As a former teacher in the VET sector, working for a media/arts college in the noughties, I regularly heard the following assertion: nothing you learn at school is of any use in the real world. Far from dismissing it, our Principal embraced it as a challenge. Could we find a way to meaningfully replicate professional realities and yet stay within the parameters needed for national accreditation?
This balancing act is something that colleges nationwide continue to wrestle with; and in the arts, and dance especially, it can be particularly difficult. Young dancers may have stars in their eyes, but their parents (i.e. the paying clients), often have more pragmatic concerns. Those running courses very likely know this. They will also be aware that not every ballet dream comes true.
How then to make dance training meaningful in cold, practical terms? Or rather, how can young artists get a taste for the realities of making work in a world more interested in mortgage stress and easily streamable 24/7 video content?
From their base in Sydney’s inner south, the Academy of Music and Performing Arts (AMPA) offer what they call a “performance-based” approach. Although this might sound like cute PR, on the ground it means that students are put through the wringer of making and showing work.
AMPA’s Head of Dance, Dr Maya Gavish, underlines the driving rationale. “Because we understand that there are not enough consistent jobs in performance and professional careers are short-lived, we prepare students with a skill set that is much broader,” she says. “While quality training and performance remain the focus at AMPA, a bachelor degree provides our graduates with genuine longevity in the field and opportunities for more diverse career paths, starting with the foundations of research, arts management as well as choreography and production.”
Whereas we might expect this of any responsible provider in the dance space, Gavish oversees a curriculum welded to a production-based rigour. For AMPA’s trainees, this means three shows a year, trialing for roles in works created by visiting choreographers and, tellingly, their fellow students.
Indeed, it is here that AMPA’s two-year Bachelor of Dance truly coalesces into something resembling the reality of life for dance artists in this country; for it is in what Gavish calls Projects A and B that students conceive, create and promote a 12- to 15-minute work for public performance (usually at NIDA’s theatre in Kensington).
“Students often say that the project is the most significant experience for them; and I think it’s because it’s their own,” Gavish observes. “Their own imagination, their own experiences that they bring to the stage. It’s a very challenging process, very stressful, and sometimes there are tears, but I believe it’s the most gratifying.”
Here again, we find a hard-nosed working assumption. The project is not merely a ‘show and tell’ assessment piece but an entrée to life as an independent creative working in an ultra-competitive industry. As Gavish explains, “I tell the students, ‘Funding is not always available and, therefore, to get your work out there, you must know how to manage it yourself.’”
So, what of AMPA’s four current project producers? As they enter the last month of their course and push hard for opening night in late April, they are not simply on the brink of graduation but about to confront the multiple unknowns of working life.
“Aside from the practice and experience of being in a leadership and directorial position, it’s been extremely valuable to learn when to break choreographic rules and when to comply,” reveals Benjamin Takatsuka, whose work, Sisyphean, delves into the experience of living with OCD. “Gauging when it is effective and appropriate to deviate from the rules is a skill I’ve gained that will help me create authentic, organic and engaging material, whether in a group choreography or solo.”
Meanwhile, his contemporary, Connor Willis, reflects another aspect of the project’s arc. “Throughout the creation of my own work, as well as being part of my peers’ projects, I’ve gained an understanding of what actually goes into making a work, from both the leader and the cast side, as well as those who help externally. It made me open to changing my process and helping others with their own, because ideally, I’d like to go into production.”
However, the focus is not all about career reality. For Clayton Webb, the take-out is artistic. “The primary benefit of this process is allowing me to take an idea, place it into other bodies and see how those bodies adapt. It gives me the experience to understand how I can work with a group of very different individuals, as well as building on these themes if I wish to revisit them later on.”
The fourth member of the quartet, 22-year-old Malachi Sylvester, is clearly embracing the ‘polymath’ aspects of his project. As he says it, “We’re required to fill the shoes of multiple roles: director, choreographer, marketing coordinator, sound, lighting and costume designer.” Thus, bringing his work, A Murmur, to life has both widened and sharpened his gaze. “The project is teaching me about artistry. It gives me the experience required to create a fully formed dance piece…and to display it in a professional theatre setting.”
For Gavish, the performance project is likewise rewarding. In fact, she obviously cherishes it. After all, there is nothing more rewarding for a teacher than to watch a student’s growth. “As Head of Dance, I am very busy with management,” she notes, “but the one unit I am not letting go is Project. I am religiously holding on to it because I really enjoy witnessing their process. It’s very empowering and meaningful.”
In all of this, I am reminded of an oft repeated mantra from my own teaching days. What you learn here might not get you into the spotlight, but our aim is to give you the skills and experience to get you in the room. A dancer’s onstage career may well be short; but choreographers, producers, lighting designers, et cetera…they dance on.
For more information on the Academy of Music and Performing Arts, visit www.ampa.edu.au.
By Paul Ransom of Dance Informa.
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