.
Wallflowering Program Cover Zootango Theatre Company Hobart 1990 Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger.
Wallflowering Program cast listing Zootango Theatre Company Hobart 1990 including Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger.
Wallflowering Hobart 1990 production performance stills with full cast Raymond Mather, Sonia Kruger, Noreen le Mottee and Bill Pearson.
Wallflowering Hobart 1990 production performance scene with full cast Raymond Mather, Sonia Kruger, Noreen le Mottee and Bill Pearson.
Playwright Peta Murray, Thank You card to the cast of Wallflowering Hobart 1990 production with full cast Raymond Mather, Sonia Kruger, Noreen le Mottee and Bill Pearson.
One Creative Life
For many years I believed I had lived two separate careers.
Dance.
Then photography.
Today I understand them differently.
Nothing was abandoned.
Everything accumulated.
Every photograph I create today carries within it the discipline I learnt at Studio 112.
My dance partnership with Sonia Kruger.
The excitement of the Dirty Dancing era.
The visual spectacle of the Louis Féraud tour.
Representing Australia in Hong Kong.
The experience of Strictly Ballroom.
The years spent teaching through Dance Avenue.
None of those experiences disappeared. They simply found another medium.
ART1 did not begin when the website went live.
Its foundations were laid decades earlier.
This article introduces only one chapter of that journey.
The complete documentary record, original photographs and extended historical essays are preserved throughout the ART1 Living Archive, where each story is explored in much greater depth.
Looking back across more than five decades, I no longer see separate careers in dance, photography and writing.
I see one creative life.
It began climbing the stairs to Studio 112 in Sydney in 1980.
Today it continues through photography, ART1 and these stories.
The story is still unfolding.
Raymond Mather and Sonia Kruger performing in the Louis Feraud Fashion Parade national tour in 1988.
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