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The major event on the dance calendar, the 2009 Australian Dance Awards, will take place at The Arts Centre, State Theatre in Melbourne on Sunday 7 June, featuring performances by some of Australia’s finest dance companies and performers including The Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), BalletLab and Stompin’.

The Australian Dance Awards is a celebration of the excellence and variety of the Australian professional dance sector. It is the one-night-of-the-year when dance creators, performers, educators, filmmakers and enthusiasts gather together to acknowledge and honour their peers. It is also a not-to-be-missed opportunity for dance lovers to sample some of the best works of the last twelve months.

This will be the second year the Awards take place in Melbourne. Last year’s Awards attracted a near capacity crowd of over 1600 dance lovers, breaking all previous attendance records and proving positively that the Australian dance industry is in vibrant good health.

This year there will be eleven Awards including for the first time, “Outstanding Achievement in Youth or Community Dance’.  The Awards identify Australian dance professionals, both in Australia and overseas, who have distinguished themselves in performance, choreography, design, dance writing, teaching and dance on film. A record-breaking 550 nominations from dance lovers have been received this year and will be assessed in upcoming months by a panel of dance professionals.

Look good on the dance floor? To celebrate the awards, Chunky Move and Ausdance Victoria are asking for participants for an exciting new dance performance featuring five Chunky Move dancers and 100 community participants to be unveiled at Federation Square on Saturday 6 June. The new work will be rehearsed over a four week period and the choreography and rehearsal process documented weekly in blogs and video interviews on the website contemporarydance.com.au.

Had enough movement and need a quick sit down?  Accompanying the awards, Ausdance Victoria will  present a symposium looking at the development of ballet and contemporary dance in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, crucial decades which saw the rise of tertiary dance education, and small dance companies, huge leaps in the professionalisation of the art form, and the formation of Ausdance (then AADE).   The Dance History Symposium will be held at the Arts Centre, Black Box at 10.00am on Sunday 7 June.

Short List Nominations for the Australian Dance Awards will be announced on 4 May. The Australian Dance Awards is a project of Ausdance.

www.australiandanceawards.net.au

Sunday 7 June, the Arts Centre, State Theatre

Bookings: Ticketmaster outlets 13 61 00 or www.ticketmaster.com.au- under 26 $10 balcony tix available!!!

On sale Wednesday 1 April