Shall we dance? The story of The Radiance Dance Project

Community workers are often described as unsung heroes who work for, with, and alongside others in order to make qualitative differences to the communities they serve. This paper reports on the story of a community based arts educator, Morgan Jai-Morincome, winner of the ACT Adult Learners Week Award for an outstanding program in 2007. This program, referred to as The Radiance Dance Project, is an inclusive performance project open to women with and without disabilities that culminates in a yearly performance. Via an interview with Morgan, observations of a workshop she provided for the women in her 2009 program, and a viewing of a DVD of the 2008 dance performance, this case study provides an illustration of the power of arts based educative processes for breaking down barriers between people with and without disabilities. It draws upon constructs from ethical leadership theory and empowerment theory to interpret her ideas and practices.

Incorporating community history into urban redevelopment

A community history project must be relevant to each person within it so that they see themselves as part of the socio-cultural fabric of the area and feel a sense of ownership of their environment. The Mill Albion community history project is a diverse, multi-layered public history/art program that captures the social heritage of The Mill Albion and allows the community to contribute to their ongoing history. The Albion Flour Mill was built in 1930 at a time when Australia was feeling the effects of its worst economic depression and continued operations for more than 72 years. After ceasing operation in 2005 the site was left to deteriorate. The FKP Property Group purchased the land to undertake a new urban redevelopment project, drawing on the design principles of a traditional ‘village’, while valuing the importance of remembering the community that once included the Flour Mill. This paper reflects on the this project and showcases some of the culturally creative ways this community’s history was told, using methods such as digital stories, contemporary and historical photography and oral history.

A story worth telling : putting oral history and digital collections online in cultural institutions

Digital platforms in cultural institutions offer exciting opportunities for oral history and digital storytelling that can augment and enrich traditional collections. The way in which cultural institutions allow access to the public is changing dramatically, prompting substantial expansions of their oral history and digital story holdings. In Queensland, Australia, public libraries and museums are becoming innovative hubs of a wide assortment of collections that represent a cross-section of community groups and organisations through the integration of oral history and digital storytelling. The State Library of Queensland (SLQ) features digital stories online to encourage users to explore what the institution has in the catalogue through their website. Now SLQ also offers oral history interviews online, to introduce users to oral history and other components of their collections,- such as photographs and documents to current, as well as new users. This includes the various departments, Indigenous centres and regional libraries affiliated with SLQ statewide, who are often unable to access the materials held within, or even full information about, the collections available within the institution. There has been a growing demand for resources and services that help to satisfy community enthusiasm and promote engagement. Demand increases as public access to affordable digital media technologies increases, and as community or marginalised groups become interested in do it yourself (DIY) history; and SLQ encourages this. This paper draws on the oral history and digital story-based research undertaken by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) for the State Library of Queensland including: the Apology Collection: The Prime Minister’s apology to Australia’s Indigenous Stolen Generation; Five Senses: regional Queensland artists; Gay history of Brisbane; and The Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame.

Civics and citizenship education in the national history curriculum : conducting the same music or rehearsing an incomplete tune?

This paper raises some questions about teaching and teacher education in the social sciences in response to the decision to implement a national curriculum in Australia. In particular, it contends that the decision to focus on discipline-specific knowledge in the social sciences will not necessarily meet the hopes of the Melbourne Declaration and deliver a 21st century curriculum that prepares students for the future. In doing so, it suggests that social educators need to engage with the broader discourse and political context shaping the push for curriculum reform in Australia and makes reference to the marginalisation of civics and citizenship education in the latest draft of the Australian curriculum: History.

The urban littoral frontier : land reclamation in the history of human settlements

The urban waterfront may be regarded as the littoral frontier of human settlement. Typically, over the years, it advances, sometimes retreats, where terrestrial and aquatic processes interact and frequently contest this margin of occupation. Because most towns and cities are sited beside water bodies, many of these urban centers on or close to the sea, their physical expansion is constrained by the existence of aquatic areas in one or more directions from the core. It is usually much easier for new urban development to occur along or inland from the waterfront. Where other physical constraints, such as rugged hills or mountains, make expansion difficult or expensive, building at greater densities or construction on steep slopes is a common response. This kind of development, though technically feasible, is usually more expensive than construction on level or gently sloping land, however. Moreover, there are many reasons for developing along the shore or riverfront in preference to using sites further inland. The high cost of developing existing dry land that presents serious construction difficulties is one reason for creating new land from adjacent areas that are permanently or periodically under water. Another reason is the relatively high value of artificially created land close to the urban centre when compared with the value of existing developable space at a greater distance inland. The creation of space for development is not the only motivation for urban expansion into aquatic areas. Commonly, urban places on the margins of the sea, estuaries, rivers or great lakes are, or were once, ports where shipping played an important role in the economy. The demand for deep waterfronts to allow ships to berth and for adjacent space to accommodate various port facilities has encouraged the advance of the urban land area across marginal shallows in ports around the world. The space and locational demands of port related industry and commerce, too, have contributed to this process. Often closely related to these developments is the generation of waste, including domestic refuse, unwanted industrial by-products, site formation and demolition debris and harbor dredgings. From ancient times, the foreshore has been used as a disposal area for waste from nearby settlements, a practice that continues on a huge scale today. Land formed in this way has long been used for urban development, despite problems that can arise from the nature of the dumped material and the way in which it is deposited. Disposal of waste material is a major factor in the creation of new urban land. Pollution of the foreshore and other water margin wetlands in this way encouraged the idea that the reclamation of these areas may be desirable on public health grounds. With reference to examples from various parts of the world, the historical development of the urban littoral frontier and its effects on the morphology and character of towns and cities are illustrated and discussed. The threat of rising sea levels and the heritage value of many waterfront areas are other considerations that are addressed.

Fictionalising oral history : narrative analysis, voice and identity

Details of a project which fictionalises the oral history of the life of the author's polio-afflicted grandmother Beth Bevan and her experiences at a home for children with disabilities are presented. The speech and language patterns recognised in the first person narration are described, as also the sense of voice and identity communicated through the oral history.

Anna Clark (2008) History’s Children: History Wars in the Classroom. UNSW Press, Sydney, 178 pages

“History’s Children” stems from Anna Clark’s 2004 postdoctoral research into the ways in which Australian students connect with the past, and aims at bringing some classroom perspectives into the public debates about Australian history education. Although the title makes reference to the “History Wars”, there is little evidence of contestation, engagement, passion or intellectual excitement in Clark’s conclusions about what happens in history classrooms. Rather, Clark’s small focus groups with 182 high school students in 34 high schools around Australia indicate that “it got a bit dismal hearing student after student being so dismissive of Australian history” (p. 143). Apart from some enthusiasm for the study of Australians at war, a sort of resigned boredom seems to characterise what students have to say about learning Australian history, despite their acknowledgement that it is important to “know about” it.

Evolving citizenship : "the right to protest and the right to dance"

Citizenship is a term of association among strangers. Access to it involves contested identities and symbolic meanings, differing power relations and strategies of inclusion, exclusion and action, and unequal room for maneuver or productivity in the uses of citizenship for any given group or individual. In the context of "rethinking communication," strenuous action is neede to associate such different life chances in a common enterprise at a national level or, more modestly, simply to claim equivalence for all such groups under the rule of one law.

The CAPA Indigenous Project. Indigenous postgraduate education: A project into the barriers which indigenous students must overcome in postgraduate studies: A short history 1993-2000.

This brief paper outlines some of the early work undertaken in Indigenous postgraduate activism in Australia. In particular, the work undertaken in the lead up to the 'Project into the Barriers which Indigenous Students must Overcome in Postgraduate Studies'.

'The black hole of our history' : a conversation with Louis Nowra

This is an edited version of an interview recorded for Canadian Theatre Review in 1992. By that time Nowra had established a reputation as one of Australia's foremost playwrights. Part of the generation which succeeded the New Wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Nowra became known for a stylistic inventiveness which placed him outside the tradition of realist playwriting in Australia. The international outlook in his early plays, and the fact that he was not exclusively preoccupied with Australian settings and subject matter, was often a focal point in critical accounts of his work. In this interview Nowra discusses his 'internationalism', and a range of topics including the playwriting process; the presence of landscape in his plays; and the autobiographical elements in his work.

Note sequence morphing algorithms for performance of electronic dance music

This paper describes algorithms that can musically augment the realtime performance of electronic dance music by generating new musical material by morphing. Note sequence morphing involves the algorithmic generation of music that smoothly transitions between two existing musical segments. The potential of musical morphing in electronic dance music is outlined and previous research is summarised; including discussions of relevant music theoretic and algorithmic concepts. An outline and explanation is provided of a novel Markov morphing process that uses similarity measures to construct transition matrices. The paper reports on a ‘focus-concert’ study used to evaluate this morphing algorithm and to compare its output with performances from a professional DJ. Discussions of this trial include reflections on some of the aesthetic characteristics of note sequence morphing. The research suggests that the proposed morphing technique could be effectively used in some electronic dance music contexts.

Performing the unutterable : mapping the experiential in contemporary dance

This research project looks to engage audiences in a variety of experiential ways by reexamining and manipulating the traditional presentation paradigm for viewing Western contemporary dance. It considers how the audience may be situated in the creation and presentation of contemporary dance generally, and specifically in the work The Voyeur, which researched these issues in action. By situating the body of the audience member as a site of understanding and meaning making, this practice-based research considers the audience within the artists’ creative process from the inception of a creative work, rather than after the work has been created. The research questions how a ‘lived experience’ of contemporary dance could be deepened for the audience. It presents a series of ‘tools’ to create alternative frameworks of presentation that challenge the dominant modes of creation, presentation and meaning making in contemporary dance. The five tools established and applied in this research are: site, liminality, agency, proximity and performer authenticity. These tools are framed as a series of calibrated scales that allow choreographers to map decisions made in the studio in relation to potential audience engagement. These scales have the ability to house multiple presentation formats from the traditional to the avant garde and open up possibilities for broad analysis of a wide range of artistic dance works.

The life-history and relationships of ‘Orthocladius’ pictipennis Freeman (Diptera: Chironomidae)

The previously unknown larva and pupa of ‘Orthocladius’ pictipennis Freeman have been found, and associated by molecular means. Pharate pupae (males within pupae) allow the link to the described adult. We describe the larva and pupa, and provide short notes on the adult. The taxon is unrelated to Orthocladius – no members of this Holarctic genus are present in New Zealand – and therefore we provide a new generic name, Paulfreemania Cranston and Krosch gen. n. as well as a short discussion of relationships amongst austral Orthocladiinae.