Australian Dance Theatre
Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), founded in 1965 by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, is the longest-running contemporary dance company in Australia, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2015. Originally based in Hawthorn, Adelaide, the company moved to the Odeon Theatre in Norwood in 2017. Renowned both nationally and internationally, ADT has gained recognition through its innovative works and extensive touring, receiving numerous industry awards along the way. The company has undergone several leadership changes, each bringing diverse influences that have shaped its evolving repertoire, with Garry Stewart's tenure beginning in 1999 marking a period of stability and innovation. ADT is known for its exploration of Australian themes, indigenous culture, and its collaboration with various artists from different disciplines. The company also emphasizes outreach and education, offering programs for young dancers and engaging in academic partnerships. While funding has been a persistent challenge, ADT continues to thrive, securing financial support to produce new works and maintain its presence in the dance community.
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Australian Dance Theatre
The Australian Dance Theatre celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2015, making it the longest-running dance company in Australia. Formerly based at Hawthorn's Wonderland Ballroom in Adelaide, the South Australian company moved to new premises at the Odeon Theatre in Norwood in Adelaide in October 2017. This highly regarded and innovative company is well known in Australia and internationally through its extensive touring schedule, and has received many industry awards.
The contemporary dance company was founded by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman in 1965. Through several changes of artistic director over twenty years, it has incorporated a multitude of cross-disciplinary interests, influences and styles. The transitions in leadership have sometimes been abrupt and controversial. However, a period of relative growth and stability ensued under the directorship of Garry Stewart, who took over the reins in 1999. There were grave fears for the future of the company in 2016 when the Australia Council overhauled its funding model for the arts. Despite these fears, the organization remained funded through the mid-2020s.
Brief History
Elizabeth Dalman (née Cameron) was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1934 and studied classical ballet and modern dance. She left Australia for Europe in 1957, studying in Germany in 1958 and dancing in New York in 1962–3. On 10 June 1965, Dalman established the Australian Dance Theatre with former Royal Ballet soloist Leslie White, performing both modern and classical works. White moved to Brisbane in 1967 and Dalman's troupe became the first professional contemporary dance company in Australia, exploring topical themes, Australian indigenous culture and the distinct Australian landscape, and incorporating classical, experimental, contemporary, pop and folk music in performances. The company was established at a time when there was support for investment in the arts, including at the state level under South Australian premier Don Dunstan.
The funding model required the dance company to have a governing board, and in 1975 the board dismissed its founding artistic director, replacing her with British dancer Jonathan Taylor. Taylor trained in London and joined the Ballet Rambert before moving to Adelaide to lead the company, where he staged works by both Australian and international choreographers. Taylor himself was abruptly ousted in 1985, setting something of a trend for the Australian Dance Theatre. Each change in leadership caused distress and tension within the company. However, each new artistic director brought their own set of influences and interests, helping to expand the company's repertoire and skill set over the years.
Taylor was succeeded by Leigh Warren, also a Ballet Rambert dancer. A South Australian local, she had trained at the Australian Ballet School and New York's Juilliard School and was interested in postmodern dance, working with live musicians and promoting Australian choreography. She was dismissed in 1992 and replaced with Meryl Tankard. Tankard had established her own dance company in Canberra after dancing for Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch in Germany and introduced spectacular productions with features such as suspended dancers flying above the audience, real vegetable patches on stage, and dancers performing astonishing feats of strength. Garry Stewart took over the Australian Dance Theatre in 1999, and a rule change allowing the artistic director to sit on the board ushered in an era of stability for the company. The group proved no less innovative under his stewardship. Stewart's interest in technology saw the company collaborate with roboticists, taxidermists, neuroscientists and architects, although his interest in turning the company into a hub for dance film production was constrained by budgetary considerations.
Impact
Dalman fostered the emergence of a distinctly Australian voice and incorporated in the theatre's productions the works of composer Peter Sculthorpe, the author Patrick White, and visual artists Albert Tucker and John Olsen. Under Tankard and then Stewart, the Australian Dance Theatre became Australia's most travelled dance troupe, touring extensively throughout Australia, Ireland, Korea, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Monaco, Japan, Spain, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Norway. It was the first Australian dance company to be invited to the Edinburgh Festival (1980), to perform at New York's Joyce Theater (2005) and to perform at Théâtre de la Ville in Paris (2011).
Australian Dance Theatre alumni have had a profound influence on the global dance world. They include Carole Johnson, whose classes would eventually lead to the foundation of the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre, the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association, and eventually to the Bangarra Dance Theatre; Cheryl Stock, Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology and Secretary General of World Dance Alliance; founders of OzFrank Theatre John Nobbs and Jacqui Carroll; Shaun Parker & Company; and Kate Champion, founder of Force Majeure.
The Australian Dance Theatre conducts many outreach and development activities, including the Youth Ensemble that provides young dancers with the opportunity to enhance specific skills and train in creative and diverse styles and techniques. The theatre hosts in-school workshops and opens rehearsals to secondary school students. It is committed to public education through pre- and post-show talks and forums, and Q&A sessions with the artistic director and the dancers. The Adelaide Embedded program, introduced in 2014, moves dancers off the stage and into public spaces and art galleries.
The company is also involved in academic pursuits and research, such as the bachelor of creative arts (dance) degree delivered by Technical and Further Education South Australia's (TAFE SA's) Adelaide College of the Arts and Flinders University. In 2013, the Adelaide Festival of Ideas hosted "The Art and Science of Movement" forum with the Australian Dance Theatre and Flinders University to examine how our morphology and the actions of our body dynamically shape our brains. "Thinking Brains and Bodies", a ground-breaking three-year research project involving international researchers headed by Professor Kate Stevens from the University of Western Sydney, commenced in 2014. Beginning with the idea that thinking may not be confined to the individual brain but distributed across a group, it examines the locus of creativity, the effect of collaboration on innovation and the mechanisms of group recollection.
Funding levels have always had a profound impact on the continuing operation of the Australian Dance Theatre, and funding cuts across the arts in 2016 had many concerned that the existence of Australia's longest-running dance school could be under threat. Despite withdrawal of funding from several other theatrical and arts organizations in South Australia, the Australian Dance Theatre was successful in obtaining four-year funding of $300,000 from the Australia Council, effective from 2017. It also secured funds from Catalyst, the federal government's arts and culture fund, to produce Objekt, a full-length contemporary dance work in collaboration with Germany's Tanzmainz dance company. The organization remained funded and operating throughout 2025. To celebrate its sixtieth anniversary, the Australian Dance Theatre performed the collaborative work A Quiet Language.
Bibliography
Australian Dance Theatre, www.adt.org.au/. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
"Australian Dance Theatre Gets 60th Birthday Boost." Limelight, 14 Jan. 2025, limelight-arts.com.au/news/australian-dance-theatre-gets-60th-birthday-boost/. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Brissenden, Alan. "Australian Dance Theatre at 50." The Adelaide Review, 1 June 2015, www.adelaidereview.com.au/arts/performing-arts/australian-dance-theatre-at-50/. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Campbell, Claire. "SA Arts Funding at Risk of Being 'Decimated', Rally at Parliament House Hears." ABC News, 19 April 2016, www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-19/sa-art-funding-at-crisis-point-as-hundreds-rally/7339168. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Nunn, Louise. "Twists and Turns: Marking 50 Years of the Australian Dance Theatre." SA Weekend, 2 June 2017, www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/sa-weekend/twists-and-turns-marking-50-years-of-the-australian-dance-theatre/news-story/6940d5cc4e019958364b7310cdedf9b4?nk=20fe877f9a39a104f6ec20fe46a6107c-1512523130. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Roberts, Jo. "ADT Sweeps Dance Awards." The Age, November 18, 2002, www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/18/1037490097182.html. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Stewart, Garry. "Australian Dance Theatre." Dance Forum, vol. 15, no. 3, Spring 2009, p.9.
Tonkin, Maggie. Fifty. Wakefield Press, 2017.
Verghis, Sharon. "Australian Dance Theatre Celebrates 50th Anniversary." The Australian, 18 July 2015, www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/australian-dance-theatre-celebrates-50th-anniversary/news-story/b08623f7f0ca13e76f897d8584a7ec6a?nk=20fe877f9a39a104f6ec20fe46a6107c-1512524502. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.