VOLUME ONE, ISSUE 2 - MARCH 2018
NIA AND NESS NEW YORK CITY'S DYNAMIC DANCE DUO
LAUREN SEYMOUR SYTYCDAU STAR LAUREN SEYMOUR BACK UP DANCES FOR KYLIE MINOGUE IN THE UK!
INSIDE MOULIN ROUGE AUSSIE'S LAUREN PERRETT GETS PROMOTED TO SOLOIST AT MOULIN ROUGE
DANCE ACADEMY'S DENA KAPLAN COMING TO CINEMAS IN THE USA AND CANADA
www.dancewriter.com.au
NEWS DANCE ACADEMY HITS CINEMAS IN USA AND CANADA EXCLUSIVE WITH DENA KAPLAN
If you are an American or Canadian resident and absolutely obsessed with dance, well guess what! The Dance Academy movie is coming to a cinema near you on March 2, 2018. Dance Academy is a hit-tv series featuring an all-Australian cast. The show ended five years ago with only three seasons and fans were left wondering if the lead Tara Webster would ever dance again after a crippling back injury. Aussie fans let out a sigh of relief when the movie was released as they could now see what happened to Tara. Now a year later, US and Canadian audiences get to indulge in the hype and watch the movie on the big screen. Dance Academy: The Comeback directed by Jeffrey Walker continues the story of Tara Webster and her devastating back injury. In order to achieve her dream of being a professional dancer, Tara packs up her life and travels to New York City. Tara crumbles emotionally as she faces countless rejections from the dance industry. Has she got what it takes to be a professional dancer after being away from dance for a year-and-a-half?
THE CAST AND I HAVE REMAINED BEST FRIENDS AND THEY’RE SOME OF THE GREATEST PEOPLE I HAVE EVER MET. 1. Congratulations Dena on such a successful career so far! How has Dance Academy changed your life? DK: Thank you so much! Dance Academy has changed my life in so many wonderful ways. It gave me so many opportunities to work with people I admired in both film and dance. But most of all, the relationships I formed were lifechanging. The cast and I have remained best friends and they’re some of the greatest people I have ever met.
2. You’ve played Abigail for a while now, how is she similar to you and how is she different? DK: Abigail and I are both ambitious, driven, hard workers who love dancing more than anything. However we are very different people, she is a closed book and I am very open. She doesn’t have many people she connects with and is very quick to judge, I try to be the opposite to that. But we are both vulnerable and loyal. 3. The Dance Academy Movie is coming to screens in the US and Canada. When is it to arrive in cinemas? It will be out in cinemas this week! Keep up to date on my social feeds to hear more! @denaamy 4. How are the fans over there in the States compared to Australia? Are they super excited? For sure, I think dance is very universal so our show connects with people from all over the world.
Famous New York City photographer Jordan Matter is making his way to Australia from March 13 to capture some of the greatest dancers in the country. Jordan Matter is a very experienced photographer out of New York City and has worked with the likes of Sophie Dossi (America’s Got Talent), Alan Cummings (International Actor), Brynn Rumfallo (Dance Moms) and many more. Jordan has three photographic books out on sale, his most recent book Dancers Among Us successfully making it to the New York Times Bestsellers list. Jordan will fly into Melbourne on March 13 to photograph dancers over four days, heading to Adelaide and Brisbane and finishing in Sydney. It will be a jam-packed 10 days for Jordan, but you are able to book your slot with him! Jordan Matters believes being ‘out of the box’ is his way to create magic within a frame. He chooses dancers who are versatile in technique, fearless by having a ‘say yes to anything’ attitude, as well as being a bright person to be around. One concept very unique to Jordan is his 10-minute dance photo challenge, where he selects one dancer of a very high calibre to work with, and he has 10 minutes to capture as many epic photographs as he can in a single location. He does not photoshop and he does not need to edit what he creates in this challenge. A recent 10-minute photo challenge dancer was contortionist Sophie Dossi, whom he was able to capture some breathtaking images of her in the streets of Hollywood. Dance Writer is helping Jordan Matter to find his 10-minute photo challenge dancer in Australia by running an Instagram competition. Entries are open to any age but must be following both Dance Writer and Jordan Matter. To enter, you must show your technical versatility, flexibility and your bubbly personality by uploading a video of yourself explaining why you’d be perfect for the 10-minute challenge, as well as three different pictures of you showing off your leaps, legs and back flexibility in the one Instagram upload. The most important thing, remember to tag both of us so we can see your entry! Alternatively, if you would like to get a piece of the Jordan Matter action and schedule a photoshoot with him, email info@jordanmatter.com. But be quick as there are only limited places available!
NYC PHOTOGRAPHER JORDAN MATTER COMES DOWN UNDER CAN YOU BE HIS AUSSIE 10MINUTE CHALLENGE WINNER?
NEWS AUSTRALIAN INDEPENDENT DANCE TEACHER AWARDS ANNOUNCED EARLY MARCH Nominated dance teachers from across the country will be jet setting to Perth in March to help celebrate the annual Australian Independent Dance Teacher Awards night. The Australian Independent Dance Teacher Awards is an annual celebration of the most inspirational and transformational teachers Australia wide. Originating in Perth by Angela Perry, this night of nights is now recognised nationally as a prestigious award ceremony. The Awards honours inspiring teachers who have chosen this profession as their main occupation and vocation.
Founded in Perth by Angela Perry in 2014 has now turned into a nationally recognised event. Last year’s winners of the Studio Teacher category were Cathy Lee Smith Dance Works Victoria and Lyndal Quick Loft Dance Centre Victoria. The Australian Dance Teacher Awards ceremony will be held on March 9 at the John Curtin College of the Arts Theatre in Perth. The night will feature 14 finalist teachers from across Australia, plus more than 10 live dance performances from the best surrounding schools. The event will be streamed live onto their social platforms.
Special guests include Minister Yang MLC representing the Minister of the Arts, Professor Scott Putman from Virginia Commonwealth University, who will be our Master Teacher at the Dance Teaching Festival among many others. There are multiple categories to win, including Early Childhood / Primary, Secondary Teaching, Adult Training, Studio Teachers of any genre, Community Teachers, Syllabus and Curriculum Research, Life Long services to dance teaching and People’s Choice Award. A new category will be in place for 2019, which is the Teacher Award for Cultural Dance. To find out how to vote for the 2019 awards, go to www.danceteacherawards.com.au To purchase tickets: https://www.trybooking.com/RZFN
NYC'S NIA &
NEW YORK CITY
NESS: STRONG, POWERFUL, WISE By Sandra Kluge
Nia & Ness, a dancer/poet duo based in Brooklyn, tell the story of their daily experiences as a black lesbian couple on stage. Their performances are just as powerful as they are vulnerable, and allow other members of their community—black lesbian women, people of color, LGBTQ+, to see themselves reflected in their story. They also provide a platform for those stories to be seen and heard by people who have not had to deal with these kinds of experiences themselves. According to Nia, some people might “not believe this is actually happening in 2018, but it is, to so many different people.” What they present on stage is far away from acting. “It’s not a play, it’s real life”, Ness states. continue...
NIA & NESS
The two women radiate a great sense of courage and positive energy. It might seem risky to work together, because their personal and professional lives are so interconnected. But fortunately, working together and creating these very unique performances have created an even stronger bond between them. “The fact that [our art] is so entwined with our actual lives is what makes it come to life on stage, and the reason why we have so much emotion and passion in it,” Ness said. ‘Whenever we experience something traumatic, we figure out a way to put that into our art. It is like therapy,” Nia added. Both for them and for others. The work they create is for so many different audiences black, queer, and LGBTQ+ people can find themselves and their life reality represented on stage. White, straight, and cisgendered people can learn about what is happening. This is important in creating a better world for everyone, because—as Nia states—“if you’ve never heard about something, how can you make a change?”
“EVERYONE IS DOING THEIR PART IN WHAT THEY THINK THE WORLD SHOULD BE, BUT NOT NECESSARILY IN MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE FOR EVERYONE”. And many changes can be made to the world as it is today. When envisioning the world she wants to live in, Ness is disheartened. Her vision of a postracial, gender-non-binary world seems to have become more difficult to attain. Nia gets the impression that many people have two specific ways to approach the differences between people: either they completely reject anything and anybody that is different, which might result in hate and discrimination or they completely ignore the fact that there are different cultures, skin colors, and identities. “[It] takes away from peoples’ differences and their cultures that make them special.” She wishes “we could all just be ourselves and accept each other for who we are” with a certain curiosity and interest in listening to other peoples’ stories.
The duo is always happy when their audiences meet them with acceptance and an open ear, rather than rejection and an unwillingness to listen. With all the hate in the world, they are contributing their part to change. “[Everyone is] doing their part in what they think the world should be, but not necessarily in making the world a better place for everyone,” Nia aptly describes it. “Lots of people are trying to make the world better for themselves and their families, but the world is bigger than just you,” Ness adds. For Nia, this was one of the main reasons she started dancing. She used to want to be a doctor, but was taken aback by the years and years of education before being able to really work. However, her always wanting to help people made her realise that her way to help is through dancing. In that way, she is a doctor. Her movement is healing for her, “And in turn for others too,” Ness beautifully puts it. continue...