New Sydney Festival funding to see dancing in the streets
To further grow appreciation and audience numbers for Australian contemporary dance, the Australia Council for the Arts will contribute $250,000 to Sydney Festival’s First Night event in 2009.
Introduced in 2008, Festival First Night is a free event that aims to connect people, the city and the arts. It drew audiences of more than 250,000 in its first year.
Australia Council chief executive Kathy Keele said: ‘Our support for Sydney Festival’s First Night program in 2009 reflects the Australia Council’s commitment to helping make contemporary dance accessible to more Australians.’
‘This further investment in Australian contemporary dance follows our highly successful Movers and Shakers collaboration with Sydney Festival in 2008, when 90 per cent of the 16,000 audience members told us they would be interested, or very keen to see another contemporary dance show.'
‘Festival First Night is another important step in helping Australian dance find new performance stages and providing opportunities for festival audiences to experience the uniquely Australian choreographic voice.
‘With the 2009 First Night program we hope to see audiences – literally – dancing in the streets.’ |
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