Co-Design: Imagining a festival for dance in Melbourne

Dancehouse and Arts House, with support from Creative Victoria, appointed four arts leaders – Mariaa Randall, Luke George, Priya Srinivasan and Tam Nguyen to lead a community co-design, to explore the potential of a dedicated contemporary dance festival in Melbourne. The Co-Design involved over 373 people using a careful intersectional methodology to unearth a broad range of complex, overlapping challenges and opportunities for our dance community – and the arts sector at large.

In order to understand the current state of dance and what the term “contemporary dance” might mean in Melbourne, the team used a decolonising methodology to guide this artist led dialogue with the sector.

The co-design team rethought existing structures by employing an intersectional and dialogic framework to address race, gender, age, sexuality, access and class.

Co-Design artist reflections drew on a survey, nine focus groups and individual consultations with elders and pioneers.

Read the reflections here.

Arts House and Dancehouse are initiating a series of workshops to create business models for a dance festival to be held in Melbourne in the first six months of 2023. Participate in next steps.

Read the Co-Design team biographies here.