Navigating the Independent Dance Scene

by Danielle Brown

Over two weekends in August, Sydney Dance Company, supported by the Neilson Foundation, will present INDance, an independent dance program at the Neilson Studio. INDance provides a platform for independent choreographers to showcase their work, aiming to build capacity, enhance access, and celebrate the diversity of contemporary Australian choreography. Four artists—Sarah Aiken, Kristina Chan, Ashleigh Musk, and Harrison Ritchie-Jones—were selected for the 2024 program through an expression of interest process reviewed by an external panel led by Rafael Bonachela.

I had the remarkable opportunity to speak with Sarah Aiken, an insightful and articulate artist, who shared her perspectives on the independent dance scene. Thriving as an independent artist in this space requires courage, initiative, business acumen, and the ability to create opportunities from very little. Equally essential are collaboration and a supportive, connected community. In a landscape where the contemporary genre in training and competition is increasingly overshadowed by Acrodance, it is crucial to support these independent artists and, as educators, continue to explore the unique nuances of contemporary dance, distinct from lyrical and Acrodance.

How long have you been working as an independent artist, and is your work mostly focused on applying for funding and collaborating with small organisations to get shows up and running?

Sarah: I graduated from VCA in 2009 and have been working as an independent artist since then. Yes, absolutely—much of my work involves collaborating with various small organisations and institutions to make shows happen.

How many bodies of work have you produced since then?

Sarah: That’s a more complex question than it seems. On my own, I’ve created two full length works and quite a few shorter pieces ranging from fully produced works (eg. Keir Awards and Lucy Guerin Inc. commissions) to little 5 minute things for events, gallery spaces etc.  I also have a long-term collaboration with Rebecca Jensen, and together we’ve produced several full-length works. We also run a project called “Deep Soulful Sweats,” a participatory, astrology-themed dance party, which has taken many different forms over the years. We’ve done hundreds of iterations of that.

So, it sounds like you need to keep many projects going in different spaces to sustain yourself as an independent artist?

Sarah: Totally. To survive as an independent artist, you have to be doing a lot of different things all the time, creating work based on the opportunities that come up. These can range from small projects to full-length works, though the latter aren’t actually the bulk of my practice. There are many opportunities between those larger projects, and in the last few years, I’ve started creating video work, which is amazing because it can exist without my physical presence—a new experience for me.

Did your course at VCA prepare you well for the industry you’re in now?

Sarah: We had solid technical training at VCA, performing a lot and working with industry choreographers from the first year through the third year, which was really valuable. However, at that time, the course didn’t focus much on what it means to be an artist, the practicalities of survival, self-producing work, or being a choreographer. It felt more like training to be a dancer for jobs that didn’t really exist. After graduating, I went through another phase of self-education, traveling, taking workshops, learning from artists, and seeing as much work as I could.

It sounds like your journey was very self-directed. Was that an intuitive process, or was it out of necessity due to limited opportunities?

Sarah: Absolutely out of necessity. Being an independent artist is always self-guided. It’s valuable and amazing because you’re not beholden to anyone else’s demands, but it also requires a lot of self-motivation. When things don’t go well, it’s just you, and that takes a lot of energy. It’s important to have a strong community around you and great collaborators. Our dance community in Australia is tight-knit, and I really value the support and dialogues we have with other artists.

How do you determine when to take a break, or does that never happen?

Sarah: There are definitely quieter periods, but they’re not always by choice. I try to take those times as moments of rest rather than feeling like I’m not achieving anything. It’s something I still struggle with—how to enjoy the downtime and trust that busier times will come. It’s tough, especially in the current climate for the arts. As we age and take on different responsibilities, it’s not surprising that many female artists disappear from the scene after 35. It’s hard to keep the motivation and just scrape by. Some of my friends are thinking about leaving the arts, even as they’re making the best work of their careers. It’s a loss when all that experience and knowledge are no longer part of the community.

Is it that maturity and accumulated experience that makes those later works so powerful?

Sarah: The arts are an ecosystem, and you need the vibrant, urgent work of young people, but you also need the opportunity for artists to grow, learn, and understand the context and histories they’re part of. Especially in dance, which is such an ephemeral art form, many young artists have never seen the work of those two generations before them because those artists aren’t working anymore, and their works don’t tour often. It’s hard to understand your lineage and history when the work doesn’t get to happen again.

What do you and your community think needs to change to facilitate more work and longer careers for artists?

Sarah: The boring answer is more funding, but it’s true. Beyond that, it’s about building audiences and helping people understand the value of dance. Dance has always been niche compared to theater or visual arts, with a smaller audience, but it has so much value. We need to connect audiences to the work. People are often intimidated by dance, feeling like they don’t understand it, but that’s a space where we can put energy into building. Organisations with secure funding play an important role in bringing in new audiences and then passing those audiences to independent work. INDance is incredible for that, and there aren’t many platforms like it.

What keeps you going, Sarah?

Sarah: My community, definitely. I love to dance, and I teach dance—it’s an essential part of my life. I’m deeply engaged in interrogating ideas. My work is conceptually driven, and it’s stimulating for me to think through ideas about how we exist in the world, how we relate to each other, and how dance can be an interface for that. Engaging with those ideas in a non-linear, physical way is vital, especially as we increasingly disappear into our digital selves.

Let’s talk about your work Make Your Life Count, which started in 2018. Even though it wasn’t inspired by COVID, you felt its relevance was highlighted post-pandemic. Can you explain why?

Sarah: I was thinking about interconnectedness, about how our individual actions are tied to everyone else on the planet—things like climate change. COVID made those connections very tangible. We were so aware of the web of connections between us and others, how quickly we are connected to so many people through our immediate networks. It was a tangible way to understand that we are interdependent and entangled with each other. COVID also brought the concept of making personal sacrifices for the collective good into sharper focus. For my generation, it was the first time we had to do that. Another layer was the experience of being connected via our screens, flattened by our digital representations, staring at ourselves in Zoom calls—something Make Your Life Count touches on with its focus on my own face. It’s about the experience of striving to make impact as an individual within the unfathomable scale of time and the universe. It’s about everyone, but through the lens of me, relatable because when multiplied across millions of people,  we see our individual experiences of powerlessness and insignificance as untrue, showing us that we and our actions deeply matter.

@snaiken