The final 18 dance graduates from the University of Western Sydney University (UWSU) have been dancing their outrage in graduation performances and theatres in the west of Sydney. The graduates are the last of the Bachelor of Performance Theory & Practice course, which will be "retired" after 20 years of success. "Retired" is the university's word for no new student intake for 2007. The course is one of four to go for reasons of space allocation and low attendance according to inside sources.
Titled An Absurd Little Bird, the performance not only inspired but educated audiences about the corporatisation of education and the decline of arts through the dancing of the tango of Argentina. The performances are also a collective action by students and teachers against the course closure.
"We lament the fact dance is now no longer here and we lament the fact that the arts in Australia are so undervalued," said Elizabeth Cameron-Dalmon, head teacher of dance at UWSU. Cameron-Dalmon told Green Left Weekly the performance course was "being taught out" when she took up the position three years ago. However, she had been working to keep the course alive due to the art of dance being an "ecology of the community".
The news of closure motivated students to take collective action to express what they were feeling through dance. While students fundraised in a combined effort to get the performance going, a Latin American theme ultimately inspired the work. A painting by Jack Vittriano showing a couple dancing the tango as a storm is breaking was the starting point. "The couple dancing the Tango is a symbol for the dance course, the storm (the university) is the force pushing it out", said Cameron-Dalmon.
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