ROMA MITCHELL ARTS EDUCATION CENTRE - Light Square - Adelaide

An anonymous new city building it is not . . . a very expressive new arrival it is. And the students who enter its portals are hoping to make an impact too. This week we took a tour of their vibrant new home, the Roma Mitchell Arts Education Centre on Hindmarsh Square. If the revival of the West end of the city needed an obvious sign of its future, it has arrived.

In one corner of Light Square, this striking and different work of architecture is purpose built. As the name suggests, this twenty-first century institution is about two driving forces behind Hindley Street's new buzz - education and the arts.

Light Square has been home to Adelaide Institute of TAFE for a long time now, and now across the park it has a brand new home for 500 students. They share entirely new views of this side of town . . . and plenty of natural light. We called in to the jewellery studio, for instance, to find future industrial and craft jewellers . . . . . . . . . their skills. They fit into the visual arts and applied design side of the Centre.

Up through the visually striking asymmetrical central space of the building, there will be evidence of its occupants' experimentations. Terraces open up to outside areas with totally new perspectives on Light Square and the city scape.

In a top floor studio, first year dance students worked on a unison exercise, with a pulsing accompaniment provided by a conga player in one corner. They'll learn to master moves from classical to contemporary in their three years here. And if they need visual ideas to stimulate them, they can hoof it down to the basement gallery space. It's currently showing last year's Year 12 standard student work, and the public is very welcome.

It is a $30 million new building, designed to impress - by South Australian Adrian Evans in his time with Adelaide based firm Hassell. The Roma Mitchell Arts Education Centre picks up on the images and textures of the old red brick and galvo warehouses of Light Square - and then says, "look at me!".

And fair enough, given the strong emphasis on the performing arts in its courses. We watched milliner Rick McGill in the wardrobe studio assisting students to master sewing in a zip. They know their lecturers are on the pace. Rick's amazing headgear creations are filling a big screen near you . . . on Nicole Kidman's head! They feature in key scenes of Moulin Rouge.

Wander the spaces that lead off the multi-angled central space of this off-the square creation, and you will find future lighting technicians for a pop concert or theatre spectacular, video producers for the digital age and some art forms and traditions that go back centuries.

Print makers, for instance, have an ultra modern studio for their timeless craft. And the life class working in charcoal at their easels to capture the maddening familiarity of the human form could be in Leonardo's Florence or Renoir's Paris, but these young artists are in twenty-first century Adelaide.

Even before it moved a magic pudding of courses into these new Light Square premises, Adelaide Institute of TAFE was proud of its students who had moved on to jobs in London's West End, the U.S., and in Theatre, T.V. and showbiz all around Australia. One graduate, Kate Kendall, will soon take a lead role in a new series of "Stingers", and she was back for the opening of the Roma Mitchell Arts Education Centre in April, 2001.

There was much hilarity in an acting rehearsal when the Postcards crew called in. This was where it all began for Kate, with three years of acting classes in the old Performing Arts Centre before they joined the salubrious new school. Meanwhile, downstairs, there was casting of a different kind about to happen. This was a tense and exciting moment for visual arts undergraduate Ashleigh Smith. Months of work was on the line here - sculpting a bust of his partner Heather in bronze, working through a rubber impression, and then a wax cast, and finally the plaster one used today for the pour. The two lecturers - both Johns - in sculpture ladled forty kilograms of molten bronze into the upturned cast. And then came the two hours wait.

Acting up top, casting over there, a contemporary dance rehearsal in the new experimental theatre space . . . we watched the third year dancers refine their coming show "Headflown" open to the public at the end of June. Sweeping, swinging dancers flew in loops behind me as I ventured that this new complex is already living up to is promise to be the "art and soul" of the West End.

And the big casting job? We went back to film a much relieved Ashleigh begin the polishing task of his successful sculpted bronze bust for his beloved. All's well that end well at the Roma Mitchell Arts Education Centre.

Details
Roma Mitchell Arts Education Centre
Adelaide Institute of TAFE
39 Light Square
Adelaide, South Australia, 5000
Phone: (08) 8463 5262
Facsimile: (08) 8463 5001

Headflown
Choreographer: Peter Sheedy
3rd Year Bachelor of Dance Performance Dancers
Roma Mitchell Arts Education Centre
Experimental theatre 8pm 27th - 30th June, 2001
Bookings: (08) 8463 5005