Dance Academy
Fifteen-year-old Tara Webster has grown up on a farm in country Australia and has dreamt of being a dancer ever since she was a little girl. When she makes it into the National Academy of Dance — the best school in the country — she is sure her life is about to be spectacular. What Tara doesn’t realise is how far behind she is in her training, and that there’s a whole lot more to surviving the Academy than just dancing...
Her fellow students are athletes not fragile butterflies; modern kids who constantly bump heads with the rules of an old-fashioned world. They want to dance but they’re determined to have fun as well. Over the next three years against the stunning backdrop of Sydney Harbour, we will watch them battle through the minefield of elite dance training, and they’ll face the universal challenges of being a teenager. Relationships will grow and change as they live side by side in the Boarding House. They’ll each take a different path, but they’ll start to find out who they are, and they’ll all dare to chase their dreams.
Episodes
Episode 3 Frizzy's Big Show
When a TV crew shows up to film rescues on Kangaroo Beach, Frizzy decides to play victim to get herself on telly. When that backfires badly, she performs a rip-roaring opera at sea in an elaborate (and heavy!) costume to get the attention she craves!
Episode 1 The Beach Race
Gemma is determined to win the Kangaroo Beach junior triathlon, score a trophy and, most importantly, beat super competitive Pounce! But when an emergency breaks out during the race, she discovers there are more important things than winning gold.
Episode 4 The Trophy Mystery
While the cadets are supposed to be supervising young Phillipa, Frizzy borrows the lifeguards’ Golden Crabby award. But when a cheeky crab makes the shell-shaped trophy her new home and scurries off, the cadets turn into detectives to try and track it down – forgetting to pay attention to Phillipa and her toddler adventures!
Episode 2 Pounce on Patrol
When Pounce earns Bondi’s lifeguard cap for the day as a reward, it goes to his head – he thinks he IS chief lifeguard! But as he attempts a rescue, he winds up having to be rescued himself. When Gemma and Neville are caught in a whale-made whirlpool, will he leap in to save them, or alert a lifeguard?
Episode 5 Neville's Shark Drone
When local great white shark Charlene swims too close to Kangaroo Beach for the third time this week, Neville builds a shark-spotting drone – which quickly makes the lifeguards obsolete! But a too-confident Neville ignores the shark alarm, disaster strikes and Charlene gets beached in a cave. Now the lifeguards must work alongside technology to rescue the whopping big shark!
Episode 8 Frizzy's Treasure Hunt
The cadets are learning how to scuba dive, including the all-important message: Always swim with a buddy. But Frizzy is distracted by her own obsessive mission – to find King Neptune’s trident and crown herself Queen of the Sea! When she abandons her buddy Big Trev to look for it, he winds up stuck in an underwater cave! Now Frizzy must guide Sandy to the rescue underwater, using scuba signals – and stick with her buddy.
Episode 6 Lighthouse Storm
Frizzy leads Bondi and the cadets on a dangerous journey into the hills to replace the lighthouse bulb during a storm.</div>
Episode 7 Sandy's Surf School
The cadets are crushing it in Sandy’s Surf School – all except Neville, who can barely stand up on the sand! So he secretly builds himself a Self-Surfer and soon he’s surfing like a pro. But when his impressed friends sign him up for this afternoon’s surfing regatta, he’s suddenly way out of his depth! Maybe he’d be better off boogie boarding?
Episode 9 Heatwave
It’s the hottest day of summer and while Frizzy, Neville and Gemma try to cool down beached dolphin Shelley, Pounce is determined to prove he has staying power under the beating sun.
Episode 10 Brave in the Waves
When Pounce pretends he's an expert at diving under big waves, his friends ask him to teach them how - and he soon finds himself in deep trouble.
Episode 14 Ready Cadet Go!
When the cadets get a chance to win some medals in three rounds of challenges, Frizzy gets distracted by the promise of shiny gold things. But when Frizzy fails at all three, she climbs a tree, feeling sorry for herself – and discovers a hidden talent for spotting danger from up high!
Episode 11 Rescue Roo
Pounce is literally bouncing with excitement to take part in Rescue Day, an epic, action-packed mock rescue on Boomerang Island. But when he sprains his thumper on the way to training, he’s devastated to miss out, stuck back at the club for the day. But when a young wombat gets in trouble in the water, Pounce discovers that sometimes the best rescues aren’t necessarily epic and action-packed!
Episode 12 Island Campout
Reading a comic book late at night, Frizzy is convinced she saw an alien koala spaceship visiting Boomerang Island. When Sandy announces a sleepover campout on the island, Frizzy seizes the chance to search for the intergalactic visitor. But the truth is more awe-inspiring than she thought...
Episode 13 Island Rescue
The cadets spend an afternoon exploring Boomerang Island, but when Ghërkinn’s boat drifts away, they suddenly find they’re castaways! Pounce, Gemma and Frizzy hop across some rocks towards the shore, but when they’re stranded by a rising tide, it’s up to a cautious little yellow wombat to save the day!
Episode 15 The Big Swim
When the cadets compete in the much-awaited Battle of the Boards, they must work together as a team to try and win a brand new rescue board for the surf club. Trouble is, Neville is nervous he’s going to let the team down. By knowing his limits and going at his own pace, it’s Neville who teaches the others a lesson in one of the most dramatic Battle of the Boards since Bondi was a joey.
Episode 16 King Tide's Castle
Neville pretends to be royalty and builds himself a life-size sandcastle but forgets Kangaroo Beach is due for a king tide.
Episode 17 Stay Calm and Snorkel
Gemma can’t wait to see all the weird and wonderful sea creatures on Snorkelling Day, but her snorkel is getting in the way. Frizzy is being distracting while the cadets learn how to stay calm in the water, but in the end it’s Frizzy who teaches Gemma how to relax.
Episode 18 The Dream Team
Pounce, Frizzy and Gemma each have their own personal superstar lifeguard hero. But during an action-packed ride- along day, they discover that it’s not about the individual, but the team.
Episode 19 Coach Koala
Big Trev is worried about passing his annual lifeguard fitness test, so Frizzy offers to help with an early morning boot camp.
Episode 20 The Shark Prank
When Reef and Roadie are rejected from the cadets’ safety film, they disrupt the production with a set of pranks but end up learning a valuable lesson about pretending to be in trouble when you’re not.
Episode 23 Trash Pets
When the cadets create animals out of rubbish they’ve cleaned from the beach, they dub them ‘trash pets’ and inspire other beachgoers to make their own, but soon things get out of hand and their treasure becomes trash once more.
Episode 24 The Lagoon Monster
When Pounce falls in the lagoon and gets covered in seaweed, the other cadets mistake him for a swamp monster, and decide they have to capture it.
Episode 21 Wild Waterslide
A giant inflatable waterslide is erected on the lagoon, but before they can ride the cadets must teach the younger kids how to float. When the waterslide is cut loose and blows out to sea, Wei’s brand new floating skills come in handy.
Episode 22 Cadets vs Champs
It’s Carnival Day at Kangaroo Beach with two teams competing in lifeguard games. But it’s the young cadets versus the lifeguards - how can they possibly win against a stellar team of grown-up champions?
Episode 25 Turtle Toddlers
It’s the day of the big Kangaroo Beach beach cricket match, but when Gemma and the cadets find a nest of turtle eggs, they play ‘parents’, vowing to protect the eggs from seagulls, crabs and flying cricket balls.
Episode 26 Cadets in Charge
The cadets think lifeguarding is all about exciting rescues, glamour and gratitude, but when the lifeguards give them an opportunity to run the club for a day, they struggle to keep up with the many demands of running a beach. The lifeguards are ready to step in and take over, but then the cadets realise what’s missing – communication. As Gemma gives her fellow cadets instructions over their walkie-talkies, suddenly they are doing a brilliant job – even performing their own river rescue!
ACTF Education
Dance Academy Resource supports Middle Years educators with engaging classroom activities, designed to enhance students’ knowledge, skills and understanding of dance, as both an artist and audience.
The website features video clips and production materials from the award-winning television series Dance Academy, stimulus for over 100 downloadable teaching activities that have been aligned with the Australian Curriculum areas of The Arts (Dance, Drama, Media, and Visual), English and Health and Physical Education (Personal Development).
Each activity provides educators with a contemporary approach to exploring elements of The Arts within their classroom, matched with printable student activity sheets and links to additional support materials – including instructional video clips and fact sheets developed by Ausdance.
The teaching activities are searchable by Curriculum Study Area(s), tag word(s), or by one of the four main themes:
- Dance Skills – explores body, movement, technique, choreography, performance and communication through dance.
- Dance Knowledge – explores genre, culture, history and styles of dance; safe dance practices; dance processes; and dance vocabulary.
- Production - explores stagecraft, costume, lighting, design, event management and technology and innovation within dance production.
- Health and Wellbeing – explores health, fitness, human movement, nutrition, personal development and identity.
Awards
2014 eLearning Excellence Awards
Finalist - K-12 Sector Award
Access this resource
Dance Academy film Producer Joanna Werner and Cast member Alicia Banit are quizzed by Australian students on the challenges in taking the successful TV series to the big screen.
Working either independently, in pairs or as a class with teacher support, this resource guides Year 5 and 6 students in examining representations and points of view in children’s television. Students will learn from industry experts, then view and respond to short clips drawn from children’s television programs. The short learning tasks encourage students to critically reflect on their roles as audience members and content creators.
Media representations portray people, places and ideas; media literate students understand how and why these representations are constructed. Join the ACTF and ACMI Education for an interactive virtual workshop examining representations and points of view in children’s television. Students will view and respond to short clips drawn from children’s television programs while critically reflecting on their roles as audience members and content creators. Teachers may choose to print copies of our worksheet before viewing this virtual workshop with students. Our hosts indicate when to pause the video to complete learning tasks about media representations.
This clip collection is designed to help students understand and practice respectful communication, focusing on concepts of consent, bodily autonomy and personal boundaries. Using clips from Australian children’s television content, students work through activities that build their awareness of how to ask for, give, and deny permission.