| Established | 2001 |
|---|---|
| Location | , |
| Website | www |
TheAdelaide College of the Arts, also known asAC Arts and formerly known asAdelaide Centre for the Arts, is a campus ofTAFE SA that specialises in education for theperforming arts,visual arts, andfilmmaking. It is located onLight Square,Adelaide,South Australia. Its predecessors were the Centre for the Performing Arts (CPA) and the North Adelaide School of Arts (NASA).
The predecessors of the Adelaide College of the Arts were:[1]
The Centre for the Performing Arts (CPA) was established in 1978[1] on the site of the oldAdelaide Girls High School, inGrote Street.[2][3]
Set up by Barry Young, it initially offered courses indance and technical production. An acting course was introduced in 1987, headed by David Kendall,[a] supported by two part-time instructors. Twelve students enrolled. The course was later expanded from one to two years, and later to three. In 1997 an introductory acting course was established, called Prologue. All lecturers were in the industry, and had useful industry contacts. As the centre expanded,transportable buildings were brought in to create more studio space.[1]
The North Adelaide School of Art (NASA) was established in 1979 in Stanley Street,North Adelaide, on a site vacated the previous year by theSouth Australian School of Art. The building was purpose-built as an art school in the late 1950s and opened in 1963.[1]
NASA was dedicated to practical studio-based studies invisual art, providing training in studio areas, such asphotography anddigital art,ceramics,sculpture, painting,drawing,printmaking,jewellery, andtextiles.[1]
Rowley Richardson was principal of the school, which underwent a major renovation in 1984-85, and closed in 2000.[1]
In 2001, a new purpose-built centre, encompassing both visual arts and performing arts, was built to replace the two former colleges, the new complex being named the Adelaide Centre for the Arts.[1]
AC Arts' purpose-built $30 million campus was designed by award-winning[4] architect Adrian Evans during his time with the Adelaide-based firmHassell.[5]
AC Arts has two main theatre spaces. These are used for in-house performances and also for professional productions, especially during theAdelaide Fringe and theAdelaide Festival.
The Main Theatre is a proscenium arch theatre that seats 220 and the X Space experimental theatre that seats 110. Both spaces are industry-standard, allowing students to learn in an environment as close as possible to the professional world.[6]
On the third floor of the building there are four dance studios with mirrors and bars, four acting studios and a music room. Two of the acting studios (The Stables and the David Kendall Studio) double as performance spaces with easy black out ability.
All staff either continue to work or have worked in the industry, and both local and internationaltheatre directors assist with the student productions.[7]
Identified major study areas of the centre are:
The Advanced Diploma of Arts (Acting) is an actor-training program that covers four broad disciplines: acting; movement and voice; performance/production; and contextual studies, and takes three years of full-time study to complete. As of 2016[update], the head of acting wasTerence Crawford.[3]
Well-known artists who studied at NASA include:
Actors who studied at CPA and the current college include:
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