The Adelaide College of the Arts, also known as AC Arts and formerly known as Adelaide Centre for the Arts, is a campus of TAFE SA that specialises in education for the performing arts, visual arts, and filmmaking. It is located on Light Square, Adelaide, South Australia. Its predecessors were the Centre for the Performing Arts (CPA) and the North Adelaide School of Arts (NASA).
History
The predecessors of the Adelaide College of the Arts were:[1]
Set up by Barry Young, it initially offered courses in dance 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]
North Adelaide School of Arts
The North Adelaide School of Art (NASA) was established in 1979 in Stanley Street, North Adelaide, on a site vacated the previous year by the South Australian School of Art. The building was purpose-built as an art school in the late 1950s and opened in 1963.[1]
Rowley Richardson was principal of the school, which underwent a major renovation in 1984-85, and closed in 2000.[1]
New centre
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]
Building
AC Arts' purpose-built $30 million campus was designed by award-winning[4] architect Adrian Evans during his time with the Adelaide-based firm Hassell.[5]
Theatres
AC Arts has two main theatre spaces. These are used for in-house performances and also for professional productions, especially during the Adelaide Fringe and the Adelaide 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]
Acting and dance studios
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.
Courses and teachers
All staff either continue to work or have worked in the industry, and both local and international theatre directors assist with the student productions.[7]
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 was Terence Crawford.[3]
