Ausdance National Council President’s update – Nov 2017
While it only feels like yesterday that the 2017 Australian Dance Award winners were announced, nominations for the 2018 ADAs have opened! You can find information on selection criteria, an eligible works list, and a link to the nominations page at Australian Dance Awards 2018. The awards ceremony will be produced by partner Ausdance QLD and held in Brisbane in August 2018. Stay tuned for the confirmed dates and further information on this important ‘night of nights’ for the Australian Dance community.
ArtsPeak update—November 2017
After much consultation and discussion, the ArtsPeak Executive Committee has sent the following letter to all members. The committee will monitor any developments at national political level to ensure that there is still a voice, when, for example, a Federal election is called. The letter reads as follows:
Dancer–makers: apply for Tasdance Makers Company
Expressions of interest are sought from contemporary dancer–makers for Tasdance professional ensemble 2018–20.
Tasdance has embarked on a daring new approach to the nature of the professional contemporary dance ensemble to become the Tasdance Makers Company.
Ausdance National Council President’s update – October 2017
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.
Ausdance SA 40th Birthday Celebrations
Earlier this month Ausdance SA organised a wonderful event at Government House to celebrate its 40th birthday.
Ausdance National archives at the National Library of Australia
Sandra Macarthur-Onslow and I continue to catalogue the contents of the 200 boxes of Ausdance National’s archives, now lodged at the National Library of Australia.
ArtsPeak update October 2017
The ArtsPeak executive is currently exploring possible restructuring and support for the new privately-funded arts advocacy team formed by the Myer Foundation, the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation and the Keir Foundation’s program called A New Approach. The foundation recently announced that the Australian Academy of the Humanities and Newgate Communications have been engaged to deliver the program, and that the foundation will provide $1.65m to establish the lobby group to ‘defend and promote the benefit of intellectual and creative life’.
National Advocates for Arts Education October update
The NAAE will have its next meeting on 11 December, but NSW reps will in the meantime be meeting with NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) to discuss concerns about the way in which the Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus is being rewritten, and about the exclusion of Media Arts from the NSW curriculum, despite agreement by all Australian governments to adopt the Australian Curriculum: The Arts. It’s clear that NSW’s options clearly do not represent the agreement endorsed at COAG (which included the NSW Education Minister). (Minister’s response [PDF 2.9MB]
World Dance Alliance October 2017 update
WDA has convened a small sub-committee to review the structure of the organisation in order to streamline membership and the role of the four networks: Creation & Presentation, Education & Training, Research & Documentation, and Support & Development). I will chair the review team, made up of Linda Caldwell (Americas), Fiona Bannon (Europe) and Urmimala Sarkar Munsi (Asia Pacific). We hope to report back to the Global Executive at the Joint Dance Congress, Panpapanpalya, in Adelaide next year.
Call for papers—The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet
Edited Volume: The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet
Editors: Dr Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel (Faculty of Education, RAD) and Dr Jill Nunes Jensen (Loyola Marymount University)
We are seeking contributions to an edited volume on contemporary ballet. The book will posit ‘Contemporary Ballet’ as a new domain within the broader frameworks presently recognised by discourses in dance.
Kristina Chan receives the Peggy van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship
Congratulations to Kristina Chan who received the Ausdance National Peggy van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship at the 2017 Australian Dance Awards on Sunday 24 September 2017.
2017 Australian Dance Awards recipients
The annual Australian Dance Awards (ADA) recognise and honour professional Australian dance artists who have made an outstanding contribution to Australian dance.
Ausdance Victoria and Harlequin Floors presented the 2017 Awards on Sunday 24 September at Arts Centre Melbourne.
Congratulations to the winners and shortlisted nominees!
And the winners are....
Great news—our fourth keynote speaker for National Dance Forum 2017 is Professor Kim Vincs
Kim will provide an exploration and scan of the creative technology intersection—from the beginnings of the digital age and beyond.
Kim is Professor of Interactive Media, and Research Director within the Department of Film and Animation at Swinburne University of Technology. She is a leading creative arts researcher with 6 Australian Research Council grants, 35+ industry partnerships, and 20+ arts/science collaborations across fields including dance, motion capture, game development, robotics, haptics, app design, 3D stereoscopy, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, cognitive psychology, biomechanics, mathematics, architecture and exercise science. She has been a choreographer for over 20 years, has created 18 dance technology and digital artworks. Her industry partnerships include national and international companies such as Autodesk, Motion Analysis, Act3animation, Iloura, Alt.vfx, Arts Access Victoria, Victorian Opera and Australian Dance Theatre. She has commercial motion capture credits for several computer games, television commercials and film projects, including the Cannes Silver Lion winning Nocturnal Migration. She is currently developing a new centre for Transformative Media Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology with Professor Angela Ngdalianis.Ausdance National Council President’s Report – September 2017
It is all systems go at Ausdance National in light of the upcoming Australian Dance Awards and National Dance Forum—which are only a handful of weeks away! The shortlisted nominees, and the LIfetime Achievement and Hall of Fame recipients have been announced already. The invited speakers and presenters for the 2017 NDF are shaping up to be exceptionally exciting, and the announcement of the final program will be out very soon. Please ensure you book your ADA tickets and register for the NDF as soon as possible as tickets to both events are selling fast!
Meeting the future head-on
Can you even remember life before the internet? Hang on, perhaps you weren’t alive.
The digital domain has transformed almost every facet of our lives—but for those of us in the arts, it’s been especially influential in the way we make and consume art. In many ways there have never been more ways to get your art out there, and the artistic possibilities of new technologies are seemingly endless…but life for dance in the digital domain is not without its challenges.
Noel Tovey AM inducted into the Australian Dance Awards Hall of Fame
Australia's first male ballet dancer of Indigenous heritage, Noel was inspired by a performance of Les Sylphides at the National Theatre in Melbourne. He took classes at the National Theatre Ballet School, studied ballet with Madame Borovansky, Drew Hardy, London Afro Cuban with Katherine Dunham, jazz with Matt Mattox, singing with Joan Arnold at the Melbourne Conservatorium and Rita Godfrey in London, and acting with Hayes Gordon.
Helen Herbertson receives 2017 Australian Dance Award for Lifetime Achievement
Helen has been an inspirational figure in the world of Australian dance for over four decades. She has led a highly-regarded and multi-faceted career over that time as a performer, choreographer, artistic director, creative collaborator, independent producer, project manager, teacher, performance coach, arts adviser and academic.
Morphia Series by Helen Herbertson and Ben Cobham. This work was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance in 2003 Photo: Rachelle RobertsNational Dance Forum 2017: Dance in the Digital Domain
Tuesday 22 August 2017
For immediate release
Australia’s peak dance organisation, Ausdance National, will host a two-day forum next month bringing together dance makers, producers and presenters for a highly topical forum focusing on the future of dance within the digital domain. The National Dance Forum is Australia’s key platform for dance artists, industry professionals and educators in providing rich opportunities to discuss, debate and collaborate with some of the most influential individuals and organisations in the country.
Professor David Throsby AO to speak at National Dance Forum 2017
We are thrilled to announce our third key speaker for National Dance Forum 2017—David Throsby, Distinguished Professor of Economics at Macquarie University.
David Throsby, Distinguished Professor of Economics at Macquarie University in Sydney.World Dance Alliance August 2017 update
‘Dancing from the Grassroots’ was the title of the World Dance Alliance Global Summit, held last month at the Memorial University, St John’s, Newfoundland.
Professor Beverley Diamond, professor of ethnomusicology at Memorial University, delivered a fascinating keynote address on the first day, 'Time and the body: Where music and dance meet – sometimes'. The opening was also graced with a wonderful welcome by Eastern Owl, 'a unique group of women who blend the styles of First Nations drum music and contemporary folk to create their innovative sound'.
Australians attending the WDA Global Summit: Julie Dyson, Anja Ali-Haapala, John Utans (with his performers from HK Academy of Performing Arts), Sonia York-Pryce, Lucinda Coleman and Ellen Avery (WAAPA), and Rosemary Bennett.