Showcase puts perspective on young talent
The post-Fringe, post-PIAF arts audience is, as Mum's old saying goes, "full up to dolly's wax". They have feasted and are sated, and now need time to recover. In this state of torpor it is all to easy to miss Performing Arts Perspectives playing to full houses in the Edwardian splendour of His Majesty's Theatre.
This year is the 19th time that Performing Arts Perspectives has showcased examples of outstanding Year 12 performances in dance, drama and music. The production, drawn from a range of schools, presents 22 young performers for a two night sell-out season.
In music, the show opened with a spirited drum solo, included a quirky humorous flute solo and haunting double bass solo, a virtuosic rendition of a Greig Concerto and two contrasting voice students. Dance performances showcased precise and fluid original solo performances and an ensemble based on the set solo task set for examination. Drama students performed examples from the highly charged Scripted Monologues section of the practical exam - Shakespeare to contemporary. Drama also included original solo Performances where the students devise, develop, script, direct and perform their own ideas. These original pieces canvassed the impact of war and memory, crossing borders through the eyes of children, and witty explorations of Hamlet's gravedigger's perspective on politics.
This is a sophisticated show and anything but a "school concert". High production values were supported by effective lighting and sound.
The performers were crisply introduced by recent WAAPA music theatre graduate Du Toit Bredenkamp (himself a Performing Arts Perspective alumni). The artistic direction is by that Jack-of-All-Theatre-Trades Adam Mitchell, also a performer from the very first Performing Arts Perspectives. The other alumni of Perspectives include the likes of Lucy Durack and many who have continued on to NIDA and WAAPA.
The enthusiastic audience responses were matched by rapt attention and respect. Perhaps this is a measure of hope this year's audience members have to find their own place on a future Perspectives stage. Mostly, though, this attention is a focus on the standards set by the performers. Setting standards is yet another reason to value Perspectives.
Perspectives is, above all, a productive partnership through which the Perth Theatre Trust is responding to its broad charter to engage with new audiences, to bring young people into the venerable plush majesty of this theatre.
The partnership draws together education across systems and sectors, professional associations and companies like Black Swan State Theatre Company, the Blue Room, Perth Theatre Company, the WA Symphony Orchestra, WA Ballet and the Contemporary Dance Company of WA.
The departments of Education and Culture and the Arts, through their ArtsEdge partnership, support the process. And it is great to see that, finally, WAAPA has thrown in its support. Nor should the valuable support of sponsors be overlooked.
Performing Arts Perspectives continues to happen because of the dedication of the steering committee, working voluntarily each year to build this important piece of arts education infrastructure.
What Performing Arts Perspectives reminds us is that there is a younger generation not just knocking on the door but pushing its way in. The WA arts community needs to pay attention.
More details: performingartsperspectiveswa.com
- Robin Pascoe is a member of the Performing Arts Perspectives Steering Committee and, with Lois Joll and Alan Blagaich, helped initiate this project.
