7
Nikki Heywood, 4 x 15 mins
Annalouise Paul at Speak Local, Critical Path, 2015. Photo: Heidrun LĂśhr
The residue of Australia’s Multiculturalism, assimilation policies and cultural stereotyping is subsiding for many artists from the non-dominant cultures in Australia. Cultural dance has generally meant folkloric, community and heritage forms. These have not been regularly included in funding project excellence or in curated arts programs but more often relegated to community cultural development activity. Here again dance artists operating in both cultural and western forms find themselves in the liminal space creatively, Atlanta Eke. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti
but also liminal within the wider dance sector that operates from Western-European modes of dance exploration. The works face challenges of cultural navigation and creation that must be produced and critiqued on its own terms, aesthetics, values and frameworks rather than through a European lens or sensibility. Multicultural NSW proposes that by 2020 New South Wales will be the most culturally diverse place in the world. The latest Census showed that forty-seven percent