Australian Youth Dance Festival

2001 Australian Youth Dance Festival

By 2001 Ausdance National had run two very successful youth dance festivals which had significant Indigenous representation, a special aspect of the AYDF which Ausdance continued to encourage.

One major issue arising from both festivals however, was the need for development of new choreographic approaches to contemporary performance making in Australia. Ausdance sought support from the New Media Arts Fund of the Australia Council to host a prelude week, Creating Performance, to the AYDF for professional independent artists.

City: Armidale, NSW
Date: Creating Peformance—September 24 – 29,
AYDF September 24 to October 5, 2001
Venue: University of New England

Management team

AYDF curator: Julie Dyson
Project administration: Sandra Macarthur-Onslow and Rachael Jennings
Project administrative assistants: New England Conference Company
AYDF and Creating Performance facilitator: Andrew Morrish

Welcome to country

by Ms Pat Dixon

Launch: Latin Dancing with Rio Rhythmics

Special features

Creating Performance

Creating Peformance, for professional independent artists, included five days of intensive collaborative workshops with established performance makers, culminating in an evening of works in progress, many of which led to future professional collaborations.

The mentor artists were Wendy Morrow—space and architecture, Margie Medlin—lighting and film, Russell Milledge – multimedia and dance, Helen Herbertson—constructing meaning and Machine for Making Sense—sound installation and performance.

2001 Roundtable for Dance Education in Australian Schools

28 – 30 September 2001. Coordinator: Jeff Meiners. Attracted dance educators from every State and Territory.

AYDF workshop leaders and tutors included

Rowan Marchingo and Ingrid Kleinig from Legs on the Wall, Tarcisio Teatini-Climaco and Monica Lunardon from Rio-rhythmics, Wendy Morrow, Michael Hennessy, Tania Gammage, Ian Knowles, Gerard Veltre, Tammy Meeuwissen, Justin Rutzou, Adam Ventoura, Sivanes Phillipson, Clare Dyson, Sandi Woo, Cath Sims, Fay Ball, Jenny Barry, Ruth Osborne, Felicity Bott, Setefano Tele, Xiufang Wang, Jeff Meiners

Festival structure

Similar to the previous two AYDFs but incorporating morning and afternoon forums facilitated by Andrew Morrish as an alternative to leadership from emerging and independent dance artists. The Aboriginal Keeping Place in Armidale provided a focus for daily workshop in Indigenous culture.

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National participants

Steps YDC (WA), Extensions YDC (Qld), PCYC Deadly Dance Project (NSW), Macgregor High School (Qld), Arid Zone (Tennant Creek), Caloundra SHS (QLD), Clontarf Beach SHS (QLD), Quantum Leap YCE (ACT), the Carol Maddocks School (NSW).

International participant

Cath Sims (ex Ludus member) from the UK tutoring in youth dance practice

Funding

the NSW Government, the Australia Council Dance Fund, Festivals Australia, Third City of the Arts (Armidale) and Tourism NSW. The New Media Arts Fund provided funding for Creating Performance.