ALI EAST : an agent for change - a legacy of dance education in Aotearoa

Abstract

I’m going to set a scene and tell a story that begins over 30 years ago. I tell this on the back of a celebration of 30 years of contemporary dance training in Auckland just this week. The Unitec students Showcase honoured 30 years of resilience and persistence in dance education.

I’m touching lightly on three threads that I identify as both being at the heart of Alison Easts own artistic and creative concerns but also that were at the heart of the kaupapa of the Performing Arts School, in its first decade. This is something about the evolution of somatics in dance education in New Zealand through the Performing Arts School specifically and entangled within that a unique connection to the land in dance making in Aotearoa and a democratic approach to learning and creating.