CanDance for a Cure

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta) (15:35): On Saturday night, the Adelaide Entertainment Centre was taken over by South Australia's dance community, with 1,700 performers and a full house of paying family members and dance enthusiasts raising money for cancer research at the 15^th CanDance for a Cure concert. Created by Rachel Adcroft in memory of her late husband, David, who passed away on 5 May 2004, the mission of CanDance is to raise money to support cancer research. As Rachel wrote in her introduction to this year's program:

He rarely complained about the overwhelming and invasive treatments that he had to go through to help him try to fight something that was unbeatable. To see him not be able to interact with our 3 month old baby without becoming tired after only a few minutes and have to stop being the type of father that he so desperately wanted to be, was so cruel and will always be an extremely saddening memory.

Knowing how helpless you are in this type of situation would never sit well with anyone, so I am hoping that one day CanDance for a Cure can try to help stop others having to battle through the unimaginable disease they call cancer.

Rachel and her family and everyone involved in CanDance for a Cure should be extraordinarily proud of the impact that they have already made. In the first 15 years and 14 performances prior to last Saturday night's big show, CanDance was already responsible for raising well over $300,000. In 2019, the CanDance Australia cancer research laboratory was opened at the University of Adelaide, and that work will continue and its effects will be amplified in the years to come. I bring this work to the attention of the house today and I hope that current and future governments will work collaboratively with the university, and indeed with CanDance, in all the important work they are doing in this space.

I also want to particularly commend Rachel Adcroft and the team at CanDance, including Kirra Bussenschutt, Millie Burling and so many more for the contribution they have made to South Australia's dance community as well as the mission of CanDance. Bringing so many dance schools together for a massive concert like this every year provides an extraordinary opportunity for the performers to prepare and perform on a massive stage in front of a massive audience. The youngest performers were very young indeed—I am pretty sure I saw somebody onstage who would not have been more than three years old—and, boy, did they ever rise to the occasion.

All the performances were terrific. It is a 3½ hour show, and the finale featuring all 1,700 cast members filling every available area of space on the stage and the aisles, every part of the Entertainment Centre, was something extraordinary to behold. I hope each of those 1,700 performers are very proud of themselves. They are all listed in the program. I am not going to read out all of the 1,700 names now, but I do want to make special mention of one performer who just turned seven and whose parents were so proud to see her name on the program: young Emma Gardner.

Emma did so well. She hit all her moves with precision, energy and enthusiasm—nailed them, absolutely. Of course, while her mum and dad will support her in whatever she wants to do and apply herself to in the future, if she wants to apply herself to this I have every expectation we will see her on that stage again. I also hope for another reason that CanDance continues for a number of years to come. Emma's younger sister, Eleanor Gardner, has just turned five. She is a precocious and delightful dancer as well. Having heard about everything done at CanDance, she is desperate to get on that stage and have a crack in the years ahead.

I imagine that is a story replicated across hundreds of young families. Some of the dancers are significantly older. We have a number of public schools, with their dance groups participating: Henley High, Golden Grove High, Seaton High School included, and there were some adults in the dance performance as well. For those youngsters, it was something spectacular. A massive thank you to all of the dance groups' teachers, coordinators, host parents and group mums and dads, so many of them volunteers, many of whom had to travel for rehearsals and the show.

I hope I have time left to name all of them. In the order they performed, thank you to the Lucy Mai Dance Company, TK Studios, Stepz Dance Academy, Cheryl Bradley Dance Studios, Le Dance Performing Arts School, Jess Dance Academy, Take 2 Dance Studio, ACPA Academy, Velocity Dance Company, Jay School of Dance, Star Academy, Generation Dance, Dance Crew SA, TIDC Performing Arts Studio (for their 15^thyear), JL Dance Productions, Ratbag Productions Dance (for their 15^th year), Motivate Dance Studio, Clare Valley School of Dance, Seaton High School, Gawler Academy of Dance, Henley High School, Innis Dance Studio, Accent on Dance, Rachel Symons Dance Studio (in their 15^th year), DanceArts, Dance Xplosion, Barossa Dance Company. Deborah Kay Dance Studios, Dance Fusion, Golden Grove High School, and Ignite Cheer & Dance. Congratulations to all involved.