Rave about Arts

Not the End

Just Another Beginning

Hopetoun Dance Group has been an integral part of Hopetouns’ landscape for the past four years. A weekly tradition in Hopetoun. Term by term, Monday afternoons in Hopetoun are for dancing.

A partnership between Hopetoun Dance Group & Ravensthorpe Regional Arts Council (RRAC), supported by Hopetoun Primary School and First Quantum Minerals, saw a four-year program which engaged Hopetoun children in dance. Now with exciting opportunities on the horizon Rebecca Hiller and Kristen Lanham, Hopetoun Dance Group (HDG) are fully handing over the reigns (and the remainder of the HDG funding) to RRAC. No pressure RRAC!

Not to despair. With the foundations for dance firmly concreted into Hopetoun, thanks to Beck and Kristin, RRAC have been working on a project to swing, jump, leap and spin across 6 towns in the region with a Dance Artist in Residence.

RRAC was selected by Country Arts WA to coordinate the Contemporary Dance and Performance cluster for the Regional Arts Partnership Project (RAPP), one of three initiatives within the Departments of Local Government Sport and Cultural Industries and Primary Industries and Regional Development, Royalties for Regions Creative Regions program. The RAPP is aimed at bringing together regional artists and arts organisations with key service organisations, to create collaborative partnership groups to drive regional arts development across Western Australia. This ground-breaking arts initiative will create the biggest arts network in Western Australian history over the next two years. Are we excited? You can bet your lyrical-leotard we are!

Currently still in the scoping phase for this project, RRAC is working in partnership with Ausdance WA, and with Principals at Hopetoun PS, Ravensthorpe DHS, Munglinup PS, Jerdacuttup Primary, Lake King PS and Jerramungup DHS, to deliver the opportunity for over 300 children to participate in dance.

Ensuring sustainability of dance in the regions is at the forefront of this project, a Mentorship program is forming up, involving local artists and/or teachers working alongside RRAC’s professional dance artist in residence.

This pilot project was kicked off with a community ‘taster’, a full day of dance classes demonstrating different elements of contemporary dance. To gage community interest in different dance styles and community demographics, community dance classes are being held in Hopetoun, Ravensthorpe and Jerramungup during this school term. This 5-week scoping phase will allow RRAC to gather enough output data for efficient scheduling throughout 2018 and 2019, leading into dance performance opportunities, community classes and dance workshops in the region.

For ongoing dance opportunities, like the dedicated “RRAC Dance” Facebook page. 2018’s program is set to begin with the start of school term 1.

Acrobatic Workshop photos by Dene Bingham.

Project made possible by: