Page 2115 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 June 2005
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rehearsal period in April. The music for the section was composed by Mark Webber, a young Canberra composer.
The dancers for “Faces of the Enemy” were Jessica Ausserlechner, Millicent Malcolm, Amy Meldrum, Leena Spry, Alison Tandy, Alenka Csomor, Emily Chapman, Jamie Winbank, Jacqui Cornforth, Anthony Di Placido, Jake Fraser, Cain Holgate, Josh Mansfield and Garrett Kelly. Quantum Leap will return to the Playhouse in July with a full-length performance of Reckless Valour by these young people, featuring an original music score and choreographed by emerging professional choreographers from all over Australia.
The week also included a come’n’try dance day at Gorman House and a seniors dance day at the Hughes community hall where even 99-year-olds got up and danced around. Belconnen Markets hosted two days of Performance in the Piazza on their specially built dance stage and dancers across the city put on performances and offered classes in dance styles from ballet to belly dancing, tango to tap and everything in between.
Dance week is supported by Belconnen Markets and HealthPact and Ausdance ACT is assisted by the ACT government through the cultural council. The “Every body can dance” dance week in 2005 was coordinated by the Ausdance ACT office through their new director, Roslyn Dundas, who is well known to us all, and Paula Nesci.
Refugees
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.56): Yesterday was World Refugee Day, as has been pointed out by Mr Hargreaves. Consequently, I am making refugees the theme of my adjournment speech.
The recognition of prior occupation reminds us of where most of us stand: we are all migrants or their offspring. Knowing that, one would expect compassion and empathy to be our first and overriding response to those who continue to come to our country for a better life and to escape oppression. Indeed, I believe that, with full information, that would be the response of most Australians. However, as we know, most Australians are not given full information. The stories of the people we lock up in detention centres, as told in theatre, in books and occasionally in the media, reveal people we would welcome into our communities if we had the opportunity.
Canberra is a town with a heart for refugees. Ann-Mari Jordens has spelled this out in her historical writings and it is, of course, exemplified by the field of hearts. Ann-Mari Jordens, in her article in the Canberra Historical Journal of September 2003, mentions the many groups of individuals who have added to Canberra’s multicultural society. The first migrants to come after the war were refugees: Estonians, Lithuanians, Czechoslovakians, Poles, Croatians, Slovenians and Jews, followed by immigrants and refugees, including Serbians, Greeks, Germans, Austrians, Italians and Spaniards. Members will note the European flavour of that group.
In the early years of immigration it was believed, much as it was about indigenous people and exemplified in policy, that non-British migrants would assimilate into the local community and disappear. However, they did not become invisible; they changed the face of Canberra forever from its Anglo-Saxon, bureaucratic, home-based social
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