Ausdance National News—dec 2006
Advocacy
Petitions
With another grant round recently announced for triennial and program
organisations, the Australia Council’s Dance Board again had the
almost impossible task of deciding how best to spend its very limited
funds. With its own triennial funding now being considered by the
Federal Government, the Australia Council is in the situation where
it is the minor player in the funding of small to medium dance
organisations, with a ratio of 70% State/Territory funding to 30%
Federal funding.
Ausdance National therefore decided to organise
Petitions to both the House of Representatives and the Senate,
to draw the attention of Federal MPs and Senators to this situation.
With the assistance of the Ausdance network, about 1,300 signatures
were gathered for each House. Senator Gary Humphries (ACT) and
Ms Jackie Kelly (Member for Lindsay, NSW), presented the Petitions
to Parliament on 9 and 16 October respectively. Ausdance National
President Susan Street and Executive Officer Julie Dyson were in
Parliament to see the Senate Petition presented, and later met
with Arts Minister Rod Kemp, Senator Coonan’s arts adviser Natasha
Maclaren, and Peter Garrett’s adviser Andrew Palfreyman. The Petitions
appear in the relevant Hansards at <www.aph.gov.au> with
the following wording (also addressed to Senators):
To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
assembled in parliament
The petition of members of the Australian
dance profession draws the attention of the House to an issue identified
in 2001 by the Cultural Ministers Council. While we applaud recent
investment in the major performing arts sector, we also note that
the CMC identified the value of all performing arts to the broader
cultural ecology. Since then numerous reports have pointed to unsustainable
levels of funding in the small to medium enterprise sector, particularly
in dance. This is preventing long-term investment in Australia’s
internationally-recognised creators and innovators, and limiting
their capability and the potential to provide arts opportunities
locally and across the nation.
Your petitioners urgently request Members, through bilateral action
with the States and Territories, to enhance Federal funding levels
to enable recognition of, and investment in, Australian creativity
and performance at all levels. We request Members to recognise
that creative artists make a significant contribution to the innovation
economy, and that this contribution occurs not only in the major
performing arts sector, but equally significantly in small to medium
arts enterprises. We remind Members that investment in a sustainable
and viable performing arts industry is essential if Australia is
to even maintain current levels of cultural creativity, innovation
and development, and remain competitive in the international arena.
On 24 October, Ausdance National sent all Federal MPs and Senators
a letter summarising the issues raised in the Petitions with copies
of the relevant Hansard pages.
We emphasise that this is not a campaign of complaint, but one
of positive reinforcement, i.e with only a relatively small increase
in investment by the Federal Government, there is enormous unmet
potential for this highly visible sector. Please contact your local
Ausdance office for information about how to participate in this
campaign – your voice is incredibly important!
PARTNERSHIPS & PROJECTS
SCOPE project
The ‘Securing Career Opportunities for Professional Employment’
(SCOPE) project – a partnership between the Australian Sports Commission
and its Athlete Career Education (ACE) program, the Australia Council
and Ausdance – combines arts, sport and education resources to
advance career opportunities for dance artists as part of their
professional lives.
SCOPE project manager Kay Helliwell was appointed
in October to work with ACE Director John Waser, and she has begun
to assess the Ausdance/ACE pilot which took place with 20 professional
dancers in 2005/06. Kay comes from a sports psychology background
and has a high level of skill in developing online resources, career
education networks and support and advice systems for professional
athletes. She will work with a dance steering committee from Ausdance
(Julie Dyson), the Australia Council (Michelle Vickers) and Shane
Carroll, former Chair of the Dance Board. This is an exciting partnership
which will open up many new opportunities for professional dancers
as their careers progress.
International Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS) Conference 2007
The call for papers and workshop proposals has now been published
for this conference (see p.27), which again links sport and dance
in an innovative and exciting partnership between The Australian
Ballet School, Ausdance and the Australian Institute of Sport.
The 17th IADMS Conference will be held in Canberra from 25 to
28 October at the AIS, and Australian teachers and artists are
strongly encouraged to participate as the world’s leading dance
scientists and practitioners reveal their latest research. We
also encourage Australian researchers to submit papers and proposals
so that there is a strong contingent of presenters from this
country. As the IADMS conference has always been held in the
northern hemisphere, this is a rare opportunity to participate,
and at the same time see the world class facilities at the AIS.
For further information visit the 2007 IADMS website at <www.iadms2007.com>.
Treading the Pathways
A new project manager will shortly be appointed to follow up on
recommendations from Creating Pathways, the national Indigenous
dance forum held last year at the National Museum of Australia.
The Australia Council recently issued its report of the event,
and has funded the new position which will be supported by the
Ausdance network. An Indigenous steering committee will work
with the project officer, and it is anticipated that the SCOPE
manager will also provide access to resources for Indigenous
professional dancers.
Dame Peggy van Praagh bequest
Although Dame Peggy van Praagh died in 1990, her will was not finally
settled until recently. The Trustees have been mindful of her
desire to advance choreographic development in Australia, and
settled on four organisations which they felt would best advance
that cause, two of which Dame Peggy helped to found: The Australian
Ballet, where she was founding Artistic Director in 1962, and
Ausdance, where she was one of the six founders in 1977. Other
bequest recipients were The Australian Choreographic Centre and
the School of Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts. Cheques
for $75,000 each were presented by the Trustees in September
at a lunch in honour of Shirley McKechnie’s contribution to the
VCA. It will now be up to recipients to determine how best to
use this generous bequest. The Ausdance National Council will
discuss ideas at its March 2007 meeting, hopefully making an
announcement as part of the 30th birthday celebrations later
in the year.
Dance company managers’ meeting
The Australian Ballet convened a very productive meeting of company
managers at its Melbourne headquarters on 22 September. There
were opportunities to hear from each company, to share ideas,
to talk about Ausdance projects and activities and to work through
some advocacy suggestions. Some of the outcomes included the
formation of a small advocacy committee to look at the possibility
of producing a Dance Manifesto, similar to the one published
in the UK; agreement to convene a joint meeting next year between
tertiary dance directors and artistic directors (the first since
1989); and discussion, through Ausdance, with State and Territory
education departments about the inclusion of Australian dance
on study lists for Year 11 and 12 students. Australia Council
representatives (Dance Board and Major Performing Arts Board)
made short presentations and provided statistics to enable better
understanding of the current funding environment. Dominique Fisher,
the new chair of the Dance Board, also attended to meet many
people for the first time. The generous hospitality of The Australian
Ballet was much appreciated, and special thanks are due to the
AB’s Executive Director, Richard Evans, who co-ordinated and
chaired the meeting.
The Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)
CHASS held a special one-day forum in Melbourne on 26 September
to examine the impact on the visual and performing arts of the
new RQF (research quality framework), about to be introduced
into universities by the Federal Government. There were some
excellent contributions to this forum, which was designed by
Professor David Williams and Julie Dyson, and all tertiary arts
organisations (including the Tertiary Dance Council) contributed.
As a result, a CHASS letter outlining the issues agreed to has
been sent to the Department of Education, Science and Training
Minister, Julie Bishop. The forum was also covered in the Higher
Education Supplement of The Australian in October.
The CHASS AGM was held in Sydney in September with several new
board members elected, including the new President, Professor Stuart
Cunningham of QUT, who replaces Professor Malcolm Gillies, the
inaugural President. Julie Dyson was re-elected as Treasurer for
another year. A list of the new board can be found on the CHASS
website at <www.chass.org.au>.
New accident and injury insurance for Ausdance members
Ausdance has been working with Aon Risk Services to develop a new
insurance product for artists and students in the event of accident
and injury, and it will be available shortly – only for Ausdance
members – at around $100 per year. A table of benefits is available
from Aon on its toll-free number 1800 805 191. A new frequently
asked questions section about insurance for the dance profession
is also available on the Ausdance website at <www.ausdance.org.au>.
EDUCATION
Schooldance
This is the name given to the Ausdance project outlined in Helen
Cameron’s research, and profiled in this edition of Dance Forum.
As noted in this report, professional development for teachers
and artists who want to work as educators will be the focus of
this project initially, but essentially it will be about finding
consistency in standards and providing benchmarks for dance education
across the country, as recommended in both the visual arts and
music education reports, without prescribing curriculum content.
Active After‑Schools Communities program (AASC)
The AASC is an initiative of the Federal Government, and is designed
to provide physical activities which promote active and healthy
lifestyles in young people. This well-resourced program is based
at the Australian Sports Commission in Canberra and is available
to schools throughout Australia, but from 2007 – with the backing
of Ausdance – it will incorporate creative movement options,
enabling the development of new dance resources as part of the
package. This is another exciting partnership between sport and
dance, and Ausdance looks forward to participating in the development
of guidelines to ensure the highest standards of competency in
deliverers.
National Affiliation of Arts Educators (NAAE)
The NAAE’s 2006 AGM was convened in Sydney on 2 October at the
Drama Australia conference. A major discussion point was the
issue of consistency across the country, both in delivery of
arts education and in resources. All art form education associations
were represented at the meeting, and the Australia Council’s
former education officer, Gillian Gardner, also provided a report
on its current arts education activities. Dance representatives
attending were Julie Dyson, Jeff Meiners and Lesley Graham, all
proactive members of the association on behalf of dance and arts
education generally. There was great enthusiasm for re-energising
the NAAE and raising its profile, and to this end, the association
will be jointly chaired in 2007 by Julie Dyson (Ausdance) and
Sandra Gattenhof (Drama Australia).
RESEARCH
Ausdance online – focus on dance research
As reported in the Spring edition of Dance Forum, a new research
portal is being developed by Ausdance National, designed to reflect
the many aspects of dance research now being undertaken in Australia.
The new site will bring together some of the current Australian
Research Council projects, a new project being undertaken by several
Tertiary Dance Council members with funding from the Carrick Institute,
and a listing of the increasing number of postgraduate dance theses.
The March 07 edition of Dance Forum will focus on research in dance,
and particularly highlight performance as research.
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