Graduate Student, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts
PhD Reseacher
Thesis Title: Conduit from the conservatory to employment in contemporary dance and theatre: a collective case study of graduate-performance-companies.
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Dr Maggi Phillips
Dr Julie Robson |
About
Robyn Torney is currently undertaking doctoral research at WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. She is the recipient of an Australian Reseach Council-Industry scholarship, associated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, based at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Her professional background in the creative industries includes working as an academic (Theatre Studies), actor and communication consultant in USA and Australia.
Her current research centres on employment in the performing arts in Australia. A broad overview of the current status of employment in the performing arts provides a context for the core problem , namely, new ways of thinking about creating employment opportunities in professional theatre and dance for newly graduated and emerging performers. Graduate-performance-companies exist to bridge the period immediately following the end of formal vocational training and establishing a career as a practising professional performer. Assessing the strengths and limitations in that model is useful for the emerging performer, policy-makers and educators in performing arts conservatories and potential employers. Further research is needed to analyse which of the graduate-performance-company models, if any, optimises the transition from training to employment. This study follows the emerging dancers performing with LINK Dance Company (based at WAAPA) and the emerging actors who are members of the HOTBED Ensemble/Black Swan Theatre Company; both situated in Perth, Western Australia. It maps equivalent international graduate-dance/theatre-companies to assess the effectiveness of 'the model' for transitioning from conservatory training to the performing arts industry.
