Funding cuts hit local dance groups
đź”— [SYSTEM UPDATE] Link found. Timestamp incremented on 2025-11-26 13:55:13.Melbourne's dance community is facing major struggles in the wake federal cuts to arts funding.
By BEVERLY QUEK
Big cuts to funding will create major problems for Melbourne's arts community, local dancers say.
Some of Melbourne’s most successful dance teachers and performers want recent federal funding cuts reversed to stem a potential flood of talent leaving Australia.
Senior dance teacher Etienne Khoo, who teaches hip hop and performing arts at the VCA, Ballarat College of Art and the Ministry of Sound, said the funding cuts would leave no opportunities for Australian performers.
"They will pretty much (have to) travel and get out of Australia to work,” Mr Khoo said. “If you support your local artists, people will stay here.”
The 2016 federal Budget cut arts funding by $100 million over four years, leaving a reshaped Australia Council to operate under a new directive.
More than 60 Australian arts companies that had previously received funding from the Federal Government had their latest funding applications rejected, leaving hundreds of people employed in the performing arts industry with uncertain futures or out of work.
Live Performance Australia, the peak body for Australia’s live performance industry, estimated almost 6000 jobs could be at risk if 40 per cent of small to medium arts companies lose key organisation funding from the Australia Council.
“We always struggle, all these small businesses struggle, especially studios,” Mr Khoo said. He also directs the hip hop company Dance Virus Production.
Dancer Monica Flores is part of the Funkadelic Dance Crew, which recently competed in the 2016 UDO Australia National Street Dance Championships.
“If it affects the studios getting cut, the studios where we go to, the classes that we go to – if all of them get cut, then where are we going to go to learn?” Ms Flores said.
However 27-year-old Joshua Dee, also a part of the Funkadelic dance crew, said he was in favour of the cuts.
“I got to where I am by self-improvement so I think it’ll be a good thing if they do cut it. If they cut it, you can learn as a dancer, to find yourself and where you fit in,” Mr Dee said.
Organisations that have been defunded by the Australia Council include Ausdance, which runs the Australian Dance Awards; dance theatre Force Majeure; literary journal Meanjin; National Association for the Visual Arts, which is based in Sydney; and the Centre for Contemporary Photography, in Melbourne.
