Creating dance

This year’s WDA Global Summit will be held from 23–28 July in St John’s, Newfoundland, a beautiful Canadian city on the east coast. Titled ‘Dancing from the Grassroots’, there will be many exciting events—performances, a conference including Pecha Kucha presentations, panel discussions and papers, and of course a Choreolab and master classes. We hope many Australians have made submissions to participate and look forward to once again having great representation from Australia at all events. Registrations will be open shortly.

Another opportunity available to Australian Ausdance members is the International Young Choreographer Program (ICYP), which offers fellowships to eight young artists: three from Taiwan, three from other Asia Pacific countries, and one each from WDA Europe and WDA Americas.

This year Australian Scott Ewen has been selected to participate in the ICYP. Scott attended the WDA Choreolab as a a highly regarded choreographer last year in Seoul. Congratulations Scott!

Ausdance members are automatically members of the WDA through Ausdance National’s partnership arrangement that includes publication of Asia Pacific Channels, access to choreographic fellowships, and discounted event attendance. Make sure you’re an Ausdance member before applying for any of these events.

Scott Ewen (front) with dancers and choreographers from the 2016 Choreolab at the WDA festival in Seoul. Choreolab convenor Jin-Wen Yu is kneeling, on the right. Photo: Suling Chou.

2–23 July 2017 (dates TBC) Kaohsiung, Taiwan

The National Indigenous Dance Forum (NIDF), in partnership with Yirramboi Festival (Melbourne Indigenous Arts Festival), will take place from 5–7 May 2017 in Melbourne.

It's time to get involved! Be part of the NIDF curatorial or community working groups (or join BOTH). 

Bold—celebrating the legacy of dance, 8–12 March 2017

How can dance help in transforming society? This and many more questions will be a focus in 2018 at one of the world’s largest gatherings of dance educators and young artists in Adelaide, Australia. 

During the week of 11–15 July 2016, delegates from daCi (dance and the Child international) and WDA (World Dance Alliance Education and Training Network) met in Adelaide, Australia to collaborate in planning for a joint congress to be held from 8–13 July 2018. How to connect with UNESCO and initiate global advocacy informed our planning. 

Big Dance is a biennial festival of people dancing led by the Mayor of London in partnership with People Dancing and the Big Dance Hubs, a network of leading dance organisations across the UK.

Big Dance Week ran from 2 to 10 July 2016 and Ausdance Queensland and Tracks Dance in Darwin hosted Big Dance events.

Arts Centre Melbourne, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and Re:Bourne, the charitable arm of New Adventures are working towards a major creative project that will culminate in a one week season at Arts Centre Melbourne’s State Theatre in Autumn 2017.

This project offers an opportunity for Melbourne-based dancers to work for one month with choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne’s leading international dance company. 

Sir Matthew Bourne and other members of the New Adventures team will be in Melbourne in August 2016 to audition six male dancers to join the company for this one-off project at Arts Centre Melbourne.

Key information

• Audition date: Saturday 6 August 2016 (applications required)
• Recalls: Sunday 7 August 2016
• Where: Auditions and recalls will be held in a centrally located venue in Melbourne
• Rehearsals & season: Sunday, 14 August 2016 (workshop) & Monday 13 March – Sunday 9 April 2017
• For Melbourne-based male dancers with at least three years of professional level training in classical or contemporary dance with a stage appearance age between 14–22.
• Audition notice and application information on the Arts Centre Melbourne website.
• Applications close COB Tuesday 12 July 2016.

Asia–Pacific Channels is the bi-annual newsletter of the World Dance Alliance (WDA), published by Ausdance National in collaboration with MyDance Alliance in Malaysia. It profiles dance events and activities from WDA members throughout the Asia–Pacific region.

Download the June 2016 issue (2 MB)

Images from the June 2016 issue.

We produce and publish Channels as a contribution to the World Dance Alliance and dance in our region. It also helps us build the international networks that provide professional development opportunities for Australian dance artists.

Our work producing this publication helps us contribute to the World Dance Alliance's goals, which are:

• To promote the recognition, development and mutual understanding of all forms of dance.
• To facilitate communication and exchange among dance individuals, institutions and organisations interested in dance.
• To provide a forum for discussion of matters relating to dance.
• To encourage and support the research, education, criticism, creation and performance of dance.
• To liaise, co-ordinate and participate in activities with other dance organisations in the world.

Submissions are open for Brolga #41 under the broad theme 'A place for dance'.

Key information

• Submissions due 31 August 2016
• Email your submission to the editor Olivia Millard
• Brolga guidelines for contributors (48 KB PDF)

The art and community ecology in which dance exists is delicate and complex. As with the fight for survival by animals in compromised environments perhaps it is the ‘charismatic’ or ‘innovative’ artists who survive. If so, where is the place for the dancers and dance makers who exist outside the realm of publically notable; who eschew spectacle or even notoriety? And how is it possible for a dancer to find their dance place in the rich history of skill and experimentation?

Australian Dance Awards 2016 key information

• 6.30 pm Sunday 18 September 2016
• Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, Perth
• Tickets: ticketek

The 2016 Australian Dance Awards image is from WA-based Ochre Contemporary Dance Company. Photo: Dana Weeks

The dance community in Western Australia is gearing up to host the 2016 Australian Dance Awards at the Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, Perth, on Sunday 18 September. Ausdance WA is working with Claudia Alesssi, creative producer of this year’s event, to curate a truly memorable evening, showcasing Western Australian dance companies, and more.

The Housemate Residency is about accompanying dance artists through the entire creative process, from vision to realisation. The program offers time to explore, space to examine possibility and the financial support to bring the Resident's project to fruition.

EOI submissions close 7 July 2016 at midnight.

Media release

Next week Dancenorth opens their tour of the double bill ‘If _ Was _’

Tour performance dates and locations

• 9–11 June, Dancenorth, Townsville
• 15 June, Mackay Entertainment Centre
• 16 June Proserpine Entertainment Centre 
• 23–25 June, Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane
• 29 June – 2 July, the Substation, Melbourne

Delve into the fanciful and illusionary worlds of two extraordinary choreographers, Stephanie Lake and Ross McCormack, as they fall down the rabbit hole of imagination and fill in the blanks for Dancenorth’s most recent double bill.

Odeon Theatre, 20–21 June 2016, 4.45 pm – 7.40 am (sunset to sunrise)

Apply now for the Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance. Applications close 1 June 2016.

Adelaide Dancer Chris Dyke has returned to Townsville as part of the first ongoing inclusive professional dance exchange in Australia.

Chris Dyke and Kyle Page. Photo: Amber Haines

During the two-week secondment, Chris has choreographed a new solo work with the guidance of his mentor, Dancenorth Artistic Director Kyle Page, trained with the company each day and watched dancers rehearse for their upcoming performance of ‘If _ Was _’ a double bill created by Stephanie Lake and Ross McCormack.

Chris, who visited Townsville from Adelaide based Restless Dance Theatre and has Downs syndrome, described the opportunity as “a dream come true”.

Media Release, 16 May 2016

ArtsPeak, the national confederation of peak arts and cultural organisations, says the Australian arts ecology is under serious threat following the announcement of four-year funding decisions by the Australia Council.

13 May 2016 media release

The Australian Dance Council—Ausdance congratulates the 12 dance organisations which were successful in the four-year funding announcements by the Australia Council. There is a solid core of highly creative, inspiring and highly productive organisations to create and tour dance around Australia and overseas.

Regrettably, the Australian Dance Council—Ausdance Inc (Ausdance National) finds itself amongst the 62 previously funded organisations that have not been successful. Ausdance National has been notified by the Australia Council that it will not receive operational funding beyond 31 December this year. This brings to an end many years of operational support for the work of Ausdance National.

Key information

• Choreographic Practices is an international peer-reviewed journal.
• Full article should be approx 6,000 words.
• Deadline for full essays: 1 June 2016
• To submit a contribution email [email protected].
• For questions about the theme or focus of your submission, please email Robert Vesty (associate editor for this special issue).

This special journal issue of Choreographic Practices—WORDS and DANCE—aims to draw together, contribute to and exemplify debates around the use of spoken word in current and future 21st Century dance practices as well as its place in the contemporary cultural landscape.

What are the intersections between spoken words (in the form of live narrative, poetry, dialogue or writing) and choreographic practices?
What is the relationship between the word and the move?
How can/do spoken words and dance work together, especially in improvisatory practice?
What implications does the use of voice have in dance practice?

NEXT MOVE is our commitment to developing the next generation of leading dance makers. Since its inception, we have commissioned, produced and presented nine new works through the Next Move program, some of which have gone on to tour nationally and internationally.

In 2016, we will commission two artists to each create a new short work for the Next Move program as part of a double bill. The works will be presented over a two-week season in September 2016 at the Chunky Move Studios.

We are now calling for expressions of interest and invite Australian dance makers with a least 5 years of professional practice to apply.

For further information, download the information pack.

Expressions of Interest are due no later than midnight on Friday 29 January 2016.

Please send any questions to Ben Ryan at [email protected] or call 03 9645 5188.

Congratulations to the eight commissioned artists Sarah Aiken, James Batchelor, Chloe Chignell, Ghenoa Gela, Martin Hansen, Alice Heyward, Rebecca Jensen and Paea Leach.

The Award increases the profile of and cultivates new audiences for contemporary dance within Australia by commissioning and presenting new choreographic works in a competitive context.

For more information, visit Carriageworks.