Jeff Meiners has worked widely in dance and is a lecturer with the University of South Australia. He has taught in schools, led dance education teams, guest tutoring in Australia, England, Portugal, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and Taiwan. His work has included projects with young children, youth dance and disability, plus partnerships with government and education departments. With Ausdance NSW he worked in metropolitan and rural regions initiating the Western Sydney and Northern Rivers Dance Action projects and has worked as movement director for Cat and Boom Bah! with Windmill Theatre. Jeff was a member of the Australia Council’s Dance Board, is co-chair of the World Dance Alliance Asia-Pacific Education & Training network and a member of the National Advocates for Arts Education, working with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority for dance in the national curriculum. Jeff received the 2010 Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance Education.
Jeff Meiners
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Articles
The arts in the early years learning framework
Early childhood professional have long recognised that the arts offer very young children significant ways of knowing about themselves, others and the world.
Performance: meanings and connections in dance experiences for young people of all ages
Dance and the Child International (daCi) ‘is a non profit association founded in 1978 and subsequently entering the Conseil International de la Danse (CID), UNESCO, and is an autonomous, fully constituted branch of CID with the aim of promoting the growth and development of dance for children and young people on an international basis’ (Constitution, 1998). Throughout its history the international association has maintained its purpose to provide experiences of dance for young people as creators, performers and spectators with respect for the ethnic, gender and cultural identities of each young person.
In this paper Ann Kipling Brown presents an overview of the association and the place of performance at the triennial conferences. Following this discussion, three other daCi members, Kathy Vlassopoulos, Karen Bond and Jeff Meiners, whose work focuses on dance for young people, describe specific events and experiences they have created that reflect the aims of the association. Firstly, Kathy Vlassopoulos describes the Children’s Dance Festival, held annually in Melbourne, Australia. The festival was initiated in1996 and creates a site-specific event that provides the opportunity for children to experience dance through a collaborative process with professional artists. Secondly, Karen Bond gives an account of daCi’s 2nd Intergenerational Gathering, titled Out of many, we are One. Over an intensive three-day period, participants explored a progression of dancing and performing related to themes of self, community, and the future. And thirdly, Jeff Meiners focuses on the creation of work for young children, spanning the years from birth to eight, and explores the nature of the work being created and the responses of the young children as active audience members.