Brisbane | May 2 & 3 2025

Thomas Dixon Centre

The Queensland Dance Education Conference is an annual professional development event for dance educators and teachers in Queensland, produced by Ausdance QLD in association with our Ausdance Educators QLD subcommittee.

QDEC25 will take place over two days, May 2nd and 3rd, in Magan-djin/Brisbane at the Thomas Dixon Centre.

The conference aims to challenge, enrich, and educate dance teaching professionals. In 2025, it will feature learning content tailored for primary, middle, and secondary dance educators across all schooling sectors, as well as independent studio and freelance teachers.

Participants will engage with a dynamic program of speeches, panel discussions, and presentations—ranging from creative works to current issues in dance education—and participate in practical dance classes. The conference will continue to prioritize integrating grassroots First Nations perspectives and addressing curriculum requirements for embedding these perspectives in schools.

Some sessions of QDEC25 may be webcast for regional participants, and resource packs—subject to Cultural ownership, copyright, acknowledgment, and permissions—may be provided by presenters.

This year’s conference theme is,
“Moving Together: Weaving Community, Connection, and Curriculum in Dance Education”.

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“The best Dance Teacher PD a teacher could attend! The freedom to select your schedule based on your own teaching focus from a high standard of industry and teaching professionals is amazing! Great variety of sessions and always a great networking opportunity.”

QDEC24 Attendee

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

2025 Pricing

Early bird discounts MUST end February 21 2024

Pricing excludes GST. Terms and conditions can be viewed here.

Osmotherly
Dance Educator Award

The Osmotherly Dance Educator Award was created to recognise the outstanding contribution of dance educators whose work has made a significant impact on dance education in Queensland schools, earning them recognition at a state, national and/or international level.  Previous recipients of the award include Julie Chenery (2006), Sue Fox, Barb Snook (2007), Maggi Sietsma (2008), Julie Dyson, Jude Smith (2009), Kristin Bell (2010), Brian Lucas (2011), Helen Mullins (2012), Angela Pratt (2013), Shaaron Boughen (2014), Gail Hewton (2016), Jeff Meiners (2017), Kym Stevens (2018), Ralph Buck (2019), Shona Press (2020), Renee Place (2021), Leisa Cooper (2022), Lucy Flook (2023) and Jessica Kavanagh, Caitlin Sands (2024). 

 The successful nominee will be presented with their award at the Queensland Dance Education Conference 2025 (QDEC25) to be held in Magan-Djin/Brisbane on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd May 2025.  In addition to the award, the recipient will receive complimentary admission to both days of the conference (or regional equivalent).  The recipient’s name, headshot and biography will be included in the Osmotherly Dance Educator Award page on the Ausdance Queensland website (under construction). 

“Robert was one of those rare people who had a professional dance background and was a qualified and committed dance educator of extraordinary insight and intellectual capacity. He became a leading voice in contemporary Australian dance education, able to think conceptually about the problems of teaching, learning, understanding and performing dance, about document ing the processes, and about transmitting less tangible qualities such as inspiration and passion for his art form. He had a deep understanding of other art forms, and was excited by the challenge of his students discovering the visual arts, drama, literature and technology, and their importance to dance.”

Julie Dyson on Robert Osmotherly
(Published online by Ausdance on 23 April 2013)

Dance Educator
Travel Bursary

The Dance Educator Travel Bursary (formally the Regional and Remote Dance Educators Bursary) was created in 2020 by Ausdance Educators QLD to recognise and alleviate the challenges that dance educators from regional and remote communities in Queensland experience in attending professional development in-person. 

In 2025, the travel bursary will provide practicing dance educator/s (or the institution providing financial support for the professional development activity e.g. Department of Education) with reimbursement of their costs for travel and/or accommodation and complimentary registration to attend the Queensland Dance Education Conference 2025 (QDEC25) in Brisbane (or regional event, if preferred) up to the value of $1000. 

Please read the bursary guidelines below before applying.

Applications open

Wednesday, January 23 2025

“The overall experience was so valuable to me, and will have a positive ripple effect on my students and wider community as I now can share all I have learned. This is great encouragement to keep developing and evolving as a dance teacher.”

Caitlin Sands, 2024 recipient (Trinity Bay State High School, Cairns)