Australian Youth Dance Festival

• 2009 AYDF
• accommodation
• contacts

• about AYDF
• background
• 1997 AYDF
• 1999 AYDF
• 2001 AYDF
• 2004 AYDF
• 2006 AYDF

Background

In 1996 Ausdance National identified a major gap in the networking of youth and young artists.

Many young people were already expressing themselves through dance in unique and creative ways. However, in a country this size, there was virtually no contact with their peers with similar interests in other cities and towns.

Ausdance, also hoped to address some of the social issues faced by young people isolated by distance, population, regional and racial tensions, a focus which helped influence the choice of host city for the festival.

Ausdance decides to hold a festival focusing on

1. The dance culture of young people from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities, particularly in regional Australia.
2. Communicating cross-cultural issues.
3. Employing young professional Australian artists to work with youth dance participants.
4. Sharing information and a vision for dance and dance education.
5. Providing networking opportunities for the youth dance community in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
6. Developing and refining youth dance policy for Ausdance, funding and education bodies and community arts networks.

Darwin, home of the first Australian Youth Dance Festival

In 1997 Ausdance held the inaugural Australian Youth Dance Festival.

This event provided young professional artists with new clarity about their place in the profession. It provided young people still at school with an opportunity to see dance in a much broader context than is normally possible at their stages of development. Their teachers and group leaders also benefited from a combination of discussion and debate, performance and inservicing.

A youth advisory panel assists in the design and implementation of the program

In the best tradition of ‘self-determination’, this first AYDF was primarily about empowering young people to be responsible for their own art form practice where possible. It was a major milestone for Ausdance National in its search for new ways to address some of the issues of concern to young people.

The youth advisory committee recommended topics for discussion which addressed contemporary issues (although not necessarily contemporary dance), and their particular interests in the festival were in finding new ways of working and collaborating.

Each Australian Youth Dance Festival has offered unique features and provided some of the most outstanding dance experiences available to young people in Australia.