#GAReads | Australia's major dance companies need to step up on gender equality

photo credit: Kyle Head, via Unsplash (cropped)

"Australia's major dance companies need to step up on gender equality":

The dance sector in Australia has a gender equality problem. While nearly 70% of people working in the industry identify as female, there is a significant gender gap in programming and leadership at the major dance companies. 

A report released this week, Turning Pointe, by Andrew Westle, looked at the five big dance companies that receive the bulk of public funding – the Australian Ballet, Queensland Ballet, West Australian Ballet, Bangarra Dance Theatre and Sydney Dance Company. All the artistic directors at these companies are men. Between 2011 and 2017, women choreographed only 13% of full-length works and 24% of shorter works. Only 26% of Australian premieres were from women.

Read Andrew Westle and Jordan Beth Vincent's full article at The Conversation here…