Innholdsfortegnelse for February-March 2020 i Dance Australia

MELBOURNE is currently playing host to Asia-TOPA, a three-month-long festival of arts from the Asia-Pacific region. Among the 30 new works on the program are some curious and sometimes definition-defying dance offerings and collaborations. As just a sample: At Arts Centre Melbourne, Lucy Guerin Inc collaborates with Ensemble Tikoro, a heavy metal choir which comes direct from the underground music scene in Bandung for its first appearance outside Indonesia. At Dancehouse, Japan’s legendary Akira Kasai, heralded as the “Nijinsky of butoh”, will present his tour-de-force solo Pollen Revolution. Kasai morphs from kabuki performer to street dancer to solitary actor while his movement shifts between classical Japanese, hip-hop and the soulful otherworlds of butoh. China and India meet in Samsara. Created and performed by Aakash Odedra (UK/India) and Hu Shenyuan (China),…

WHEN Ausdance National announced its closure in August last year, many, including members of its own network of state branches, were taken by surprise. They vowed to keep it going – and they have. In December, it was announced that Ausdance National would continue after all, but in a slightly different structure. A new interim board has been elected, with a permanent executive and board to be elected at the next AGM planned for April. Broadly speaking, the plan is for Ausdance National to continue its advocacy and networking roles, with an increased commitment to collaborating with its members. It will continue to administer the Keith Bain and Peggy van Praagh bequests. Core projects such as the National Dance Forum and the Australian Dance Awards, which were in danger of…

FOR young Sydney dancer Kaya Weight (17), competing in the Alana Haines Australasia Awards in 2019 resulted in a sliding doors moment. One of the judges of the competition was the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s (RNZB) artistic director, Patricia Barker who, after watching Weight perform, offered her an apprentice with the company. Weight, a student of Gillian Revie at Classical Ballet 121 in Sydney, had a month to relocate to New Zealand to commence her contract in May, 2019. Weight explains: “The move was very sudden, but my mother was able to come over with me initially for the first three weeks. RNZB was extremely supportive during this time, especially because I had just turned seventeen. They helped us with what seemed like a seamless transition”. Since commencing with the…

History: The AICD is a not for profit organisation that provides training, assessments and other services to classical ballet teachers and students. Our goal is to ensure that high quality classical ballet training and opportunities through scholarships and awards, is available to the broadest number of young Australian dancers possible. An integral part of the AICD as an organization is the Borovansky Syllabus. The syllabus originated from the school of the Borovansky Academy of Russian Ballet which opened its studios in Melbourne in 1939, with Madam Xenia Borovansky (wife of Edouard Borovansky) as the central pillar of classical ballet teaching. She passed on the technique and style in which she had been trained in Russia, which was largely based on the Vaganova system of training. Edouard Borovansky went on to…

History: Founded in 1920 to set standards for dance teaching, today the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) has a presence in 89 countries, with approximately 13,000 members worldwide. We count more than 1,000 students in our teacher training programmes, and more than a quarter of a million students are being examined on our core syllabus. On 31 December 2020 the RAD celebrates 100 years of teaching the world to dance. In Australia we examine around 25,000 students annually taught by 1,000 RAD registered teachers and 100 trainee teachers. We are committed to widening access to dance for everybody with our range of exams and broader initiatives including Project B – our male dance initiative to encourage and provide pportunities for male dancers and educators and Silver SwansTM – our over…

BANGARRA Dance Theatre’s 2020 season will see the company present two major Australian tours. The year will begin with performances of the company’s award-winning Bennelong around Australia in February and March, including Perth (as part of Perth Festival), Albany and Karratha in WA and Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Dubbo and Rooty Hill in NSW. In the second half of the year Bangarra will present Sandsong, a new work that traces the ancient memories embedded in the Great Sandy Desert in WA, and which will create “new narratives for Indigenous futures”. Sandsong will be guided by Elders from the Kimberley and choreographed jointly by Bangarra’s artistic director Stephen Page and associate artistic director Frances Rings – their first choreographic collaboration in more than 15 years. ‘Sandsong’ will open in Sydney on June…

1 CALLING YOUNG DANCERS! There’s a new ballet competition in town… the Brisbane International Ballet Grand Prix. Entries close February 14. http://www.danceaustralia.com.au/news/entries-openfor-new-brisbane-basedinternational-ballet-competition 2 CALLING MORE YOUNG DANCERS! Rambert School will be visiting Australia and New Zealand in February 2020 to conduct auditions for its degree courses in ballet and contemporary dance, commencing September 2020. http://www.danceaustralia.com.au/news/rambertschool-auditions-in-australiaand-new-zealand 3 CELEBRATING YOUNG DANCERS! This year’s final performance by ADT’s Youth Ensemble showcased eleven talented young dancers performing works by local choreographers http://www.danceaustralia.com.au/news/adt-s-youthensemble-impresses…

VICTORIA will be seeing a lot more of the classical dance company Projection Dance this year, thanks to a state-wide tour supported by Regional Arts Victoria. Projection is directed by Tim Podesta, a former Australian Ballet dancer and international freelancer, and is based in Wodonga, on the Vic/NSW border. It has a cohort of dancers contracted on a project basis – Zoe Cavedon), India Stewart, Peter John Simmonds, Matilda Ballantyne and Kristy Denovan – and a number of overseas dancers who are appointed as guests, such as Argentinian Marlon Dino and Chillean Sebastian Vinet. Following a performance of “Equilibrium” on January 16, a program choreographed by Podesta and former Wayne McGregor dancers James Pett and Travis Clausen-Knight, the company will bring Closer, a full-length work by Podesta, to the Concourse…

This photo of Erin Fowler was taken by Chris Herzfeld in part to help market her Adelaide Fringe show ‘Femme’, for which she won the Best Dance Award in 2019 and which she is performing again at the Fringe this year. “Erin has since performed ‘Femme’ in the Edinburgh Fringe, the Icelandic Fringe and the Stockholm Fringe,” he explains. “The show explores her time as a fashion model in Paris and the issues she encountered before she started her dance career.” Herzfeld is a long-time photographer for Australian Dance Theatre. chris@camlight.com.au Behind the scenes shoot: https: //vimeo.com/333700091 Would you like to be featured here? JUST DROP AS LINE VIA FACEBOOK MESSENGER OR EMAIL DANCE@YAFFA.COM.AU.…

WHEN Perth ballet dancer Brianna Scotford commenced dance classes at her local ballet school at the age of two, no-one could have predicted that her passion would become her career. Fast forward 15 years and the dream is becoming a reality, with Scotford recently commencing in Level 1 of a three year program at the English National Ballet School (ENBS). Scotford says as she’s grown up, her dreams have grown too. “The thing I was really sure of from a young age was that I wanted to work as a ballet dancer,” she says. She explains that initially she didn’t think beyond dancing in Perth, where her family and friends live, but gradually her eyes opened up to the rest of the world and the endless possibilities. When she was…

History: Australian Teachers of Dancing (ATOD) was established in 1991. Today ATOD is experiencing unprecedented growth in membership. Members are now based throughout Australia, Canada, South East Asia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Europe. FOUNDER/DIRECTOR: Leah Belford, Cheryl Witchell, Tracey Jonsson, Janelle Smith, Penny Butler, Anna Boland, Helen Weissenberger, Bonnie Muir, and Kaye Emmett. PATRON: Justine Summers: Former Principal of The Australian Ballet HEADQUARTERS: Address: National Secretary: PO Box 565, Waterford QLD 4133 Phone: 1800 106 227 Website: www.atod.net.au Email: secretary@atod.net.au or admin@atod.net.au or rto@atod.net.au STYLES COVERED: Classical Ballet, National Character, Tap, Street Tap, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Contemporary, GRADING SYSTEM: ATOD supports dance for all ages. Levels range from play dance curriculum for early childhood through to the comprehensive Teacher Training Programme across all genres. MARKING AND ASSESSMENT: ATOD offers…

History: Italian-born Enrico Cecchetti (1850-1928) followed an illustrious career as a dancer at La Scala in Milan and the Maryinsky Theatre in Russia with an equally illustrious career as a teacher. Among his pupils were Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky. In the early 1920s he created his own method of teaching with professional dancers of that era. His method was codified in 1922 and it is the foundation of the method taught by Cecchetti organisations throughout the world today. The Cecchetti Society was established in Australia in 1934 with the arrival of Madame Lucie Saronova, an ex-student of Cecchetti. Now known as Cecchetti Ballet Australia, we became a founder member of Cecchetti International – Classical Ballet in 1997. Cecchetti Ballet is a leader in Australian dance education. It is an…

SHAUN Parker, artistic director of Sydney-based Shaun Parker and Company, is passionate about reaching young people through the arts. In the lead up to the National Day of Action against Bullying on March 20, the company will present his award-winning, anti-bullying program, The Yard, which aims to raise awareness of bullying and to help educate children about the importance of seeking support. Targeting school-aged children from as young as eight, The Yard will once again tour across Sydney and nearby regional NSW from March 9. Also on the company’s 2020 program is the return of In The Zone, another work for young audiences, which was presented in Western Sydney in 2019. Developed in collaboration with musician and instrument designer Alon Ilsar, who co-designed the AirSticks that are pivotal to the…

HAVING reviewed NAISDA’s graduation performances for several years now, I have come to expect the school to put on a good show, and this year was no different. What was new this year was a much higher standard of production, especially the integrated use of lighting, projections and costume to give each work the right look and feel. Called “Ngoenakap”, and held at Carriageworks in Sydney in November last year, on the night I attended the show looked less like a graduation performance designed to showcase the students’ abilities, and more like a professional production with a great sense of coherence in the selection of dance works performed. Credit must go here to director Sani Townson and the sizeable production team he led, and also to performance sponsor Audio Visual…

AN exciting future lies ahead for talented Perth ballet dancer, Noah Benzie-Drayton. In 2019, Noah reached the finals of the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland and received a number of offers to study at different ballet institutions throughout the world. Despite all these offers, Noah “held out” to audition for the Paris Opera Ballet School. He says he watched the company perform in 2017 and was “mesmerized by the perfection and beauty of each of the dancers, from the incredible principals who embodied their roles to every member of the corps de ballet, who were faultless”. Noah had to fight to overcome his nerves on the day of the audition. “I was so nervous when I auditioned because I really wanted to be accepted.” He was delighted when the selection…

History: Acrobatic Arts was founded in Canada in 2012 and has grown into an internationally recognized syllabus. The program is based on safe and effective progressions with proven results in five categories of AcroDance: Flexibility, Strength, Balancing, Limbering and Tumbling. The comprehensive, technique focused syllabus was developed alongside professionals and experts in ballet, modern dance, jazz, contortion, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, sport acrobatics, yoga, pilates, physiotherapy, hand balancing and more. Acrobatic Arts Inc can now be found in over 3200 studios in 21 countries worldwide. An estimated 250,000 dancers participate in Acrobatic Arts classes every week. FOUNDER/DIRECTOR: Mandy Yip CEO Meaghan Wegg, Tim Buckley, Australian/ New Zealand/Singapore Division Manager Mark Nash, USA Division Manager Jennifer Shirkey, European/South Africa Division Manager Shelby Hanet, Operations Manager HEADQUARTERS: Address: PO Box 10396, Airdrie,…

History: BAL (Ballet Australasia Ltd) was founded in 1989 by dance educators who wanted an Australian-based organisation catering for the syllabus needs of dance teachers and students. Initially providing exam syllabi in Classical Ballet, Jazz, Tap, and National Character, BAL’s range soon expanded to include a comprehensive Hip Hop syllabus (co- choreographed by BJ Rorke), a new Jazz syllabus choreographed by Joel Peisley, and more recently an additional Tap syllabus named “Tap’N’Beats” which has been choreographed by Nathan Sheens, a founding Tap Dogs member. As a dance organisation committed solely to its dance teacher members, and in response to changing industry standards, BAL further extended its scope by becoming a registered training organisation (RTO) and offers an accredited Certificate IV in Dance Teaching and Management (CUA 40313) which can be…

History: The Les Griffith Tap Dance Academy (LGTDA) syllabus was established by the late Mr Les Griffith in 1980 in Newcastle, NSW. Mr Griffith devised the famous double beating style of tapping. This is the original “Newcastle Tap” syllabus, and is currently taught throughout Australia, Canada and Great Britain. Dancers from Les Griffith Tap Dance Academy are working professionally and have appeared in productions including 42nd Street, Hot Shoe Shuffle, TapDogs, Steel City and the film Bootmen. FOUNDER/DIRECTOR: Julie England and Donna Michalitsis. HEADQUARTERS: Julie England 42 Longworth Ave, Cardiff NSW 2285 Phone: 0418 168 907 Email: epda13@gmail.com Donna Michalitsis 30 Kingsway Ave, Rankin Park NSW, 2305 Phone: 0410 523 872 Email: epda13@gmail.com or johnsremovals@bigpond.com STYLES COVERED: Tap dance GRADING SYSTEM: Levels range from Pre-test One (for four to five year…

Where did you grow up? I grew up in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. I made the move to Melbourne after graduating from high school. Was it a dancing or “arty” family? My family have always been active. We love the outdoors, sporting and recreational activities. But were never a dancing family – well, not until I came along, that is. My mum always loved dancing and singing, though. We’re a small, supportive family so when dancing became serious for me they would take me to my competitions, exams and performances and be there with me every step of the way. What is your first memory of dancing? I was two-and-a-half, walking through the Parabank Shops in Salisbury with mum, and we saw a dance school performing. I pointed to…