QUT’s Bachelor of Fine Arts Dance and Dance Performance students now enjoy world-class facilities unmatched in Australia.
The three dance studios are one of the star attractions of the $88 million expansion of QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct at Kelvin Grove; the most sophisticated and technically advanced creative space in Australia and one of the best in the world.
The centrepiece is a six-storey five-star Green star building (Z9) housing QUT’s dance, drama, music, visual art, creative writing, fashion, animation and creative research programs. It pulses with a state-of-the-art digital backbone and the dance studios are fully connected.
The dance studios, along with the rest of Z9 and new areas of the Creative Industries Precinct will be open for industry, future students, parents and other members of the public to see during the CreateX Festival on Sunday 28 August.
“The studios have been designed to intuitively respond to the needs of our dance teachers and students. They really lift the benchmark of international world-class facilities,” said QUT’s Head of Dance, Associate Professor Gene Moyle.
“Each studio is fitted with six-metre high glazed walls, which provide excellent natural light. Students can look out and passers-by can look in. At night it is like a glowing dancing lantern.
“The highest quality sprung dance flooring system by Harlequin Floors enhances grip and rebound. All studios have stainless steel dance barres and full-length mirrors, theatre quality rigging, advanced audio and ‘smart’ lighting, while acoustic material in the ceiling minimises sounds and ensures the acoustics don’t echo outside of the studios.
“Flat screens allow students to video themselves on their phones during classes and project it on to the wall for immediate feedback and learning purposes.”
Greg Jenkins, QUT Head of Studies, School of Media, Entertainment and Creative Arts, said the new spaces were a joy for both staff and students to use.
“The dance studios are quite amazing. You can see all the wires and such coming out of the walls here and the connection points up there and for a dance studio to have this much connectivity is quite unusual. Normally it’s just a room with a piano in the corner,” he said.
A highlight of CreateX will be a performance at the opening night gala by QUT dance alumni Michelle Ryan, artistic director of the Restless Dance Theatre, the Adelaide-based youth dance company whose work is inspired by cultures of disability.
Ryan, who won a 2015 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance for her work on Intimacy with Torque Show, was a ballet dancer in Europe when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) more than a decade ago.
Professor Moyle said a wide range of other exciting dance performances and workshops would take place at CreateX, some of which would highlight the stunning facilities available in the dance studios.
“People can expect Hip Hop and Latin Dance workshops as well as performances by QUT Dance students and external industry partners,” Professor Moyle said.
“QUT graduate Elise May, a dancer with Expressions Dance Company (EDC), will present excerpts from Shifting Lenses, a live, interactive digital solo performance installation which is the creative outcome of her Master of Arts (Research) investigating screen-based and interdisciplinary approaches to the use of the moving image and digital media in live performance.
“We have a really productive industry partnership with EDC which is further enhanced by the connection to QUT of Dance alumni Natalie Weir who is artistic director of the company.
“QUT alumni Sammie Williams, an independent choreographer and teacher, will be running classes while Queensland Ballet Pre-Professional Program artists will perform an excerpt from QUT Alumni Gareth Belling’s Transition Sequence.”
Professor Moyle said other dance-infused activities planned for the day included a performance of original dance works choreographed by 3rd year Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance Performance) students in response to the new building, Z9, along with an Ethiopian dance workshop put on by Communify and screenings of famous dance films.
Visit CreateX for more details.
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Media contact:
Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 1841, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au
