News: May 2018

Executive Director’s May update

by Rachael Jennings published on

We are currently representing the dance sector by contributing knowledge to three urgent issues that impact healthy growth in Australia’s creative economy:

  • Access to professional mental health support for those who work in the entertainment industry, because we can't tackle these issues in isolation. We need to support each other.
  • Access to education and training resources to prevent discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and bullying, because these impact our mental health and wellbeing. Together we can create healthy work environments free from these threats.
  • Sustainable access to international expertise that transfers skills to Australian organisations and creatives, because this will stimulate innovation.

Read more…

Save the date: 2018 Australian Dance Awards

by Ausdance-ED published on

The 2018 Australian Dance Awards will take place on Saturday 8 September at 4.00 pm at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

We have appointed Sandi Woo as Producer. Sandi will work with local and interstate companies, independent dance artists and Ausdance Queensland to create a diverse program for the event. The late afternoon time slot has been selected so that everyone can enjoy Brisbane Festival’s Opening Celebrations, later that evening. 

We will announce more details in the coming weeks, including details of sector meetings set to take place over that weekend, ensuring wonderful networking opportunities.

Leave a comment

Archiving Ausdance National at the National Library of Australia

by Julie Dyson published on

With about 250 Ausdance National archive boxes now housed at the National Library in Canberra, the work of cataloguing their contents continues.

This week marked a major milestone in this process, with Julie Dyson and Sandra Macarthur-Onslow reaching the 200-box mark in a collection that includes 40 years of Ausdance National’s achievements—submissions, funding applications, letters of support, reports, analysis of the dance sector, projects such as Safe Dance & Dancers’ Transition, strategic plans, minutes, publications, photographs, plus an impressive archive of Australian dance companies, large and small, and independent artists’ ephemera. It’s an amazing and impressive record of a 40-year period in Australian dance history between 1977 and 2017 which we are sure future researchers will find invaluable.

Read more…

World Dance Alliance prepares for Panpapanpalya

by Julie Dyson published on

As Secretary of WDA Asia Pacific, I am preparing agendas and papers for the annual general meeting of WDA Asia Pacific, to be held in Adelaide on Wednesday 11 July. Ausdance National supports the WDA through publication of conference proceedings on the Ausdance website and I represent Ausdance through board membership of both the Global Executive and the Asia-Pacific region.

Read more…

Arts educators call for intervention in ‘flawed’ Arts curriculum review process

by Julie Dyson & National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) published on

Following meetings in Canberra with politicians and the Secretary of the Department of Communications & the Arts in late February, the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) has again focused on what it considers to be the flawed consultation process being undertaken by the NSW Education Syllabus Authority (NESA).

Read more…