Two second-year students from NIDA, Fabian McCallum (Acting year 2) and Jessie Byrne (TTSM year 2) took part in the ARTS8 weekend intensive collaborative project in Melbourne based at NICA (National Institute of Circus Arts).
Photo: Students create a collaborative project at the ARTS8 intensive. (Photo: Jessie Byrne)
Two second-year students from NIDA, Fabian McCallum (Acting, year 2) and Jessie Byrne (TTSM, year 2) took part in an ARTS8 weekend intensive collaborative project in Melbourne based at NICA (National Institute of Circus Arts).
ARTS8 (the Australian Roundtable for Arts Training Excellence) presents opportunities for students and staff to work with partner organisations to further learning and teaching in the performing arts, and has conducted several collaborative projects since 2016. A unique community of performing arts practice.
Travelling with NIDA Executive Director Learning and Teaching, Dr Melissa Laird, both students said it was a life-changing experience which opened their eyes to new skills and disciplines. Through the project they realized how their own practice can be broadened by taking part in cross-disciplinary activities.
‘The project gave the students a space to devise a work using their own authority as creative artists’ said Laird.
At the same time, one member of staff from each organisation came together to discuss learning and teaching, the nature of performing arts practice which rests at the heart of each ARTS8 organisation, and potential collaborative projects.
Now in its third year, the students presented a unique and sensitive short work examining notions of flight. Students used motifs of flying, fleeing and belonging, whilst embodying climbing and falling. In the audience were ARTS8 staff and representative of the Department of Communications and the Arts, Mark Gordon.
‘The students came into the space and brought new ideas to life, developed shared languages, and developed new friendships and networks’ said Laird.
‘It has opened my eyes to a new world of people and disciplines. Thank you! If there is any future opportunity for this group to meet and create please know that I am a huge advocate and would absolutely love to,’ said Byrne.
‘Thanks for giving me that amazing opportunity it was a privilege to be in that room just to meet my contemporaries and lock into a shared process has refocused my practice in a way I wouldn’t have discovered before,’ said McCallum.
Watch a video of the intensive here from Department of Communications and the Arts.
The ARTS8 organisations are:
- Australian Ballet School (Southbank, Victoria)
- Australian National Academy of Music (South Melbourne, Victoria)
- Australian Youth Orchestra (Sydney, NSW)
- Flying Fruit Fly Circus (Albury, NSW)
- NAISDA Dance College (Mt Penang, Gosford, NSW)
- National Institute of Circus Arts (Prahran, Victoria)
- Australian Film, Television Radio School
Applications are open to NIDA’s courses for 2019. Apply here.
