Australian Youth Dance Festival - Ausdance National

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Horsham, Victoria

April 16 - 22, 2006

Youth Dance Leaders

Eight Tracks Youth dance leaders (Erwin Fenis, Kelly Beneforti, Kara-Jayne Handberg, Vera Tabuzo, Corina Nichols, and Imanuel Daddo), including two from the remote Indigenous community of Lajamanu (Caleb Patrick, Gerard Scobie), travelled to Horsham to participate in workshops and choreographic development, to view other youth dance companies’ work, perform  an excerpt from Mr BIG  in a shared evening performance and for Tracks Youth Animateur Erwin Fenis to organise  a “break battle”.

Workshops

Choreographers and Tutors from all around the country ran workshops with the 250 youth participants. 

Community Performance

Development of an outdoor site-specific dance performance. This year followed the 2004 AYDF model of site-specific work facilitated by Tim & David and then built on this model with an additional community component leading up to the festival.

Groups of young people work with the same artist each morning to create a short piece of dance to be part of a large-scale, free community performance to close the festival. An Artistic Director, supported by two associates, will integrate the short pieces into a whole. Composers will conduct a parallel process at Horsham with community members, to create sound for the piece. The whole event will be made in response to the site on the Wimmera River in which it will be performed. The performance will most likely take place at sunset, and will incorporate a fire performance, movement, light and sound. It will be presented in conjunction with Horsham’s annual Art Is… Festival, and explore the Festival theme of Common Well. Text and installation from the Festival’s schools and community programs will feed into the performance.

David McMicken and Bec Reid conducted a half day workshop for Community Cultural workers in Horsham.

Creative Personnel

Associate facilitators/directors: David McMicken, Tim Newth
Facilitator: Bec Reid, the Co-Artistic Director of Stompin Youth Dance Company (resident of Tasmania & Victoria)
Artistic Director for site-specific dance work: Mahony Maia Kiely (Vic)
Composers: Tim Humphrey and Madeleine Flynn (Vic)
Video artist: Kim Lawler 

Choreographers and Tutors: Nikki Ashby, Kylie Ball, Claudio Climaco, Billie Cook, David Corbet, Matthew Doyle, Jeannette Fabila, Jodie Farrugia, Sela Kiek, Jacob Lehrer, Shonah Honeyhill Sonko, Rowan Marchingo, Justin Meissner, Danielle Micich, Christine Monneron, Jillian Pearce, Lee Pemberton, Stefanie Robinson, Lamine Sonko

Production Personnel

Lighting Designer/Production Manager, Performance Season: Patrick Ryan
Lighting designer/Production Manager, Finale: Niklas Pajanti

Performers

250 Festival participants

Track Youth Dance Plan

Attending this AYDF fulfilled many aspects of Tracks' plan. With assistance from the Ian Potter Foundation, we were able to run a youth dance leadership program over the entire year. Attending Horsham was a key element as it allowed our young dancers to see what the rest of Australia were doing in the field, provided the opportunity for dancers to attend taster classes with some of Australia’s top dance practitioners, exposing them to a wide variety of choreographic input. It also showed the Tracks Directors as being an integral part of a National scene.

Our Youth Dance Animateur Erwin Fenis was seen as a leader in his field, taking on additional work organising an event, and as an added bonus, we were able to perform a short promotional excerpt from our show Mr Big. This performance was extremely well received as it had a completely different feel to other youth dance performances. It was clear that the Darwin dancers were very versatile in their styles ranging from ballet, authentic break and hip hop, traditional Filipino and Contemporary. It was the energy that seemed to follow them around that was most commented on, that they were a true representation of ‘youth’ dance rather than young versions of professional dancers.

Tracks 2006

Artistic Directors: David McMicken and Tim Newth
General Manager: Fiona Carter
Dance Animateur: Julia Quinn
Youth Dance Animateur: Erwin Fenis
Administrative Assistant: Skye Raabe
Bookkeeper: Julie Stark
Development Consultant: Suzanne Fermanis

Committee Members: (Chair) Jill MacAndrew, (Vice-Chair) Jackie Wurm (Treasurer) Glenn Bernardin, (Secretary/Public Officer) Traci Keys, (Ordinary Committee Members) David Taylor, Ken Conway, Nick Papandonakis, Donna Quong, (Ex-Officio Members) David McMicken and Tim Newth

Public Fund Trustees: Rev. Steve Orme, Dr Anita Toth, Paul Wan

 

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