Tertiary Dance Council federal election statement

The Tertiary Dance Council of Australia (TDCA) is comprised of academic members from Australian higher educational institutions that offer programs in Dance and Dance Education. It is chaired by Associate Professor Peter Cook, Deputy Head of the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland.

This national body has identified the absence of a national cultural policy that is inclusive of all art forms, their benefits and accessibility, and the impact of arts education and training on the lives of all Australians.

During the recent pandemic lockdowns, society turned to the arts which pivoted their practice for online audiences, and for aesthetic and well-being contingencies. The arts need to be recognised and celebrated for their capacity to nurture, develop and reinvigorate research for the benefit of the wider society.

The TDCA also has serious concerns about the Federal Government’s re-prioritisation of research funds resulting in ministerial intervention and the enacting of veto powers in relation to the Australia Research Council’s Discovery Grants and Linkage programs.

This narrowing of scope is taking place as we are facing, according to Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, “an unprecedented crisis in the cultural sector” (Reshaping policies for creativity). Although the arts and cultural sector is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world, it is also one of the most vulnerable and is often overlooked by public and private investment, including the distribution of public research funds.

Tertiary dance programs undertake practical academic explorations, often involving performance and choreography, that are completely aligned with research principles in their planning, execution and dissemination. They explore contemporary and cultural topics, develop theoretical positions, and engage methods and methodologies that work towards better understanding of, and knowledge about, the issues at hand.

Seeing the downturn of arts-based grants compounds already disenfranchised academics, many of whom are undertaking unfunded and in-kind research projects that benefit society.

Inclusion of arts research projects and their interdisciplinary approaches clearly fits the paradigms from which society benefits. Limiting arts research program funding endangers the unique contribution that arts research makes towards the aesthetic leadership and engagement of well-being, so required as we live through the pandemic world and its recovery.

The technologising of the field, together with its diversification and partnerships across science, health, humanities and ecology, evidences how dance enhances lives across generations and within communities.

We also note the following:

• Covid has had a major Impact on the sustainability of private dance schools, which are TDCA feeder schools.

• The extreme vulnerability of the arts in higher education.

Recommendations:

• Commitment by all political parties to the development of a National Cultural Policy that includes arts education and training, and developed in consultation with artists, arts educators, the community, industry and peak arts bodies.
• Allocation of ARC grants to a broader industry cohort to redress diminishing arts research in dance in particular. Ministerial interference in ARC decision-making processes must stop.
• Support for research into the vulnerability of the arts in higher education.
• Reversal of increased tertiary fees in the Creative Arts, made on the false premise that this area of study does not lead to employment.
• Enabling of research into the private dance studio sector to assess the impact of Covid-19 on the viability of this important ‘feeder’ sector in dance training and employment.