• Julie Dyson
    Julie Dyson
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It is the end of an era. Julie Dyson, National Director of Ausdance, will retire from this position at the end of 2012, after over 35 years of service to the organisation.  Dance Australia caught up with Dyson shortly after her official farewell in late November.

Dyson has been a part of Ausdance since its inception in 1977, in both paid and voluntary capacities.  She recalls the organisation’s beginnings, saying, “I had been teaching ballet in Canberra at the Bryan Lawrence School of Ballet for about eight years when I read about a  'dance and education' conference to be held in Melbourne in August 1977.  It sounded really interesting, and I thought it might expand my understanding of dance and dance teaching, so a few friends and I decided to make the trip from Canberra.”  It was worth the effort.  “It was incredibly inspiring to hear people like Shirley McKechnie, Peggy van Praagh, Anne Woolliams, Keith Bain, Warren Lett, Hanny Exiner and others talking about dance in such broad terms - dance as an art form, and the links between artists, educators, schools, communities and the tertiary sector - these were concepts to which I hadn't ever been exposed!”

Fired up by the conference, Dyson, together with Hilary Trotter, established the Ausdance ACT branch in November 1977 (then known as the Australian Association for Dance Education), and later also assumed national responsibilities after the inaugural two-year term for the voluntary national office had expired in NSW in 1980. In 1985 she and Trotter received Australia Council funding and were able to leave their day jobs to became Ausdance National’s first paid officers, employed as national co-ordinators of organisation. 

Under Dyson’s directorship, Ausdance has achieved a huge amount in terms of advocacy and support for dance in all its forms.  “Our [original] aim was to try to realise the broad vision of the founders [of Ausdance] - to provide a voice for dance, to bring the sectors together, to improve the environment in which our artists and educators worked, and to be the best advocates we could be at the highest political levels,” says Dyson. “But we needed evidence-based arguments to support our advocacy, and we also needed to broaden the concept of the word 'education'. We knew it didn't just mean dance in the classroom - it could mean anything from dancers' career development to educating dancers about safe dance practice and providing resources for teachers in schools.” 

For Dyson, then, the organisation’s most significant achievements stem from those early aims. “I think the most important things we've managed to achieve is the integration of these issues - research into dancers' career development and transition, the formation of the Tertiary Dance Council of Australia, Hilary Trotter's invention of the concept of 'safe dance' and the research that she undertook before commissioning Tony Geeves to write the report and recommendations in 1990, the development of a code of ethics and teacher competencies which in turn led to new national dance qualifications and skill sets for artists, and dance then becoming one of five art forms in the National Curriculum in 2009 through our leadership of the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE),” she reflects. “These achievements have been supported by articles, fact sheets, books, academic papers and, of course, the publication of Brolga - an Australian journal about dance, which was founded by Dr Michelle Potter in 1994 with Ausdance as the publisher. I think we can also be proud of our national and international networks, and our role in the World Dance Alliance which has introduced many Australians to dance people in our region and beyond, and which has also led to the Routledge book, Shaping the Landscape - Celebrating Dance in Australia which I edited with another Australian, series editor Stephanie Burridge.”

Dyson is renowned for her work building vital relationships between the dance sector and the broader community.  “Partnerships have been a major part of our work - with the National Library of Australia to build the Australian dance collection, with the Australian Institute of Sport to introduce career development programs for dancers, and with the Australia Council over 35 years with projects such as Creating Pathways and Treading the Pathways (now BlakDance); Dance Plan 2012; the National Dance Forums and, many years ago, the Emerging Choreographers grant program,” she says. “Two other partnerships have been extremely beneficial for dance - ArtsPeak (the confederation of peak arts organisations) and the NAAE which enabled us to advocate so strongly for the arts (and dance) to be included in The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. We're also incredibly proud of our new resource-rich website, of Peggy van Praagh's bequest enabling us to present the first of her fellowships this year, and of course the Australian Dance Awards, another partnership project we facilitate with the host Ausdance network presenter each year.”

For Dyson the establishment of the Australian Youth Dance Festival (AYDF) is another achievement of which she is particularly proud. The AYDF has been held seven times since 1997, providing creative skill development for young dancers (and their teachers) from around Australia in different regional centres. “The initial AYDF gave us a real opportunity to work with local Indigenous communities for the first time, and their stories have become central to the AYDF,” says Dyson.

Dyson’s role as an advocate for dance is immeasurable – the achievements she describes above represent a handful of the total.  She says, however, that the most important lesson she has learned during her years at Ausdance, is about other people.  “None of these achievements happen because of only one person - it's so important to listen to others and to hear what their ambitions and ideas are,” she explains. “For example, for years Valda Craig talked about the need to develop Australian resources to enable students to study Australian dance history and the work of our own choreographers, raising awareness of our own dance heritage. Finally her persistence paid off when we applied to the Australia Council in 1995 for a grant to develop a dance collection spanning two institutions - the National Library of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive. Today we have an amazing dance collection in these two institutions, curated firstly by Michelle Potter and now by Lee Christofis, but it all came from one passionate person's idea and her faith in Ausdance that we might one day do something about it! It was also Valda who introduced us to the World Dance Alliance in its early days through her international colleagues in the US and Europe. But without a succession of national presidents and executive board members who believed in creative leadership, staff members such as Hilary Trotter and Sandra Macarthur-Onslow who worked so closely with me over the years, and Rachael Jennings, Leanne Craig and Tamara McKee (our current dedicated team), none of this would have been possible - it has never been a one-man band!”

Chatting to Dyson about the future it emerges that the word ‘retirement’ is somewhat deceptive.  She may be leaving her position as National Director of Ausdance, but Dyson plans to remain active in the dance community, at both a national and international level.  “I'll stay with the World Dance Alliance as Asia-Pacific Secretary, and also as a member of the WDA Global Executive, which is planning its next Global Summit in France in 2014. There are several conferences in May connected to WDA in France and Germany which I'd very much like to attend,” she says.  “I'll remain on the curatorial team for the 2013 National Dance Forum and continue working with Sydney Dance Company on its education advisory panel as it develops new programs for schools.”

Julie Dyson will be succeeded by Roslyn Dundas – click here for more info about Dundas's appointment.

Dance Australia would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the enormous contribution that Julie Dyson has made to the Australian dance sector during her years at Ausdance.

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