The Australian Ballet’s Education Program now online

The Australian Ballet’s STEAMDANCE education program digital resource allows primary and secondary schools to access lessons developed by The Australian Ballet’s Education and Outreach team combining dance and STEM subjects.

STEAMDANCE explores science, technology, engineering, arts and maths through dance, and works in partnership with teachers to select engaging themes for students.

The Australian Ballet’s Head of Education and Outreach, Katy McKeown, says, “The educational tours we usually conduct each year around Australia’s regional communities are an integral part of educating and inspiring young people all around Australia, so we’re very pleased to be able to continue to do so online and offer this to schools around the country. All schools need to do is sign up and we can take it from there.

“It’s important for us to get as many kids as possible learning through movement and we want to ensure that the magic of dance inspires and reaches the widest possible audience.”

Whether at home or at school, students can take part in live warm-ups to get active and keep fit, participate in games, and create dances, routines and cool- downs with professional dancers. The second element of the program allows students to view a professional performance given by our educators, based on themes of resilience.

Performances of Plain Jane and Wilaygu Ngayinybula (Possum's Two Minds) have been created specially to engage students of all abilities and experience levels.

After the performance, further engagement will be offered through Q&A sessions with the dancers, along with explorations of characters, costumes and themes.

An extension of The Australian Ballet’s teacher training is the Remote Leader’s Mentoring Course, which is available for teachers and community leaders via a Facebook page (on sign-up) and will feature lesson plans and tips to get the community and students up and dancing.

McKeown says, “Our Remote Leader’s Mentoring Course aims to further help our dance community and groups that we may have visited in the past to deliver elements of dance supported by digital video, lesson plans and email/Skype support.”

Workshops begin on 4 May 2020. To enquire about signing up to The Australian Ballet’s STEAMDANCE education program visit australianballet.com.au/learning-and-development or email [email protected] to book.