'NZAC' New Zealand's Arts Curriculum

My intention to travel to New Zealand as part of my Watson project came to fruition in Hong Kong while attending the Hong Kong dance and education festival. While in Hong Kong, I was compelled by New Zealand's forward thinking dedication to dance as an art essential to society.

In the U.S., the majority of community dance programs and dance outreach programs are administered by arts presenting organizations and private dance companies. In New Zealand, the government picks some of that effort up. Curious of the history and labour that went into passing NZAC (New Zealand Arts Curriculum), I sat down with one of its primary designers, Dr. Christina Hong.

Currently associate professor at Unitec’s dance department, New Zealand’s leading university for contemporary dance and choreography, Dr. Hong was instrumental if not essential in passing NZAC. NZAC is a government-funded arts education policy that makes dance compulsory for primary school children. I sat down with Dr. Hong to talk about the hurdles of getting such an innovative policy off the ground.

When asked about gathering support for NZAC, Dr. Hong replied, "New Zealand was always ahead of its time with regards to arts advocacy. One must remember our size can be our greatest strength. I always figure that because we are so small, any arts policy that might be possible, however forward, would be possible here."

As for getting dance considered within the New Zealand Arts Curriculum, she said it was important to view dance, like visual art, and drama, and music, as one of the four expressive arts. “Once that community was crafted within the four other art-forms, it was much easier to get NZAC off the ground. We were also in an environment in which the three other representatives were all willing to work together, never was the drama or music leader not willing to budge on something. Given the cooperation between the four disciplines, progress within the Ministry of Education was possible.” Viewing dance as its own breed, a more feral animal than the other three expressive arts, would probably have buried any chance for a government funded compulsory dance curriculum.

She went on to describe how a successful metaphor, ‘literacy,’ became wide spread in the arts and education sector. “In 1999, 'literacy' emerged as a popular metaphor through which to present arts advocacy. Being literate, in any discipline, became something we often described the importance of dance through. It also meshed with my own dedication to post-modernity, and its presence in New Zealand as a multi-cultural society.”

When I first heard Dr. Hong speak in Hong Kong, she first greeted the audience in Maori, than in English. New Zealand has been innovative and broad-minded in embracing its position as a post-colonial nation dedicated to the diverse cultural aesthetics of contemporary society.

She went on discussing the problems with quantifying the benefits of dance, and more broadly, art. “Another point of argumentation was fitting dance under the outcomes based education model. Some argued that dance might be quantifiable, and its outcome apt to some sort of evaluation system, but that is really impossible.”

One of the other reasons NZAC was successful was the timing. The proposed it directly in the middle of a 5-year national curriculum evaluation, the Ministry was prime for that kind of pro-active move. In the fall NZ is up for a presidential election. The Nationals, who have been out of party for the past 8 years are gaining momentum against the incumbent Labour party. The longevity of New Zealand’s revolutionary arts curriculum policy is not certain.
Documented benefits exist, for more references to the affect of NZ integrating dance into the public school system, view:
http://www.tki.org.nz/
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/