THE latest recipient of Ausdance ACT’s Small Grants Fund is Paige Helsham, a
19-year-old dance teacher from Passion & Purpose Academy, who specialises in urban and street dance. The fund was set up to provide modest but useful one-off financial assistance to local dancers experiencing negative impacts on their dance activities as a result of COVID-19 and is open for 2021 applications.

CANBERRA musician Jess Green, aka Pheno, who received a Homefront grant from artsACT last year, has written a new song together with Skywhale’s creator Patricia Piccinini, for the launch of Skywhalepapa. “We Are The Skywhales” will be performed with Green’s band and Luminescence Children’s Choir to celebrate the inaugural flight of Skywhalepapa this weekend. The National Gallery of Australia will hold “Super Sunday”, from 11am and 3pm on February 7, a free interactive program for the whole family with art chats, storytelling, music, dance and art-making.

M16 Artspace has the following new shows: “Pattern/Pleat” and investigation into patterns by Al Munro; “Looking Forward Looking Back”, a central work (citadel) with satellite pieces and wall works by glass artist Luna Ryan; “Colony Meets Colony”, a look at the relationship between humans and birds by Karynne Ledger; and in Chutespace, “Chapters A_B & C from Love & Light” by Karen Milder. At 21 Blaxland Crescent, Griffith, Wednesday to Sunday, noon-5pm until Sunday, February 21.

“GROWTH Rings” is an exhibition of constructed textiles by Canberra artist Anne McMahon opening at Spiral Gallery, 47 Church Street, at 6pm, Sunday, February 7 and continuing until March 3, Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm and Saturday 10am-1pm. McMahon’s first “Growth Rings” was shown during “Go Wild with Weaving” in New Zealand in 2018 and the works are made using fabrics, ripped into strips, twisted by hand to make a cord, then stitched in a coil with spiral stitch.

GOULBURN Regional Art Gallery in Church Street has new exhibitions opening this weekend and running until April 3: David Ryrie’s “Otherwise Arbitrary Moments”, showing an array of moments through large-scale photography; Tamara Dean, winner of the 2020 Goulburn Art Award, presents a new single channel video work titled “Immersion” and in The Window, silver gelatin prints by Tarago photographer Stephen Hartup.