Kate Ceberano has described turning down a role in Strictly Ballroom as the greatest missed opportunity of her career, as she returns to the stage for the Australian Made encore tour.
The singer was approached by a young Baz Luhrmann in the early 1990s while she was immersed in flamenco, a dance form she had taken up as a child to explore her Filipina and Spanish heritage. She declined because she believed the film’s ballroom interpretation was not authentic flamenco.
“To my absolute shame, I declined the offer to be part of Strictly Ballroom because I didn’t know what the film was about,” Ceberano said. “I didn’t understand that it was actually going to be exactly about the very thing that I was being a purist about.”
When the film was released, she realised the scale of the opportunity she had rejected. “When the film came out I just wanted to bite my arm off,” she said.
Ceberano, who turns 60 during the tour, has since adopted a different approach to her career. “So since then I’ve said ‘yes’ to everything,” she said.
Kate Ceberano returns to the Australian Made era
The Australian Made encore tour began in London on August 8 and is travelling through regional Australia, with performances at Sydney Opera House on October 11 and Melbourne’s Hamer Hall on October 23 before concluding in Shepparton, Victoria, on November 20.
It follows the 21-date Australian Made tour in 2025, as well as the 2024 Superstars Live shows with Jon Stevens and a 2023 orchestral collaboration with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. All three tours sold out.
Ceberano was barely 20 when she appeared on the original Australian Made tour in 1986-87 as the lead singer of I’m Talking. The line-up also featured INXS, Jimmy Barnes, Divinyls, Models, The Saints and The Triffids.
The tour became a defining moment in Australian music, bringing local performers to major stadiums. Ceberano now wants to share the stories of the artists involved, many of whom have since died, including INXS singer Michael Hutchence, Divinyls frontwoman Chrissy Amphlett, The Saints’ Chris Bailey and Models musician James Freud.
“I was kind of like the last of the Mohicans, along with Jimmy Barnes and Sean Kelly from Models,” she said.
Ceberano remembers being intimidated by some of her fellow performers, particularly Amphlett. Her experience on the tour helped shape her understanding of the importance of maintaining an individual identity as a performer.
“What she taught me was you need to be bold enough to be yourself,” Ceberano said. “No one wants a poor imitation of another person.”
Her career has since taken in rock, soul, jazz, pop and classical music. She has released 31 albums, including 11 platinum and eight gold records, won five ARIA awards and been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
She also played Mary Magdalene in a record-breaking production of Jesus Christ Superstar, won Dancing with the Stars in 2007 and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2016.
Ceberano will perform drums as well as sing during the current tour, partly because the production has been designed to travel with a small crew and support acts Kathleen Halloran and Dusty Lee.
She said the arrangement was intended to retain the force of a rock performance while allowing the show to reach regional venues. Between songs, she will recall her former colleagues, although she insists the concerts are not a tribute act.
“It’s just an old friend singing songs to remember an amazing time in Australian rock history,” she said.
