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The Dance & Sport partnership initiative

Ausdance National and The Australian Institute of Sport recently formed a new partnership aimed at helping dancers/athletes with career, educational and personal development services. Here, Julie Dyson, National Executive Officer of Ausdance, outlines how the pilot National Athlete Career and Education program (ACE) works.

Ausdance National has been working for many years to address the issues of dancers’ transition. We first commissioned and published a report called ‘Dancers Transition’ in 1989, researched by Catherine Beall, which revealed for the first time many of the concerns of dancers, including their education, lack of access to counselling, career guidance and further training, other work experience opportunities, etc. At the same time we commissioned and published the first Safe Dance report, researched by Tony Geeves, and we found that many of the issues were linked to the health and education of dancers. This led Ausdance National to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), where we began to identify common problems but, more importantly, solutions in their well-resourced programs for elite athletes.

Last December the Australia Council assisted me to attend the Monaco Dance Forum where the issues of dancers’ transition were debated by an international group facilitated by the International Organisation for the Transition of Professional Dancers (IOTPD). The Australians present agreed that it was highly unlikely that a Dancers Transition Centre would ever be established in Australia, given the economic climate for the arts here, but the forum inspired us to further our negotiations with the AIS about access for professional dancers to their wonderful Athlete Career and Education (ACE) program.

With the assistance of the ACE program director, John Waser, we quickly established that he and his team of State/Territory-based ACE centres would be willing to provide places for up to three professional dancers from each State and Territory as a 12-month pilot program in 2005/06.

Together we developed selection criteria and advertised the program through the Ausdance network. We assessed the applications at a meeting at the AIS in August, and selected 20 people who we felt would most benefit from the program.

Demand has been ongoing for many years, with Ausdance EOs often asked about any programs of assistance which might be available to dancers. One of the roles of Ausdance National is to work with State and Territory EOs to identify areas of need, and then to create opportunities for the dance profession as a whole, mainly through innovative partnerships which provide access to new resources. The ACE program is a perfect example of a major institution (the AIS) sharing resources and providing direct assistance to the dance profession.

Numbers and quality of applicants were important factors in the pilot, and we were delighted that there was such a good response in the first year when the program was virtually unknown. Dancers who will benefit this year include a range of professional artists, from four principals of The Australian Ballet to several high profile independent artists. However, for privacy reasons Ausdance National will not be releasing the names unless we have the approval of participants.

The ACE program provides:

• Career counselling and planning to assist athletes/dancers to identify career pathways and implement plans to achieve their career goals.
• Personal development training courses to help athletes/dancers develop skills in public speaking and media presentation, job interviews, resume development, career planning and time management, and lifeskills such as cooking, budgeting and financial management.
• Educational guidance and information on school and university education, TAFE courses, vocational training programs, course selection and alternative study pathways incorporating Distance Education and flexible delivery.
• Employment Preparation to help athletes/dancers develop skills to become ‘job ready’—writing resumes and job applications, job search and interviews.
• Access to career referral networks in the business community to identify potential career interests, sources of employment, work experience and sponsored courses provided by a wide range of organisations.
• Ongoing transitional support to guide athletes/dancers through all transition phases including deselection, retirement, injury, rehabilitation and relocation.

In terms of measuring the success of the program, we will be discussing whether the dancers’ personal needs were met, how well the program met their expectations and inviting them to make any suggestions about the program as it relates to the needs of dancers. We will also be looking at Dancers’ Transition centres in other countries and working with the AIS on any features which may be useful to the ACE program, and which might assist it to further meet the needs of dancers. However, we must also remember that this Ausdance partnership has been entirely resourced by the AIS at this stage, and that any additional features (or indeed any additional places) may need further financial resourcing. It is hoped that support will be ongoing, with new places advertised each year once this pilot has been evaluated.

Ausdance National is very proud of this partnership and of its potential to deliver a uniquely Australian solution to the career development of its great performers, both in dance and in athletics.