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Basic body-maintenance practices for professional dancers and serious dance students

This, the fourth book in the series Celebrating Dance in Asia and the Pacific, explores the current dance scene in Australia from a wide perspective that mirrors the creative engagement of artists with Australian culture and the landscape.

Screening for dance readiness is an accepted practice used to identify risk factors to injury and minimise “down time” from performance. The results can be used to design and implement programs to help directors, teachers and choreographers better understand possible physical limitations rather than perceive technical fault. Screening is not considered to be a strict filtering tool for acceptance into companies or dance schools but rather to gain a baseline profile of an individual and a good opportunity to introduce the dancer to healthcare providers. This paper aims to arm dance practitioners with practical, research-based strategies to apply in the realm of traditional teaching procedures.

Lesley Graham (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane) seeks to apply the findings of the Sport and Recreation Training Australia Draft Position Paper for the Australian Fitness Industry and the National Fitness Professional/Trainer Registration model, to the dance industry. The implications and appropriateness of these models are discussed with reference to a process of risk stratification in dance teaching.

March 2019 News

In this issue of Brolga, the writers outlay the reaches of what education in various dance contexts may mean. In its formal sense, education spans the time of learning which takes place in institutions such as schools, colleges and universities, whether public or private, or in classrooms and studios. While learning to learn still resonates through the actualities of such institutions, in today’s culture, the pervading principle is centred on vocational ends, on equipping the individual to take a place in employment statistics and the much vaunted economic progress.

For the first time in Australia there are national qualifications for the dance industry. Innovation & Business Skills Australia (IBSA), in consultation with experts in the dance industry, have created a new training package for the dance sector. It is called the Live Performance Training Package (CUA11).

Dr Phillips was an extraordinary contributor to dance in Australia, as a teacher, researcher and dance scholar. Maggi passed away in Perth on the evening of 31 March, surrounded by family and friends. Her dedication to dance practice and scholarship is well known, and she will be greatly missed by her friends and colleagues in the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific. Here Maggi's World Dance Alliance—Asia Pacific friends share their tributes.

What are the symptoms of burnout and how can dancers avoid them?

What better way to wrap up our year in dance than to recall some of the big 2014 moments in dance.

This year dance gave us much celebrating—what a wonderful way to spend a year! We honoured the discipline and dedication of our professional dance artists. We danced to make us happier and healthier. We saw dance used for rehabilitation. We made dance that celebrated all bodies. We watched dance that challenged our ideas about what dance should be. We were excited by new choreographic talent. We were inspired by the latest Australian dance thinking on show at the 2014 World Dance Alliance Global Summit. We celebrated big birthdays and said goodbye to old friends.

All Ausdance members are automatically members of the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific and it's a great opportunity to extend your own networks and participate in new culturally diverse opportunities at the annual WDA conferences and festivals.

Donna H. Krasnow, M.S.(York University Toronto, Canada) addresses a variety of issues that might currently be preventing a link between dance science research and dance practice. She hopes to create a language of communication between these two worlds, to enhance the viability of the research, and the sustainability of the practitioner.

The field of community dance literature is an emergent one, with very little written about the processes and ethical issues experienced in the dance class, workshops or stage. This paper explores problems identified during the development of a new community contemporary dance work, My Body is an Etching. The work began with a creative concept, endeavouring to collaborate with participants in the creation of a dance solo that was personal and discretely individual in the performance of everyday actions, yet accessible to people from all walks of life. The processes involved the identification of deeply etched or embodied actions and the development of these actions within a choreographed score.

This paper discusses the creative exploration of the concept (that human bodies are etched by their experiences), within the context of community dance and the issues that arise when working with such a concept amongst a community of individuals. It reveals the creative methods for the identification and retrieval of individual movement and the conceptual difficulties encountered when individual uniqueness is absorbed within a work for the masses. It asks what happens when a participant’s everyday or personal movement is reproduced for reasons outside its regular context and examines notions of ownership and the negotiation of power and control. The paper reveals ethical issues in the treatment of others’ movement, and refers to the literature of psychology and phenomenology in aligning the creative enquiry with an intellectual force that is interested in forms of memory and retrieval beyond the episodic.

Ausdance identifies improved standards in the workplace and increased sector knowledge of employee rights and employer obligations.

Another identified priority is increased professional development/training and support for small businesses and organisations to improve child safety, safer workplaces, safer spaces, safer bodies and minds in the whole dance community.

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This article was prepared by Ausdance Qld, and is designed to provide clarification about the status of Award pay rates for dance teachers.

Ross Stretton talks passionately from a performer's persepctive about the challenge for dancers to keep the dance personal, how not to lose the individual dance heritage under the weight of the collective heritage, and to embrace change.

Sarah Neville, (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane) talks about her choreographic project which was motivated by an attempt to understand some of her creative peers who were computer programmers. Her dance and technology research made her confront the fact that she is a choreographer whose work is deeply connected with, and influenced by, the digital age.

A list of government and philanthropic organsiations that have funding available for dance artists who meet specific criteria.

Identifies four ambitions for 2012, with a list of achievable objectives. These ambitions reflect the diversity and dynamism of dance in our communities. They require our energy and attention to ensure that dance, as an artform and an enjoyable form of recreation for all, remains at the heart of Australian life.

Christine Babinskas (PhD Candidate Victoria University) has been developing a movement practice that draws on various dance techniques, movement work within a drama context, improvisation, and often involving artists from other disciplines. Her movement has shifted from the strictly codified aesthetic of classical ballet, to something more indeterminate, open and unique.

The key message of the paper is that while observing a person moving, somatic and sensory processes are elicited and these have an impact on both the observer and the mover. The recognition of these processes is important to assessment, observation and clinical therapy protocols. The paper describes embodied awareness, including methods used in Authentic Movement, Dance, Dance/Movement Therapy, Body Psychotherapy, Body-Mind Centring, Sensory Awareness and Jungian Analysis. Arts-based practices can inform clinical practices, and embodied interaction in clinical practice can also inspire artistic research. The methodology of kinaesthetic attunement weaves subjective and objective experiences and can inform clinical relationships, childcare and educational practices.

The 2011 Dance Education in Australian Schools (DEAS) roundtable focused on providing feedback to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) on the Draft Shape Paper: The Arts. The roundtable also heard from several speakers and organisations about their role in advocating for dance in the curriculum. The roundtable was facilitated by dance educator and author David Spurgeon.

The the Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Creative and Cultural Industries and Institutions called for submissions to address five Terms of Reference (TOR).

Ausdance National responded by directly addressing the TOR from a dance perspective, adding extensive references by Dr Anja Ali-Haapala to support the submission.

This paper is about stillness. Using a phenomenological hermeneutic theoretical framework and drawing on my Master’s research Dance and Stillness (De Leon 2005), the poet T. S. Eliot, philosophical writings of Heidegger, Milner, Smythe, de Chardin and others, notions of equipoise and hysteresis, and an underlying Christocentric philosophy, the potential therapeutic value of this stillness is discussed. The Masters research involved creating a dance work, Stillpoint, exampling this notion of stillness. Dancers and watchers were questioned about their experience. Information was sought about the essence of the danced, watched and felt stillness and what constituted the lived experience of it. The ‘Dance of Paradox’ could seem to encompass oppositional currents—flow and undertow—yet not only are these currents symbiotic, they cannot exist without each other. All movement is contained within stillness and stillness is the core of all movement. The dancer who embodies the ‘stillpoint of the turning world’ realises time that is timeless; ultimately transformative.

Ausdance has joined other peak arts organisations in signing a letter to the Prime Minister, ministers and lord mayors, noting that 'At this most debilitating time in Australia’s cultural life, our creative, cultural and entertainment industries require urgent support to ensure that jobs and infrastructure survive to inspire Australians through this crisis – and well beyond.'

A helpful checklist for presenting a dance performance or project

Peter Brinson poses three questions: Why should there be a politics of dance? What political case for dance should dancers be advocating in today's circumstances? and What kind of political agenda should dancers develop to advance this case through the exercise of dance power?

Karen Barbour, Senior Lecturer in dance at the University of Waikato (NZ), talks about her personal experiences and her ideas about the sustainability of collaborative dance ventures

This publication of 16 papers with authors from 9 countries provides a snapshot representation of themes from the joint dance congress broadly embracing dance, gathering, generations, learning. The papers range from the beginnings of dance in the early years through the different stages of school and to further education – and beyond through the lifespan to the joys and challenges of dancing in later years with lived experiences that bring changing bodies, new insights and wisdom.

Ausdance National's achievements (1977–2016)

Summaries of the projects and/or areas of interest of the dance professionals and students who attended the 2012 National Dance Research Forum. 

This paper explores challenges facing dance educators working with pre-service primary teachers in the New Zealand context. An analysis and comparison of two national curriculum documents raises the question—how should a pre-service teacher education program for primary teachers respond to the demands of recent curriculum reforms? This paper discusses changes in teacher education that have had an impact on dance educators’ responses to curriculum demands. It details this impact using one particular teacher education institution (the University of Waikato) and discusses show how a cohort of students in 2008 views the current dance education provision. In conclusion, it offers an outline of some ways forward for dance educators.

Shona Erskine interviews Mark Gordon, director of the Australian Choreographic Centre, and Ruth Osborne, artistic director of the Quantum Leap Youth Choreographic Ensemble in Canberra. This discussion of the program, indicates how this kind of project can have a direct influence on the community and the public perception of dance.

Professor Shirley McKechnie (Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne) talks about the disparities that divide and exclude relationships between artists and communities in daily dance experience in her keynote address. What connects the disciplines?; how do we articulate the relationships between dance practices, the audiences we hope to engage, and the supporters that we hope to influence?

New Zealand dancer and choreographer Douglas Wright has been inspirational for many dancers with his innovative approach to both the creative process and to embodying the movement.

Reports indicate that dance-learning experiences provided for young people in and outside schools impact positively upon young people’s learning in schools, as well as in pre-service and professional development programs for those who teach dance in various settings. Support of major dance organizations as well as the goals of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) affirm the importance of dance education and encourage the research and practice to provide lifelong and intergenerational learning in, about and through dance education. This paper describes the results of a survey questionnaire, which captures the narratives and contexts from lived experiences of university students and graduates in formal, informal and non-formal settings and how those are experienced. This initial study confirmed the power of dance and the significance of dance in peoples’ lives as well as deficiencies in the provision of dance for many.

Dr Maggi Phillips (Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University Perth) examines the two ecologies of which human dance activity partakes within the frames of diversity, change and balance. Can environmental thinking shed any light on the problem of the sustainability of dance?

Marianne examine the influence that American and European dance and physical education has had on New Zealand's physical and artistic expression, gives modern dance a context within the social and cultural landscape of immediate post-WWll New Zealand.

Dance critic Kevin Ng talks to Professor Susan Street about her experiences as Dean of Dance at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Garry offers an excellent appraisal of the dance holdings at the National Film and Sound Archives in Canberra, and reminds us of the value of having dance on film to experience a history of dance.

Universities are not individually unique. They stand next to each other in the various hierarchies of excellence that are underpinned by commonalities of the various statures that they accrue in learning, teaching, research and a host of cultural and social impacts as are measured regionally, nationally and internationally. It is as we move toward closer international ties with our World Dance Alliance colleagues in higher education who work in dance that we look to our own ways and means with a view to revealing what we, in the UK, do in our delivery of dance to higher education students, and some of the constraints within which we work. With this in hand as a reference, we might then seek to discuss with our colleagues in other countries the many ways and means in which the similarities and differences have emerged from our various contexts as we all work towards inspiring the next generation of dancing graduates.

Susan Graham examines macro level environmental and political influences on two dance forms that represent the cultural origins of modern day bicultural Aotearoa New Zealand—kapa haka and ballroom dancing. The historical origins, foci and functions of both forms will be compared and traced over the past one hundred years.

Paige Gordon talks frankly about her career as a dancer and choregrapher in Canberra before she was appointed Artsistic Director of Buzz Dance Theatre in Perth.

Professor Susan Street presented the eighth Dame Peggy Van Praagh Memorial Address alongside David McAllister, Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet. She explores some of the major challenges faced by the dance sector and reflects on some of the achievements.

This paper acknowledges the influences that a generation Y population brings to dance training methodologies and examines this impact in a tertiary context. Over the last 4 years, Queensland University of Technology has been modifying their curriculum for new students transitioning from the private dance studio into the prevocational university environment. An intensive training program was designed to empower the student, creating effective entry points for common understandings in the learning and teaching of dance techniques with improved and accelerated learning outcomes. This paper shares these philosophies and practices in training for life-long learning that prepare the young dancer for longevity in the industry.

West Australian Dalcroze expert, Joan Pope OAM establishes how much of an enigma Mary Whidborne is today, because it seems that she was the first significant teacher of Dalcroze Eurhythmics in this country.

Adrian J. Lowe writes a history of the Perth-based contemporary dance company Buzz Dance Theatre. He writes from the perspective of an observer for those who may have an interest in dance, but not necessarily a working knowledge of the art form.

The paper advocates for the possibilities of dance in community development and place-making contexts through its proposition of a ‘phenomenology of belonging’. From her vantage as facilitator/director of video series Dancing Place, the author observes sensory interactions between participants’ bodies and the sites in which they performed, as enhancing relationality between participants and place.

Conceived as part of an ARC Discovery Project exploring potentials of artistic methods to challenge neighbourhood-based stigma, led by sociologist Deborah Warr, and employing the expertise of screendance artist Dianne Reid to create the video works, Dancing Place invited diverse residents of Wyndham, Victoria, to dance to their favourite music in their favourite local sites. Through reflection upon the project, the author teases out issues of visibility, embodiment, identity, marginalisation and changing relationships to place.

The participants of varied cultural and social backgrounds, age, gender and levels of dance training, inevitably chose to dance in very different styles and places. The paper explores some political and social ramifications of (being represented via video) dancing in relation to place for particular groups and individuals, and outlines the facilitating artist’s motivations for the project’s structural framework. Rather than presuming or contriving a unified ‘community’, the nine distinctively discrete videos were presented side by side, which collectively evoked a sense of co-presence, or parallel belonging.   

Nina Melita gives an account of Pavlova's first Australian tour, during which the famous dancer astounded her audiences with her artistry and passion. Pavlova was an honest and outspoken person who did not particularly enjoy attention from the press.

Marilyn Rowe pays tribute to the woman who not only had an enormouse impact on Marilyn peronally, but whose creative influence fostered and nurtured Australian talent, and who imbued her dancers with a confidence and belief in themselves which allowed them to excell both nationally and internationally.

Dancer, dance educator, dance maker, dance critic, Hilary Crampton (University of Melbourne) presents her views about the current state of play within the Australian dance sector. She highlights three aspects of the sector: the education and training system; the structure of what the politicians like to refer to as ‘the arts industry' and the policy system that regulates art form practice through artists' reliance on its beneficence.

Ausdance has pleasure in announcing the return of the Australian Dance Awards for the first time since 2018.

The Australian Dance Awards celebrate the rich diversity and uniqueness of dance in Australia with national companies, performers and collaborating artists, dedicated studio, school and tertiary teachers, regional and remote artists, independents and astounding youth and community dance groups.  

A historical overview of the development of the New Zealand dance curriculum from the early twentieth century to the present day reveals shifting meanings and emphases from military drills to gymnastics, eurhythmics, creative movement, European folk dance and cultural Maori dance. In the last decade however, dance in the New Zealand school curriculum has arguably gone through its most influential change as it shifted from the physical education curriculum to the arts curriculum.

This curriculum shift refined and focussed the academic study of dance in New Zealand primary, secondary and tertiary education contexts. This article focuses upon curriculum and the key persons shaping curriculum development and its delivery in New Zealand from the early 1900s to the present day.

During the first (and up to now, last) performance in October 2002 of the carefully and laboriously reconstructed sacred Bedhaya Semang in the Yogyakarta Palace—an aspiration to rival or at least to balance that of the Bedhaya Ketawang in the competing sister city’s Surakarta Palace—the Sultan Hamengku Buwana X, in full Javanese ceremonial dress sat on the upper level of the royal hall, and gave audience to the public for his coronation anniversary. As official videographer of the reconstruction, my attention was on the dance. I was shocked to hear reports that while my eyes were on the dancers rather than the Sultan, at some point he had lit up a cigar during the performance.

This paper firstly examines theoretical perspectives on dance and disability with a discussion of the ideal dancing body and strategies for how the disabled body may reiterate or disrupt such constructions. Secondly, it presents concrete analyses of two works by Touch Compass as an illustration of the ways in which disability and the dancing body on stage are constructed through choreographic imagery and iconography.

Kohe and Newman investigate the parallels between sport and dance studies and also consider the emerging discipline called 'physical cultural studies'. They suggest that an intercourse between study of dance and study of sport "could provide novel methodological, theoretical, and metaphysical spaces which transcend disciplinary moorings."

The focus of this article is an initial investigation of general pedagogical approaches of local yoga teachers and their specific insights in working with dancers. I engage with broad themes of how we ‘contemporise the past and envisage the future’ as I explore the pedagogical challenges and transformations offered from learning about yoga pedagogy. Literature on yoga and dance pedagogy that focuses on experiential and embodied ways of knowing provides a broader context from which to understand my own and local teachers’ practices. Framed within feminist and phenomenological perspectives, I draw on the qualitative research method of in-depth interviewing in order to delve into yoga teacher’s lived experiences in Aotearoa New Zealand. I reflect on these interview findings to offer a consideration of pedagogical practices of yoga teachers in relation to dancers.

Jonathan Bollen explores the utility of actor-network theory for researching performance. The focus of his analysis is Australian Dance Theatre's Devolution created as a collaboration between choreographer Garry Stewart and robotics artist Louis-Philippe Demers.

Sue talks about the challenges of sustainability for contemporary dance in Australia, and argues that the notion of creativity should be at the core of future debates about the intrinsic, cultural and economic benefits of dance.

Paulo Freire and John Dewey are helping the youth of Cabelo Seco in the southern reaches of the Amazon to reclaim their violated community. Freire (1921–1997) and Dewey (1859–1952) remain alive in Cabelo Seco, identified as one of Brazil’s most dangerous communities. After describing the context of Cabelo Seco, the local community arts projects and the philosophies driving this work, I examine meanings of community dance in Cabelo Seco. Utilising a constructivist methodology that values dialogic interaction to build shared understandings, interviews and observations provide insights into diverse ways that people experience, value and make meaning from dance in community contexts. Dewey, Freire, Eisner, Boal, Zequinha and other arts educators are ever present in Cabelo Seco; understanding a lineage of influence helps to examine current practices and envision future projects. This paper explores the shifting and emerging role of dance in this community, focusing on how dance is helping to reclaim it.

Dance educators at every level are aligning their teaching with wider educational goals. The general education movement in higher education, as well as the standards movement in the public schools, ask us to focus on student learning objectives that require analysis, critical thinking, multi-cultural awareness, and student engagement with social problems. This paper describes the pedagogical approach to Afro-Caribbean Dance at Bronx Community College, where the class combines a studio and lecture component. The integration of movement lessons, lectures, and writing assignments is discussed, focusing on addressing these broader educational concerns and motivating student activism.

Assessment frames the focus of this paper, which emerges from our collaborative research, Dancing Between Diversity and Consistency: Refining Assessment in Postgraduate Degrees in Dance, funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC). We examine the attributes of danced ‘doctorateness’, giving special attention to those factors in the Australian environment, which may endow resilience to concepts of excellence, independent thinking and originality when kinaesthetic knowledge becomes pivotal to research. Have the small pool of examiners and relationships between academia and the professional artistic environment shaped these doctorates in a particular way? Can these perspectives illuminate and forge parameters by which to legitimate danced insight? These and related issues are interrogated giving voice to supervisors, research deans, candidates and industry professionals across Australia who participated in this research project.

Susan Whitford explores the home-grown nature of West Australian Ballet and the outward-looking strategies that the company embraced. WAB experienced a long list of significant directors and choreographers (both Australian and international) who led the company from strength to strength.

This paper sets out to inform both theory and practice for dance educators as they meet the demands of multiple dance heritages in today’s classrooms.

In this paper Ann Kipling Brown presents an overview of the association and the place of performance at the triennial conferences. Following this discussion, three other daCi members, Kathy Vlassopoulos, Karen Bond and Jeff Meiners, whose work focuses on dance for young people, describe specific events and experiences they have created that reflect the aims of the association.

Firstly, Kathy Vlassopoulos describes the Children’s Dance Festival, held annually in Melbourne, Australia. The festival was initiated in1996 and creates a site-specific event that provides the opportunity for children to experience dance through a collaborative process with professional artists.

Secondly, Karen Bond gives an account of daCi’s 2nd Intergenerational Gathering, titled Out of many, we are One. Over an intensive three-day period, participants explored a progression of dancing and performing related to themes of self, community, and the future.

And thirdly, Jeff Meiners focuses on the creation of work for young children, spanning the years from birth to eight, and explores the nature of the work being created and the responses of the young children as active audience members.

Dance and movement lecturer at Ballarat University, David Wynen gives an entertaining account of the "journey to performance" in terms of time and money restraints, melding different dance styles and negotiating with bureaucrats.

Annette Gillen (nee Dunlop) remembers performances of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in Sydney, and their direct influence on her becoming a dancer—first as a student of Helene Kirsova and then as a professional dancer in the Kirsova and Borovansky Ballets.

Dr Mark Carroll describes the people, press and politics in Adelaide when Colonel Wassily de Basil arrived for the first Australian tour of his Ballet Russes in 1936.

The production, performance and perception of music has been studied in detail by cognitive psychologists. Music has been recognized as a window into cognition. The status of dance, however, is less clear. The authors propose that contemporary dance too affords insight into human cognition and can be powerfully communicative.

This publication of 31 papers with authors from 13 countries takes as its focus the theme that was the title and driving force of the activities comprising the 2014 WDA Global Summit. The Summit embraced Contemporising the past: envisaging the future in an interconnection between theory and practice, as echoed in the Proceedings through papers by artist/scholars and artist/teachers. The Summit program featured 346 presenters across 38 countries and included: an international conference of 197 presentations; 31 showcase performances featuring 83 dancers; 34 masterclasses with 24 teachers and 650 participants; and a choreolab with mentors Robert Swinston and Germaine Acogny working with 4 emerging international choreographers and 38 dancers. In addition there were evening performances featuring the work of French companies including Robert Swinston’s Event and Olivier Dubois with his controversial work Tragedie. The principal aim of the Summit was to provide a supportive platform for sharing research and creative work, as well as nurturing professional development opportunities. Importantly this gathering was a networking opportunity to forge new partnerships, potential collaborations and to strengthen existing relationships.