Artistic director of QL2 Dance, Ruth Osborne has been awarded a 2016 Churchill Fellowship. Administered by the Churchill Trust, Churchill Fellowships provide opportunities for talented Australians to travel overseas to conduct research in a chosen field. Osborne will research youth dance programs in the UK, focused on career pathways, mentorship and creative collaborations. She will travel in late 2017.
“I am honoured to be among the 106 amazing people from around Australia, conducting research in very diverse fields,” says Osborne. “I am particularly pleased that the arts — and youth dance in particular — is recognised as a worthy topic for support.
“I will spend several very intense weeks in the UK, visiting and working with many kinds of youth dance practitioners. I am thrilled to be able to take the time to research, investigate programs and find people with similar aims, away from the day-to-day pressures of being artistic director at QL2 Dance.
“It is an opportunity to focus on overseas examples of the kind of youth dance practices that I am passionate about - ones that reach beyond cool moves, physical training and performance. I work with young people to develop their creative leadership capacity — our new generation of dance creators and leaders. I am seeking creative, inclusive, non-competitive, programs that are intellectually stimulating, not only developing clever bodies, but clever and unique minds.
“Meeting people and organisations with similar goals to mine, and seeing how their different solutions work in different contexts, will inform and inspire my future work with young people at QL2 Dance and beyond. I am interested not just in what they are doing now, but their history: how youth dance practices developed in the UK, and how much is universal versus responding to specific cultural situations.
The Fellowship is also an opportunity to showcase some of the remarkable youth dance practice that we have in Australia — as proven by the growing number of Australian dance artists excelling around the world.”
Above: Ruth Osborne with QL2 dancers. Photo: Lorna Sim.