The last few weeks have seen us engaged in quite a diverse range of advocacy activities across several states and territories.
We’ve chaired a National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) meeting in Sydney, attended the Arts & Health Forum at Parliament House in Canberra, discussed arts policy with Minister Crean’s arts adviser and the Secretary of the Office for the Arts in Canberra, and lobbied Schools Minister Peter Garrett about the implementation of The Australian Curriculum: The Arts.
We have also been focusing on the imminent release of the National Cultural Policy, and on responses to the Australia Council Review. We’ve reiterated the importance of retaining artform expertise in the Council’s restructure. We also clarified that the label ‘small to medium’ referred to economies of scale rather than to ‘artistic excellence’, which is, of course, equivalent to the artistic excellence of the major companies.
Our NAAE focus is now on implementation of The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. We’re advocating for improved pre-service education and teacher support in schools, and while Minister Garrett was encouraging, there is much work to be done if the dance (and other arts) curricula are to be taught with knowledge and confidence in every Australian school.
Australian delegates travelled to Taipei on Friday 13 July to participate in 'Dance, Young People & Change', the Global Summit of World Dance Alliance (WDA) and Dance and the Child International (daCi).
As well as helping to facilitate the WDA Annual General Meeting, the Global Executive Meeting and those of the various network, we’ll be moderating two sessions and sharing our intention and philosophy behind the Australian Youth Dance Festival.