Spark Youth Dance Company focussed on mental health to hold auditions
Spark Youth Dance Company has exploded into the Melbourne arts scene in the last few years, featuring youth creating dance and a culture of bettering mental health through dance. Auditions are being held for Spark Youth Dance Company (SYDC) on Sunday 15th and Thursday 19th December at Rosebud Memorial Hall in preparation for a huge new era for the company in its fifth year.
The company provides a platform for young artists aged 7-25 to have a voice through dance, not only offering opportunities to perform but also to choreograph and help create and lead within new dance works performed across Victoria. The youth-driven dance company lives within Spark Productions Australia Inc. and is a registered charity.
SYDC was founded in early 2016 by choreographer Alex Dellaportas. Now, at just 21 years old, Alex works with large groups of young people each year at SYDC and gives them resources and mentors with a large focus on mental health and neurodiversity, encouraging youth to channel their stories of pain, confusion and emotion through dance.
“It was and still is my dream to create a place for young people on the Peninsula and surrounds to go and feel completely welcome. Completely themselves.” Dellaportas writes in her letter introducing the new season. “In my opinion, theatre is always the best place for people from all walks of life to go and feel welcome. I am a living example of someone who doesn’t always “fit in”- someone who thinks differently, who experiences emotions uniquely, who has a sometimes difficult relationship with mental health and who has now come to embrace her differences as a superpower… my goal for Spark is to speak about mental illness and to normalise difference, to encourage it, to channel it into art that speaks to people, that tells stories that change the way our young people live for the better.”
The company is based on the Mornington Peninsula and dancers in their 2020 season will commit to the 12 month contemporary dance extension program where they will perform in three seasons with the company as well as other exciting performance opportunities. This also includes the opportunity to dance with a live orchestra.
Kids and teens aged 7-25 who are currently enrolled in a dance school can register online for auditions at www.sparkproductions.org.au/auditions