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.
The WDA Asia Pacific AGM will be held in conjunction with Panpapanpalya, the joint dance congress being presented by dance and the Child international (daCi) and the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific. With dance practitioners, advocates, educators and youth dance companies coming from all over the world, this has been an exciting project to plan, led by Dr Jeff Meiners and his Adelaide team, including Ausdance SA and many collaborating organisations. We all look forward to assisting with the program from July 8–13 this year. Registrations are still open, providing a rare opportunity for Australians to participate in a truly international dance event on home soil.
I am also assisting with the preparation of the June edition of Asia Pacific Channels, now produced in Malaysia by MyDance Alliance’s President, Bilqis Hijjas. I will provide an Australian chapter report, prepare the AGM agenda for publication, and coordinate tributes to the late Dr Linda Caldwell, co-founder of the Journal of Early Dance Scholarship (JEDS), which has published several important papers by young Australian dance scholars. Linda was based at Texas Women’s University, and is already greatly missed by WDA’s Australian network, with whom she worked closely at last year’s Global Summit in St John’s, Newfoundland.