Look out WA! STEPS Youth Dance Company has a brand new Artistic Director. Sam Fox has dive-rolled into the STEPS picture wielding ideas and determination enough to make something new and different happen to the young people of Western Australia.

You are the first Artistic Director of STEPS that has gone through the company themselves when younger. What kind of experience did you have with STEPS the first time round?
At STEPS I was given exposure to being a professional artist: I was treated as a valued contributor to professional artwork. I think the biggest advantage was to be able to have that contact with artists and to be valued by them, as well as being able to work in a professional environment from a younger age. I gained the sense of respect and achievement that comes from being valued in that way. It was a place for artistic learning and for skills development, and it also managed to demystify the creative process for me.
I think STEPS works, and holds such a special place in Perth because it gets young people to see themselves on stage as artists. It engages them like nothing else. It’s a powerful thing.

How do you think this has affected the way you will run the company?
I want to uphold what STEPS is already so good at, the collaboration between professionals and young dancers, creating a professional outcome, and delivering a rich experience to the young dancers involved. I want STEPS to help young dancers by increasing the opportunities for them to make their own works. STEPS will lead the way in youth arts, with works that critically engage an audience, and address youth culture in a real way. I think that the media and things like facebook are creating a mass-homogenisation of what a young person is. The representation they give is a very safe one. I’m interested in trying to expand the way that young people are represented, as far as possible… and make contemporary artwork involving that.
I want the company to provide a structure that allows independents to work with young people in efficient and empowering ways, and with ways that have longevity. STEPS will become a leader in the brokering of mentorships between artists and young dancers, to foster more elite training.

Tell me a few things that you have done between leaving STEPS and coming back to STEPS.
I studied my BA (Dance) at WAAPA, after which I formed the ‘Tall Concrete Collective’: a group of sound engineers, digital animators and myself who created site specific dance works till 2004. I also became part of a mentoring program with the director of Artrage,  who mentored me, culminating in my role as producer of the 2005 Artrage Festival. That was a huge opportunity for me, but my whole time with Artrage, which was nearly five years, also gave me the benefit of being able to make lots of links with some different artists. Consequently I have a good knowledge of what’s going on in this state in regards to emerging art forms and am able to draw on high quality collaborators.

You are the first male AD in a company which has such a strong boys program. What's you're personal take on boys in dance, and STEPS’ ‘Boys Can Dance’ Program?
The Boys Project is close to my heart in my experience with STEPS. I think it combines accessibility with demand. I’d like to take the boys project to new conceptual levels. I have a significant idea for the next ‘Boys Can Dance’ which for now will remain a secret… 
 
What else do you have in mind? Do you want to take STEPS in a particular direction?
A big focus for me will be to try to develop another stream of steps core business: to engage in cultural community development.  Through STEPS I aim to engage youth who are not accessing any art at all. I also think that STEPS should be creating long term, relevant and far reaching relationships with these communities, and that they have the ability to do this.
Steps has the ability to do this. It would be working with dancers who have no access to elite dance training. I think STEPS should be a little bit more adventurous in what the do, the community cultural development aims to eventually provide the link for dancers to join the more elite practice that STEPS represents.