Education & training
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Recommendations arising from the Safe Dance IV research project
In professional dance, as with all physical and athletic endeavours, there will always be a realistic expectation of some musculoskeletal complaints. The information gathered through the Safe Dance research studies develops a better understanding of the changing profile of professional dancers in Australia and their experience of injury. The findings can be used to assist in the tailoring and evaluation of evidence based injury prevention initiatives with the long-term goal of safely sustaining dancers in their professional dance careers for as long as they choose.
Online delivery of dance classes and tutorials
Due to COVID-19 and changed circumstances in studios, schools and community, many dance providers have chosen to move their classes online. Here is a guide to keeping people connected, moving and staying positive in challenging times. However, teaching online presents a new set of practical, legal and pedagogical considerations. This resource looks at these three areas and provides some ideas and suggestions. It has been prepared by Dr Katrina Rank, Director of Education and Life Long Learning at Ausdance Victoria.
Dancing the Design
This article is an account of Sela Kiek-Callan’s postgraduate research journey in “Dancing Design”, an exploration of affinities between architecture and dancing bodies which become manifest in embodied responses of weight, rhythm and intensity when dancers pay attention to the built environment in which they are encased.
Dance teaching and learning in context: activating the head, heart and hands
Avril Huddy and Kym Stevens (both lecturers in dance at Queensland University of Technoology) cover the latest pedagogical concepts in the training of dance teachers across a broad spectrum at a university level.
A historical overview of dance in the New Zealand curriculum
A historical overview of the development of the New Zealand dance curriculum from the early twentieth century to the present day reveals shifting meanings and emphases from military drills to gymnastics, eurhythmics, creative movement, European folk dance and cultural Maori dance. In the last decade however, dance in the New Zealand school curriculum has arguably gone through its most influential change as it shifted from the physical education curriculum to the arts curriculum.
This curriculum shift refined and focussed the academic study of dance in New Zealand primary, secondary and tertiary education contexts. This article focuses upon curriculum and the key persons shaping curriculum development and its delivery in New Zealand from the early 1900s to the present day.
Projects View all
Reinstate professional dance courses on the VET student loans eligible course list
Ausdance National is working with the National Advocates for Arts Education to:
- reinstate professional dance courses on the VET Student Loans eligible course list
- make a case to redefine the methods used to assess courses eligible for student loans—recognising the cultural sector as one of Australia's major employers and arts graduates as key contributors to the creative economy in Australia.
Vote for Arts – 2 July 2016
For the first time in a generation, the arts are claiming space in the lead-up to a federal election. While ‘jobs and growth’ and ‘putting people first’ are dominating the debate, after 18 months of cuts, despair and confusion, the arts community is coming together and calling for our voices to be heard.
Here's our guide to putting arts on the political agenda.
National Dance Forum 2015
The National Dance Forum 2015 focused on the inherent concerns and realities affecting current professional practice in Australia.
Supporting the Live Performance Training Package
After nation-wide research, Innovation and Business Skills Australia concluded that 'there is strong industry and community demand for national qualifications to help lift standards across the profession and set clear national benchmarks which promote consistency while maintaining flexibility'.
Dance Plan 2012
Identifies four ambitions for 2012, with a list of achievable objectives. These ambitions reflect the diversity and dynamism of dance in our communities. They require our energy and attention to ensure that dance, as an artform and an enjoyable form of recreation for all, remains at the heart of Australian life.
Publications View all
1977 Dance Education Conference Papers
Dance Education Conference Papers by the Australian Association for Dance Education. These papers are an edited version of the talks and discussion of the Dance Education Conference held in Melbourne in August 1977.
The Mayer key competencies in arts education
This report uses the experience of arts teachers to show how the key competencies may have a generic function across the five arts areas.
News / Blog / Press Releases / Events View all
Tertiary Dance Council federal election statement
The Tertiary Dance Council of Australia (TDCA) is comprised of academic members from Australian higher educational institutions that offer programs in Dance and Dance Education. It is chaired by Associate Professor Peter Cook, Deputy Head of the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland.
This national body has identified the absence of a national cultural policy that is inclusive of all art forms, their benefits and accessibility, and the impact of arts education and training on the lives of all Australians.
During the recent pandemic lockdowns, society turned to the arts which pivoted their practice for online audiences, and for aesthetic and well-being contingencies. The arts need to be recognised and celebrated for their capacity to nurture, develop and reinvigorate research for the benefit of the wider society.
The TDCA also has serious concerns about the Federal Government’s re-prioritisation of research funds resulting in ministerial intervention and the enacting of veto powers in relation to the Australia Research Council’s Discovery Grants and Linkage programs.
This narrowing of scope is taking place as we are facing, according to Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, “an unprecedented crisis in the cultural sector” (Reshaping policies for creativity). Although the arts and cultural sector is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world, it is also one of the most vulnerable and is often overlooked by public and private investment, including the distribution of public research funds.
Tertiary dance programs undertake practical academic explorations, often involving performance and choreography, that are completely aligned with research principles in their planning, execution and dissemination. They explore contemporary and cultural topics, develop theoretical positions, and engage methods and methodologies that work towards better understanding of, and knowledge about, the issues at hand.
Seeing the downturn of arts-based grants compounds already disenfranchised academics, many of whom are undertaking unfunded and in-kind research projects that benefit society.
Inclusion of arts research projects and their interdisciplinary approaches clearly fits the paradigms from which society benefits. Limiting arts research program funding endangers the unique contribution that arts research makes towards the aesthetic leadership and engagement of well-being, so required as we live through the pandemic world and its recovery.
The technologising of the field, together with its diversification and partnerships across science, health, humanities and ecology, evidences how dance enhances lives across generations and within communities.
We also note the following:
- Covid has had a major Impact on the sustainability of private dance schools, which are TDCA feeder schools.
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The extreme vulnerability of the arts in higher education.
Recommendations:
- Commitment by all political parties to the development of a National Cultural Policy that includes arts education and training, and developed in consultation with artists, arts educators, the community, industry and peak arts bodies.
- Allocation of ARC grants to a broader industry cohort to redress diminishing arts research in dance in particular. Ministerial interference in ARC decision-making processes must stop.
- Support for research into the vulnerability of the arts in higher education.
- Reversal of increased tertiary fees in the Creative Arts, made on the false premise that this area of study does not lead to employment.
- Enabling of research into the private dance studio sector to assess the impact of Covid-19 on the viability of this important ‘feeder’ sector in dance training and employment.
Academy of Music and Performing Arts, AC-Arts Adelaide, Australian Ballet School, Australian College of Physical Education, Deakin University, Monash University, NAISDA Dance College, Queensland University of Technology, University of South Australia, Victorian College of the Arts, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, University of Southern Queensland, University of Tasmania.
Tertiary Dance Council responds to political interference in ARC grant programs
The Tertiary Dance Council of Australia (TDCA) is comprised of academic members from Australian higher education institutions that offer programs in Dance and Dance Education. It exists under the auspices of Ausdance National, and is chaired by Associate Professor Peter Cook of the University of Southern Queensland.
The TDCA is seriously concerned about the Federal Government’s re-prioritisation of research funds, resulting in ministerial intervention and the enacting of veto powers in relation to the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Grants and Linkage programs.
The TDCA has recently made a submission to the Senate's Australian Research Council Amendment (Ensuring Research Independence) Bill 2018.
Australian dance educators are also being encouraged to sign the Australian Parliament House Petition to prevent political interference in ARC funding grants (closing on 16 March).
Ausdance responds to ACARA’s review of the Australian Curriculum
The Ausdance National Education Committee, led by Dr Jeff Meiners and Sue Fox, has prepared a submission to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) in response to its review of The Australian Curriculum: The Arts.
The proposed revisions aim to declutter the content through improving the curriculum's clarity of structure and refine the content descriptions and achievement standards. This response relates specifically to Dance in the F-6 curriculum, as this is the identified focus of the review.
As Ausdance’s reps on the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) Council, Jeff and Sue have also contributed to the NAAE's submission, which has reached a review consensus across all art forms.
We thank Jeff and Sue and the Ausdance National Dance Education Committee who contributed to Ausdance's submission, and who will continue to work with ACARA on next steps.
Ausdance National Education Committee members are:
- Rachael Bott (WA)
- Trish Brown (ACT)
- Sarah Calver (NT)
- Peter Cook (NSW)
- Megan Cooper (SA)
- Julie Dyson (ACT)
- Candice Egan (VIC)
- Sue Fox (QLD)
- Lesley Graham (TAS)
- Julie-Anne Grant (QLD)
- Rikki Mace (TAS)
- Kate Maquire-Rosier (NSW)
- Jeff Meiners (SA)
- Helen Mullins (QLD)
- Katrina Rank (VIC)
- Amy Wiseman (WA)
Apply for Sydney Dance Company Pre-Professional Year Program 2019
Calling all aspiring professional dancers aged 18–24 years, applications are now open for Sydney Dance Company's Pre-Professional Year 2019.
“Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year is an outstanding opportunity for aspiring dancers to gain exposure to Australia’s leading contemporary dance company. Pre-professional dancers will develop all the skills essential for a lifelong career in contemporary dance as well as being provided with unique professional development, networking and mentorship opportunities under the guidance of the artistic staff of Sydney Dance Company.” Rafael Bonachela, Artistic Director, Sydney Dance Company
Key information
Applications are open to Australian and New Zealand citizens or permanent residents only.
Application closing date: Monday 27 August 2018
Audition: The first round of Pre-Professional Year auditions will be an online application process that includes a video submission.
Successful first round applicants will be invited to a second round in-person audition at Sydney Dance Company Studios on 17 September 2018 between 9am and 6pm.
For more information please visit 2019 Pre-Professional Year Audition Application.
National Advocates for Arts Education November 2017 update
Since our last report, NAAE has been engaged in meetings and correspondence with the NSW Education Minister, Mr Rob Stokes, and the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) about the development of a new Creative Arts syllabus in NSW.