Forty years in, 48,000 Canberra school kids have taken part in this annual dance festival

Canberra Theatre Centre director Alex Budd and his sister Sybilla Budd, the Australian actress known for The Bet (2006), The Secret Life of Us (2001) and September (2007); ballet artist Paul Knobloch, who’s performed on stages all over the world; and Eliza Sanders, who helped create the dance education component of the Australian National Curriculum, all owe a nod of thanks to the Canberra Youth Dance Festival.

Run by Ausdance ACT, the peak body for dance in the territory, this annual festival celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2024.

More than 800 kids from the ACT’s schools – both public and private – are registered to take part in three days of performances at the Canberra Theatre Centre from 6 November.

Prior to COVID, this number was even higher – at 1200 – and the 40-year total is estimated at more than 48,000 kids.

Ausdance ACT director Dr Cathy Adamek says it began in 1984 when schools from the ACT’s north and south sides faced each other in a dance competition at the Tradesmen’s Union Club (now The Tradies) in Dickson.

“There was clearly huge enthusiasm, even though the emphasis was more on disco, which the more sort of high-end contemporary art people tend to look down on a bit,” Cathy says.

The following year, the competitive element was dropped and it became a chance for kids to perform their moves in front of a real-life audience.

“It’s really an opportunity for young people experimenting with new creative forms to be able to make something and perform it on a stage in a professional environment,” she says.

Each school can enter as many pieces as they like, and ever since COVID, under a theme. This year’s is ‘What do you dream?’, following on from ‘dystopia/utopia’ and ‘transience/permanence’ during the lockdown years, when the event was held via live stream.

“We got permission from the ACT Education directorate to get some of them to film their works on the stage, and then we made a live stream that people could purchase and download, which really got dance filmmaking on the agenda too,” Cathy adds.

In most cases, it takes a group of teenagers in Years 7 to 12 about 20 hours to develop a five-minute dance piece. The older ones are typically undertaking a school elective in performing arts, while the younger years “just want to make up a dance, so there’s a big variety of skill sets”.

It’s not just popular among girls, either.

“Boys dancing has been a really big part of Youth Dance Festival for years, and that really only dropped off during COVID, when it was very difficult to get the boys to enter,” Cathy says.

“But they’ve just started to come back, so we’re really happy to have Marist back this year, for instance.”

This year’s is set to be bigger than ever, with 38 schools enrolled to perform across three nights – up from two nights in previous years.

“In that 2.5 hours, you could hear a pin drop,” Cathy says.

“That’s the other amazing thing about this – you get the parent audience coming in who wouldn’t normally go to theatre, and they’re absolutely entranced.”

She says it’s an experience the kids never forget.

“A lot of people hate group work, but when you create a piece of theatre, it connects you to people you’ll remember and possibly be friends with for the rest of your life.”

Some, if not always to the same level as Sybilla Budd or Paul Knobloch, even go on to get jobs out of it.

“It’s actually spawned a whole bunch of people who went on to work for the Canberra Theatre Centre, and in careers as technicians too, on top of a number of those who performed in the festival who have gone on to be successful elsewhere,” Cathy says.

“It’s just one of those things that keeps feeding the fabric of the creative arts in Australia generally.”

The 2024 Canberra Youth Dance Festival will be held from 6 to 8 November at the Canberra Theatre Festival. Buy tickets online.