Ausdance advocacy report

Ausdance National's dance sector advocacy update ​Ausdance National's new interim National Executive has formally appointed Ausdance National (volunteer) representatives to attend and speak for Ausdance at the following organisations and forums: ArtsPeak, National Advocates for Arts Education, World Dance Alliance and Tertiary Dance Council of Australia.

ArtsPeak 

As part of Ausdance National’s representation on the Arts Peak interim executive, the voice for dance on this forum ensures strong representation for our sector. The Executive has recently issued a report on plans for 2017, and ArtsPeak has also issued several media releases.

National Advocates for Arts Education 

With our ArtsPeak colleagues, we visited Parliament House in Canberra to speak with the Minister for Education & Training, Simon Birmingham; the Arts Minister’s adviser, Denise Ryan; Shadow Education Minister Kate Ellis, and Greens Arts spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young. The Greens have since issued the media release 'Senate sides with Greens on amendment to maintain funding for VET arts courses' (110 KB PDF) noting their success in advocating several key amendments to the Bill, which may lead to a change of heart by the Government about creative arts courses. Several publicly funded institutions such as AC-Arts in South Australia and WAAPA have applied for exemptions already with Ausdance National’s support.

We have also convened two face-to-face NAAE meetings in Canberra to plan advocacy campaigns, and prepared the Ausdance National response to Education & Training Minister Simon Birmingham. We assisted preparation of an NAAE draft position paper on STEM to STEAM education, which will be released shortly.

In November we led the NAAE meeting with the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) to negotiate a new partnership to review work samples and challenge traditional definitions of literacy. This is still a work in progress, with a joint panel to be formed to undertake the work in 2017. We will also publish a new edition of the NAAE publication More Than Words Can Say in 2017, with the revised Dance chapter already completed by Sue Fox. 

World Dance Alliance (WDA) 

Asia-Pacific Channels remains one of Ausdance National’s most important publications, with the December edition about to be issued, edited and designed by Rachael Jennings. We attended and convened the WDA Annual General Meeting and network meetings in Seoul, and managed the election process of new WDA Secretary General, Professor Anis Mohd Nor, who replaced Cheryl Stock after eight years of wonderful WDA leadership. The 2017 International Young Choreographers’ Project will provide another opportunity for Australia’s emerging choreographers, and Ausdance National will again manage the selection process for our country. 

Tertiary Dance Council of Australia (TDCA)

We are keen to help revitalise the TDCA, and are delighted that QUT’s Gene Moyle has agreed to take on the chair of the organisation to collaborate with Ausdance National on a new dance research forum, possibly at QUT in 2017. Gene also recently represented Australia at the LEAP Together conference in Toronto, Canada, sharing Australia’s achievements in dancers’ career development and contributing to some exciting plans for the future. Ausdance National is also planning to focus on career development in 2017, building on years of research and strategic partnerships, especially through the SCOPE for Artists program

We’re also looking forward to building on our peer-reviewed publications program through partnerships with World Dance Alliance and dance and the Child international (daCi). The program is led by Ausdance National, which has been cited as a leader in Australian dance publishing. Many TDCA academics and alumni have contributed their exciting and internationally-recognised research to our program.