September 2006
What's happening in Dance Forum magazine?
This edition of Dance Forum focuses
on the work of Australian dance photographers, those artists who
provide us with the images so essential to dance performance. Seven
prominent photographers talk about their work, surrounded by some
of their own favourite photographs.
Ausdance National would like to take this opportunity to thank all
the many photographers who have contributed their images to Dance
Forum in the past.
Members will notice some changes with this edition as we work towards
a stronger integration between Ausdance Online and our print publications.
Our guest editorial now introduces the feature articles, and we begin
with Ausdance updates to highlight some of the work undertaken by
this office and the Ausdance network.
Advocacy
The recent resignation of Sydney Dance Company directors Graeme
Murphy and Janet Vernon prompted Ausdance National to again highlight
in the media issues for smaller dance organisations and independent
artists. The letter below was published in The Canberra Times on
19 July.
Artists
need help
The resignation of Sydney Dance Company directors Graeme Murphy
and Janet Vernon reflects a peculiar mix of success and failure
— while Australia has produced a number of incredibly exciting
and innovative dance creators, the art form itself remains severely
under-resourced. The departure of Murphy and Vernon simply underlines
the unsustainable nature of trying to survive as a creative artist
in this country.
As smaller dance companies disappear and independent choreographers
struggle to make a living, there has still been no action taken
by the Federal Government to address the recommendations in the
2004 report
Resourcing dance: An analysis of the subsidised Australian dance
sector. Unsustainable funding models lead to the inevitable —
a lack of capacity to support development, and burnout and frustration
in some of our most talented creators, many of whom live well
below the poverty line.
Australia can ill afford to lose the immense contribution these
artists make to our lives, to our economy and to our identity.
Australian dance — at all levels of creation and performance
— will never be able to sustain the talents of its artists unless
there is the political will to address these issues, and soon.
Julie Dyson, national executive officer,
Australian Dance Council — Ausdance
Braddon
The
Canberra Times heading on this letter, ‘Artists need help’,
prompted further correspondence:
The heading given to my letter,
published today, is misleading and reinforces the perception
that artists are on the take. Far from ‘needing help’, artists
have proved to be some of the most self sufficient and productive
workers in our community. What’s needed is long term investment
in them as valued creators and innovators. Inventions die unless
there is belief and investment in the inventor. It’s the same
in the arts.
Both letters were forwarded to the Arts Minister Senator Rod
Kemp and Opposition Arts spokesperson, Peter Garrett, with whom
we had a further meeting in August to discuss policy development.
We also sent dance companies, independent artists, the Tertiary
Dance Council and Ausdance boards online details of the ALP discussion
paper, and encouraged their responses, either directly to his
office or to Ausdance National for inclusion in our meeting.
A full report of our meeting will be provided in the Summer 06
edition of Dance Forum.
PARTNERSHIPS & PROJECTS
SCOPE project
Following the announcement in May that the Australia Council
was to invest $560,000 in the SCOPE (Securing Career Opportunities
and Professional Employment for Dancers) project, contracts
have now been exchanged between the Australia Council and the
Australian Sports Commission to enable the employment of a
project manager. The position has been advertised nationally,
and an announcement will be made shortly about the appointee.
The new manager will be located at the Australian Institute of
Sport under the direction of Athlete Career Education (ACE) director
John Waser. A dance steering committee will provide advice to
the new manager for a project which aims to extend the career
opportunities for dancers through provision of advice, resources
and information, similar to that offered by international dancers’
transition centres. One of the first tasks of the new project
manager will be to assess the outcomes of the Ausdance/ACE pilot
program in which 20 professional dancers participated in 2005-06.
As the initiating organisation for the project, Ausdance National
will remain on the steering committee, and its logo will be included
on marketing material. A national launch of the project will
be held later this year.
Dance Curator
at the National Library
Well-known dance writer and advocate, Lee Christofis, has been
appointed as the new Curator of Dance at the National Library
of Australia, and he is extremely well qualified to continue
Michelle Potter’s wonderful work as founding curator (see p.5).
Lee will move to Canberra from Melbourne to commence work at
the NLA on 18 September. Ausdance National is particularly
proud of this collaborative project, having initiated the establishment
of the dance curator’s position, firstly at the National Film
and Sound Archive and then at the NLA (funded by the Australia
Council), where there has been tremendous support for the dance
curator. Michelle has now left the library for her new position
as Curator of Dance at the Jerome Robbins Dance Collection,
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, but it is
certain that her links with Australia will remain strong, both
personally and professionally.
International
Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS) Conference 2007
With the generous assistance of Arts Minister Senator Rod Kemp
and his department, the IADMS consortium of The Australian Ballet
School, the Australian Sports Commission and Ausdance National
has appointed conference organisers ICMS Pty Ltd to assist with
the first IADMS conference to be held in the southern hemisphere.
Coloured postcards have been produced, and are available from
Ausdance offices throughout the country, and from the other partners.
The dates for the conference are October 25-28 2007, and further
information can be found on the 2007 IADMS website at <www.iadms2007.com>
Treading the Pathways
Ausdance National has now exchanged contracts with the Australia
Council to enable the employment of an Indigenous dance officer
to follow up on recommendations from Creating Pathways (see Dance
Forum, Summer 05). Treading the Pathways, as the new project
is called, will enable the promotion of career opportunities,
international exposure and networking to help bridge the gaps
that often separate Indigenous dancers from the rest of the profession.
Projects such as SCOPE (see above) will also provide additional
opportunities for Indigenous dance artists. The formation of
an Indigenous steering committee and the collective participation
of the Ausdance network will be essential elements of the delivery
strategy for the project, with the possibility that an Ausdance
office will be invited to host the project manager.
Council for Humanities, Arts and Social
Sciences (CHASS)
As a member of the CHASS Executive, Ausdance National is involved
in assisting with planning for a conference of directors of
visual and performing arts courses in Melbourne on 26 September.
With creative arts students numbering 56,000, or 6.2% of higher
education enrolments in Australian universities in 2005, this
workshop aims to strengthen the network of university-based
peak bodies whose constituents are the major providers of these
courses. The program ‘will provide a forum for an update on
developments and discussion about issues of defining research,
research outcomes and the measurement of impact in the visual
and performing arts as it relates to the Research Quality Framework
(RQF)’. It is anticipated that the Tertiary Dance Council will
be well represented at this workshop, as will other providers
of tertiary arts training in Australia.
‘To Hell with Culture’ was a forum organised by CHASS in Melbourne
in August with public advocates John Holden (Capturing Cultural
Value: How culture has become a tool of government policy), Head
of Culture at Demos in London, and Stuart Cunningham (What Price
a Creative Economy?), Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence
for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University
of Technology. Questions such as ‘How has culture fallen into
bad odour with politicians? How can public support be enlisted?
Why is culture important, and how can its value be explained?
Do cultural institutions need to adopt a fresh strategic approach?
Who has to be persuaded, and what are the best tactics for each
audience? Is it just Australia?’ were addressed.
See CHASS website <www.chass.org.au> for further details.
Australian Dance Awards
In partnership with Ausdance NSW, Ausdance National and the network
are again working to ensure that the 2006 Australian Dance Awards
are cause for wide celebration and support. Ausdance NSW is,
as usual, taking on the mammoth task of presenting the awards,
this year with financial assistance from the Ausdance network,
as well as several sponsors, Bloch, the City of Sydney, the Sydney
Opera House and Aon Risk Services.
Ausdance National is again co-ordinating the nominations process,
and we are pleased to report that there has been a good response
to the call for nominations. All nominees will be published on
the Ausdance website in November, and in the meantime the following
panel is participating in the selection process of this year’s
winners (see p.3, Dance Forum Winter 06), to be announced at
the Sydney Opera House on 19 November.
Robina Beard (panel convenor)
Philip Piggin (ACT) Philip Rolfe (NSW)
Jill Sykes (NSW) Lee Christofis (VIC) Stephanie Glickman (VIC)
Gail Hewton (QLD) Cheryl Stock (QLD) Catherine Goss (WA) Gabrielle
Sullivan (WA) Greg Hordacre (SA) Carol Wellman (SA) Fiona Reilly
(TAS) Elspeth Hurse (NT)
The dance film panel for 2006 is Helen Simondson,
Erin Brannigan and Megan Harding.
EDUCATION
Tertiary Dance Council of Australia (TDCA)
The second TDCA meeting for 2006 was held in Melbourne in July
over two days, chaired by Nanette Hassall. Guests included
Jennifer McLachlan, Director of the Australia Council’s Dance
Board, Mark Gordon, Director of The Australian Choreographic
Centre, and the IADMS team of Janet Karin and Lucinda Sharp
from The Australian Ballet School. Advocacy for dance is a
major issue for the TDCA, and members appreciated the time
its guests made to discuss the current state of the profession,
their projects and ideas for the future. The agenda included
discussion about industry issues including funding, current
Ausdance projects, research and development and the TDCA’s
profile in some of these issues.
Dance Teachers' Competency Standards
As advised earlier this year, the new validation process for
the dance teacher competency standards has begun, and is being
facilitated by Service Skills Australia, whose project manager,
Rainer Wilson, met with Ausdance in July.
Studio teachers wishing to participate in this process should
go to <www.serviceskills.com.au> under Current Projects,
click on Training Package Reviews, and then click on Sport and
Recreation. We encourage everyone to participate in this important
process, and will provide more detailed information in the Summer06
edition of Dance Forum.
Dance Education in Australian Schools
An Ausdance National working party met in Brisbane in July to
review the recommendations made by Helen Cameron in her report
to the Ausdance National Council, and to work through the issues
raised at the 2005 Dance Education in Australian Schools (DEAS)
roundtable. Julie Dyson, Rose Godde and Lesley Graham formulated
a preliminary strategy for further development into a submission
to federal education authorities in September. This has been
a lengthy process of consultation and discussion with a wide
range of stakeholders, and Ausdance National is grateful to all
those who have contributed, including the Ausdance network officers,
the TDCA, State and Territory education departments, arts funding
bodies, dance companies and individual artists. A draft of the
final paper will be circulated for feedback prior to its submission
to the appropriate federal departments.
National Affiliation of Arts Educators
The NAAE will hold its AGM at the Drama Australia conference
in Sydney on October 2. Ausdance National facilitates this
group, and has informed members about the meeting and its agenda,
which includes submissions on a range of current issues, especially
the Federal Government’s Values Education and Australian Certificate
of Education agendas. We are also planning to revisit some
of the invaluable publications issued by the NAAE in the 1990s,
many of which still have currency. Watch the Ausdance website
for NAAE updates and links.
RESEARCH
Ausdance National is working on a new dance
research website which will profile the work of Australian dance
researchers and the projects and advocacy of TDCA members. This
site will also link to the high profile dance research funded
by the Australian Research Council in recent years in which Ausdance
National is an industry partner, as well as to published papers
such as those from the Dance Rebooted conference of 2004 (see
link under Publications). The research site will also profile
the work of the current ARC-funded project headed by Dr Kate
Stevens, who provides us with a brief outline of her work.
Intention and Serendipity: Investigating Improvisation, Symbolism
and Memory in Creating Australian Contemporary Dance
by Kate Stevens
This is a new collaborative ARC Linkage research project involving
industry partners the Australia Council, Ausdance National, The
Australian Choreographic Centre and the ACT Cultural Facilities
Corporation. Researchers in dance, cognitive science and music
from the University of Western Sydney, the University of NSW,
Deakin University and the University of Melbourne are investigating
the psychological processes involved in memory for, and performance
of, dance, and the creative processes that mediate improvisation
as both a tool and as performance.
The aim of the three-year project is to investigate the cognitive
and kinaesthetic processes involved in improvising, creating,
re-creating, performing and recognising Australian contemporary
dance. The culmination of the project will be an international
symposium on dance research in 2008, including performance and
a focus on cognitive science and dance.
The project follows on from two ARC collaborative projects, Unspoken
Knowledges and Conceiving Connections, both led by Professor
Shirley McKechnie from the School of Dance, Victorian College
of the Arts, and Dr Robin Grove from the University of Melbourne.
In Unspoken Knowledges, the focus was on creativity in choreography
– what we termed ‘choreographic cognition’. Conceiving Connections
investigated psychological reactions of audience members to contemporary
dance. A significant amount of published material resulted from
the analysis of new works by choreographers such as Anna Smith,
Neil Adams and Sue Healey.
Members of the research team for the current Intention and Serendipity
project come from all the partner organisations, and they work
closely with The Australian Choreographic Centre in Canberra
where dance studios become the laboratory for in-depth analysis
of performance.
Information from past and present projects and research findings
are available on Ausdance Online. The next edition of Dance Forum
will feature this exciting research in more detail.
Assoc. Professor Kate Stephens is based at the MARCS Auditory
Laboratories,
University of Western Sydney.
PUBLICATIONS
Brolga – an Australian journal
about dance, founded and edited
by Dr Michelle Potter in 1994, has produced an amazing 24 issues
in its twelve years, published and distributed by Ausdance
National. Michelle’s vision for an Australian dance journal,
and her dedication in maintaining its regular publication,
have provided Australian dance writers and researchers with
a unique national and international outlet for their work.
Assisted for most of the past twelve years by co-editor and
designer Hilary Trotter, and more recently by Dr Kim Vincs
and designer David Bonsall, Brolga has maintained consistently
high standards of scholarship in Australian writing.
With the departure of Michelle for New York in August, Ausdance
National was determined to keep the journal alive, and we are
pleased to announce the new editorial team of Dr Robin Grove
(University of Melbourne), Dr Alan Brissenden (University of
Adelaide), assisted by Dr Kim Vincs (Deakin University) and Dr
Maggi Phillips (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts).
Kim and Maggi will assist with refereed articles, and Issue 25
will be edited by Robin Grove and again designed by David Bonsall.
A full index of Brolga, and guidelines for contributors and subscribers,
can be found on Ausdance Online. Brolga is solely dependent on
subscribers for its survival, and we encourage the dance community
to support the journal with an annual subscription.
Dance Rebooted: Initializing the Grid: Ausdance National has
published online these exceptional research papers from the 2004
conference, edited by Dr Kim Vincs.
Shifting Sands: Dance in Asia and
the Pacific has just been published
by Ausdance National on behalf of the World Dance Alliance—Asia
Pacific. For details of this beautiful volume, and ordering information
go to the resources section of the website. Our thanks go to
Lindy Shultz, the designer of Shifting Sands.
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