WE know that dance schools are everywhere and that, everywhere you go, kids (big and small) love to dance.
Out in the regions, in country towns and locations, they are often as popular as any sports club, bringing the community together, providing enjoyable recreation, catering to children’s creativity and imagination, exposing them to music, art and theatre, and opening up their young minds to career possibilities. Many regional schools are the seeding ground of international talent. Dance schools, like the local sports club, are a gathering place for children and adults alike, but, unlike the local sports club, their importance often goes unnoticed.
For this feature, we asked readers to nominate a regional school they would like to see featured in Dance Australia. We received an overwhelming number of suggestions from all over the country. Here is just a small sample.
Branches Performing Arts
Julia Creek, Qld, really is ‘outback’.
YOU might wonder how a dance school would fit in, even survive, in a place like Julia Creek. This tiny locality is 700 kms inland from Townsville and 250 km east of Mt Isa, and has a population that barely scrapes a thousand. Here is the true “outback”, where the main industries are cattle, beef and mining. The horizon is wide and bare and flat.
Yet the Branches Performing Arts School was embraced from when it opened six years ago in a former bank building and is now an integral part of the community.
The school's founder is Amy
