{"id":2115,"date":"2017-05-09T16:51:11","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T06:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=2115"},"modified":"2017-05-09T16:51:11","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T06:21:11","slug":"fifty-australian-dance-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2017\/05\/fifty-australian-dance-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifty \u2013 Australian Dance Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s difficult to know how to begin talking about a book as beautiful as this. Tracing Australian Dance Theatre\u2019s often tumultuous and always interesting fifty-year history, Fifty<\/a> contains interviews, archival research, and stunning photography.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did you think I was exaggerating?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Read an excerpt below, or find out more about the book here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The beginnings of Australian Dance Theatre were\u00a0radical, daring and new. The company was\u00a0created in Adelaide, South Australia in 1965\u00a0with a vision to support Australian dancers,\u00a0choreographers, composers, and musicians, as\u00a0well as visual and other associated artists. We planned to pioneer contemporary\u00a0dance throughout Australia and across the world. Through our dance we wanted to\u00a0inspire people everywhere with the philosophies of the modern art movement that\u00a0encouraged an awakening in consciousness and an honouring of our shared humanity.<\/p>\n

By 1970 ADT had become a visible force in the theatrical landscape of Australia and was\u00a0considered to be the national contemporary dance company. How did we do this?\u00a0In the beginning ADT accepted every opportunity to perform \u2013 in theatres, outdoor\u00a0venues, fashion parades, social functions, school halls and on television talent shows. I\u00a0constantly sought performance opportunities locally, nationally and internationally, and\u00a0during the first 10 years we presented regular seasons in Adelaide, toured regionally\u00a0throughout South Australia, and made regular tours to Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra,\u00a0Hobart, Brisbane and regional Queensland and Tasmania. Additionally, the company\u00a0presented dance workshops, lecture demonstrations, forums and some of the first dance-ineducation\u00a0programs in Australia, quickly building up audiences for modern dance. Company records for 1971\u20131973, for example, show that the number of performance attendees was over\u00a058,000. Records show that the number of performances varied each year, ranging between 68\u00a0and 173 in the years 1965 to 1975.<\/p>\n

It was a struggle all the way, but I believed passionately in the validity of dance as a\u00a0powerful art form and an essential part of our humanity. I saw the modern art movement as a\u00a0vehicle for the expression of contemporary ideas and hoped that it would help lift Australia out\u00a0of its colonial stagnation. I also believed that modern dance was an excellent way for Australian\u00a0dancers and choreographers to express themselves as artists, particularly as Australian artists.\u00a0Through all of its work ADT contributed greatly to the exciting revolutionary social changes\u00a0that were happening during the 1960s and 1970s both in Australia and internationally. The\u00a0fruits of the seeds sown by the company in those years are still visible today in both professional\u00a0dance and educational arenas.<\/p>\n

Founder of ADT, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman<\/em><\/p>\n

(Photos top to bottom:\u00a0Creation<\/strong>. 1969. Dancers: Bert Terborgh, Jennifer Barry, Roc Ta-peng Lei. Choreographer: Elizabeth Cameron Dalman. Photo: Jan Dalman.\u00a0This Train<\/strong>, 1966, photo taken 1970.\u00a0Dancers, left to right: Cheryl\u00a0Stock, Bert Terborgh, Delwyn\u00a0Rouse, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman,\u00a0Jennifer Barry, Neville Burns.\u00a0Choreographer: Elizabeth Cameron\u00a0Dalman. Photo: Jan Dalman.\u00a0Be Your Self<\/strong>. Dancer: Troy\u00a0Honeysett. Photo: Chris Herzfeld,\u00a0Camlight Productions.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s difficult to know how to begin talking about a book as beautiful as this. Tracing Australian Dance Theatre\u2019s often tumultuous and always interesting fifty-year history, Fifty contains interviews, archival research, and stunning photography.   Did you think I was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,5,331,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extract","category-wordpress-defaults","category-reading","category-we-love-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-y7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2115"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2124,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions\/2124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}