Well what a month it’s been! September saw the successful delivery of the Australian Dance Awards AND the National Dance Forum—in a fabulous partnership with our producing and presenting partners Ausdance Victoria.
The 2017 Australian Dance Awards was a truly wonderful evening of celebration of all things dance, particularly the winning artists, companies, choreographers, educators, and creatives announced. To give you a quick sense of what the night entailed, check out Ausdance Victoria’s Facebook page. Congratulations to all nominees and winners, and a big thank you to the sponsors—Arts Centre Melbourne, Harlequin Floors, Equity, Aon, Gaynor Minden and various Victorian-based supporters; the ADA Panel, and Ausdance National and Ausdance Victoria team members who made this event so successful.
Directly following this ‘night of nights’ for the Australian Dance community, was the 2017 National Dance Forum—kindly supported by the Australia Council for the Arts. Themed ‘Dance in the Digital Domain’, this was an action-packed program that brought together thinkers, makers and researchers from both within and outside the dance community. An evaluation of the 2017 NDF is coming soon with the aim of collecting feedback to inform the type of post-NDF activities that the sector has identified it requires.
Ausdance National additionally attended the inaugural meeting on 27 September 2017 of the Australian Alliance for Wellness in Entertainment (AAWE), an initiative of Entertainment Assist. AAWE officially launches on World Mental Health Day—Tuesday 10 October, and is a very exciting initiative for dance to be involved with, given it is a world-first, cross-sector initiative for shared interest in positive mental health and wellbeing behaviours for a sustainable Australian entertainment industry. Further updates including details of a national AAWE Roadshow across late November-December 2017 are coming.
Thank you again to all the wonderful members of our vibrant and caring dance community that either attended, participated, presented or performed in the Australian Dance Awards and National Dance Forum. We look forward to reconnecting with you in following up on these key events and planning for the future.
