Dally Messenger succeeded where others failed

In 1980, Dally Messenger responded to suggestions that a “regular magazine on dance was badly needed”, as he wrote in his editorial to the first issue of Dance Australia. He succeeded where many others over the years had failed, and Dance Australia has survived to become indispensable to anyone wanting to know about dance in Australia, whether they live in the United States, Russia, Japan, New Zealand and doubtless many other countries.

The ways in which the dissemination of knowledge through Dance Australia has helped the development of dance here since 1980 could not be calculated, but inevitably it has had a wide-ranging effect for good, uniquely providing
content, criticism, information, illustration and a forum for discussion.

Becoming too big for the small team which began it, in J 989 Dance Australia was takeninto the specialist magazine stable of Yaffa Publishing Group and has continued to flourish under Karen van Ulzen’s editorship. Dally’s vision. taste, enthusiasm and controlling hand produced a journal which has become an essential resource for current and future dance and social historians.
Alan Blissenden