Open letter to save VCA

I’m a bit behind this news, but it finally caught up with me. In Australia, there is a ‘trinity’ of top performing arts universities. One of them is in Melbourne; the Victorian College of the Arts. They are actually under the banner of the larger Melbourne University, but until the last few years has been considered a separate entity of its own. But now it’s revealed that they’ve been having massive layoffs, funding problems, the entity is more and more being swallowed into the Melb. Uni, offering fewer courses that makes VCA stand apart. At risk, the VCA itself may be closing down for good. Normally I wouldn’t particularly care; sounds cruel, but having studied at a ‘rival’ university, it makes me less interested in the popularity of VCA. However, VCA also runs the only course in puppetry in Australia. And that makes me give a damn.

Here in Australia, puppetry isn’t really considered a true art form, on the level of dance, plain theatre, or even circus. Those who fought at VCA to create a course for puppetry must have gone through hell just trying to wrangle the politics that feeds within uni’s (my mum being a lecturer makes this particular point all the more clear), along with budgetary issues, and the usual administrative red tape. To see the course get dragged down - and worse, the perception that VCA has worked so hard for, which is that puppetry is important to the arts and worth teaching - is sad and unfair.

To that end, students and lecturers have set up SaveVCA.org, where you can read more about the issue, download a template letter to send to government reps. and newspapers, sign a petition, and more. I’ve already taken the template and given it my own spin. If you’re Aussie and at all care about this issue, do speak out.

Below is my letter to various government officials and papers:

To whom it may concern,

I wish to alert you to the demise of one of Australia’s premiere arts education institutes, the Victorian College of the Arts (V.C.A), which is now sadly in the process of being dissolved by the University of Melbourne.

The V.C.A. is the last full arts college in Australia that offers such rigorous training in specified arts fields. But it is intended that over the coming years the schools of Dance, Drama, Film and Television, Music, Production and the Visual Arts will all ultimately dissolve into a generalised University of Melbourne creative arts degree, the kind of degree that is available at any other university. Limited specialisation will exist only for post-graduate students, in much larger numbers and in courses of reduced quality and length.
In particular, V.C.A. holds the only formal training course in puppetry in Australia. Puppetry is a vibrant industry in Australia, and is home to some of the best known performers and builders around the world. Philip Millar produced the animatronics with the Walking with Dinosaurs live performance; Richard Bradshaw’s shadow puppets were featured on Sesame Street; Farscape, a cult sci-fi TV show, was produced in Australia. Most countries around the Western world have many full-time colleges to study puppetry at: here in Australia, we have a limited choice of studying at V.C.A., undertaking an extremely small component at Swinburne University, or not learning formally at all. Once the course was established, professional puppeteers no longer accepted internships – up until then, the only way to learn puppetry ‘formally’ was via internships – and instead advise people to study at V.C.A.
What the V.C.A. currently offers young Australian artists is unique. Students are able to study in world-class facilities under the tutelage of Australia’s leading arts professionals, many of whom have international reputations and represent Australian arts practice to a high degree. The puppetry course has invited international puppeteers to tutor, and these are rare times to learn from our overseas contemporaries; especially given that puppetry festivals here are small and do not attract international puppeteers.
The University of Melbourne has recently begun by retrenching many of these invaluable professional, technical and administrative staff, all of whom have been integral to the function, curriculum and success of the school for decades. These staffing cuts, in combination with the re-allocation of resources, will dramatically increase the workload of remaining staff and seriously reduce the quality of education at the V.C.A.
When the Australian National Academy of Music was facing a similar demise at the end of 2008, political intervention staved off the liquidation of this equally important Australian cultural institution at the hands of the University of Melbourne. The ideal outcome we are aiming high for is the reversal of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 that has henceforth prevented the V.C.A. from receiving adequate government funding and precipitated its ill-advised association with the University of Melbourne.
We implore the state and federal governments to fund the V.C.A. as an autonomous cultural institution and to free the college from its amalgamation with the University of Melbourne.
The V.C.A. has a long history of producing arts practitioners of the highest calibre across all disciplines whose contribution to our culture as a whole is immeasurable. Its demise would be a great loss to the arts and Australia.

As a puppet maker, I am saddened to hear that Australia’s only course in puppetry may soon be gone; diminishing both the learning opportunities for aspiring puppeteers and the attraction of international interest in our local puppetry industry. Furthermore, it degrades the industry’s attempts to convince the public and the Australian government to accept puppetry as an integral part and professional area of the arts within our country.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Naomi Guss