Stories + essays

Nerida Matthaei, Australian dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Phluxus2 Dance Collective shares her experience of the World Dance Alliance Korea Choreolab and conference. Nerida received the Chin Lin Award for the best young scholar for her Pecha Kucha presentation at the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific conference in Korea.

The words ‘safe dance’ mean many different things to different parts of the dance community. It could be safe dance practice recommendations for teachers and studio owners, safe physical dance environments, injury prevention and safe return to dance practices, supporting the mental and physical development of dance students, the list goes on.

But how far have we come in preventing and managing injuries in Australia’s professional dancers? And are our dance practices safe?

Australian choreographer Lewis Major was one of eight choreographers selected to participate in the International Young Choreographer Project (IYCP) held in southern Taiwan in July/August this year.

Memory, time and metaphor are central triggers for artists in exploring and shaping their creative work. This paper examines the place of artists as ‘memory-keepers’, and ‘memory-makers’, in particular through engagement with the time-based art of site-specific performance. Naik Naik (Ascent) was a multi-site performance project in the historic setting of Melaka, Malaysia, and is partially recaptured through the presence and voices of its collaborating artists. Distilled from moments recalled, this paper seeks to uncover the poetics of memory to emerge from the project; one steeped in metaphor rather than narrative. It elicits some of the complex and interdependent layers of experience revealed by the artists in Naik Naik; cultural, ancestral, historical, personal, instinctual and embodied memories connected to sound, smell, touch, sensation and light, in a spatiotemporal context for which site is the catalyst. The liminal nature of memory at the heart of Naik Naik, provides a shared experience of past and present and future, performatively interwoven.

Behind the Façade was the site-specific performance outcome of the third annual Beyond Technique Residency held at Bundanon Trust’s Riversdale property.

WDA is free to us at Ausdance, yet so few artists know about this amazing opportunity each year in different locations around the world. Each conference has been an eye-opener for my choreographic practice—understanding the links between it and academic research, studio practice, dance in the rest of the world and most significantly for me, intercultural dance. Every topic is covered: from dancer-choreographer relationships to education to the role of women in dance and politics. Many people have become good friends, and we have formed a strong bond. I love it.

A seven-year campaign on behalf of arts educators across the country came to an end this week with the final endorsement of The Australian Curriculum: The Arts! Thanks go to the National Advocates for Arts Education - NAAE, which represents the five art forms included as separate subjects in the curriculum. The Arts were not initially included in the national curriculum at all, and this week therefore marks a significant occasion, when The Arts are not only in the curriculum, but they include all five art forms: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and the Visual Arts.

Philip Channells reflects on Singapore’s 2015 World Dance Alliance Asia–Pacific conference.

An original member of Garry Stewart's Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), Lina as been a choreographer since 2000. Her recent work, A Delicate Situation, was shortlisted for the 2015 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Contribution to Independent Dance. Lina will use her Peggy van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship honing her theatrical devising practices including her approach to constructing narrative and characters and working with the voice, particularly techniques for warm-up, projection, endurance and dynamic range.

Twilight: a new work by Cheryl Stock for Dancenorth's 30th anniversary

Australians at the 2015 daCi Conference. News from Jeff Meiners about Australians at the 2015 Dance and the Child International Conference

Dr Phillips was an extraordinary contributor to dance in Australia, as a teacher, researcher and dance scholar. Maggi passed away in Perth on the evening of 31 March, surrounded by family and friends. Her dedication to dance practice and scholarship is well known, and she will be greatly missed by her friends and colleagues in the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific. Here Maggi's World Dance Alliance—Asia Pacific friends share their tributes.

This panel features dynamic and diverse representation from some of Australia’s leading voices within the regional arts sector. They will engage you in a debate on notions of excellence, community engagement and being objectified as ‘regional'. Listen to the podcast and read the movement response.

Karen Veldhuizen shares her personal highlights from National Dance Forum 2015. 'I offer them to you as representative of the sense of belonging I found amongst the Australian dance community.'

Annette Carmichael responds to Andrew Morrish's National Dance Forum 2015 provocation.

Andrew Morrish, 2015 National Dance Forum facilitator, shares his vision for this forum: an NDF that embodies our diversity, its history, its present and its future, and to experience the forum as a living community.

Ausdance WA and Ausdance Victoria have their own state-based annual dance awards. Find out how they differ from the Australian Dance Awards.

It's been described as the most significant platform for dialogue across the Australian contemporary dance sector. For two days, escape the isolation and immerse yourself in discussion, debate, networking, new ideas and reflection on artistic practice.

Leigh Warren will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2014 Australian Dance Awards for his outstanding contribution to dance as a performer, choreographer, teacher, director and mentor over four decades.

As part of developing the 2015 National Dance Forum's 'lines of focus', curatorial panel members shared their thoughts about the inherent concerns and realities affecting current professional practice in Australia. This is Matthew Day's response.