Tag: Union Court

• Canberra: the once and future great city

  September 24, 2018 1:47 pm Comments Off on Canberra: the once and future great city

  When asked which city serves as Australia’s capital, most of the world will believe Sydney to be the answer (probably has something to do with the iconic opera house). That is wrong. Canberra is not only Australia’s capital but also the world’s greatest city. No, seriously, it is. You may remember how the Lonely Planet picked Canberra last year as the 3rd Best city in Travel for 2018. But little do people know that we’ve also maintained our position as the city with the highest quality of life index for five years running now.  
   
  Canberra has a population of 400,000. Once upon a time, this was my main reason for choosing Canberra over Sydney or Melbourne for university, as I wanted a “campus uni” setting over an urban city. Like many people I had my initial difficulties settling in and desperately wanted an out. But having spent three years here during my formative adult years, and having finally settled down again in this place after a seven-month absence (due to going on exchange), I’ve finally come to fully appreciate the world’s greatest city. In fact, one of my favourite activities to do in Melbourne lately is to catch a bus back to Canberra.
   
  Canberra is a beautiful outdoor city with traces of urban planning surrounding the area.  This makes it such that seeing a kangaroo in my backyard never gets old. A well-planned city within a developed country, you’ll generally never have problems with electricity, water or Internet supply. The people of Canberra are a wholesome bunch. Not only that but there are constant cultural events and things to do. Floriade, the annual flower festival, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year!
   
  I strongly look toward Canberra’s potential as the new Hollywood. As recent projects Secret City and Blue World Order were shot in Canberra, this is a clear demonstration of Canberra’s booming media industry. With Canberran Cate Shortland being due to direct the upcoming Black Widow movie, I believe we’ll soon finally get the recognition we deserve.
   
  Canberra is a place of change. I remember the time when Supabarn was still the main supermarket in Civic, and Union Court was a mainstay I thought would last forever. It’s been a pleasure to see Canberra slowly evolve throughout the years. From the time we briefly had the Patissez milkshake store at Civic and international flights to Singapore, many things that seemed like permanent fixtures turned out not to be. Although the promise of a swimming pool at ANU once seemed like a dream to come, it’s quite easy to forget that it’ll literally be here next year.
   
  2019 will be a year that demonstrates our patience finally paying off. With the light rail estimated to be finishing in December 2018, people from Gungahlin will be able to get to Civic much faster. Let us not forget ANU’s own Kambri court, as not only will ANU’s construction days come to an end, but there will be a bold new campus experience for all. It’s also the year I graduate (if all goes well), and I think it will be a poetic way to end my university life.
   
  I suppose it’s fitting it all comes back to Canberra. I remember how we’re defined by how we choose to react to being challenged. And in a place like Canberra, there will always be someone or something to challenge you.

  Brandon Tan

• Saving the Arts

  October 19, 2017 3:27 pm Comments Off on Saving the Arts

  The ANU theatre scene has been ‘saved’, thanks to the dedicated efforts of the theatre community. However, there has been a lot of confusion and miscommunication between student groups and the ANU administration about both the interim theatre plan and the final redevelopment design. Hence, due to popular demand, here is a comprehensive guide to ANU theatre in 2018 and beyond.
   
  Background
  In late 2015 to early 2016, rumours circulated regarding the lack of theatre facilities in the new Union Court redevelopment plans. The Save the Arts Campaign was launched with the explicit aim to ensure the existence of ANU theatre – through the inclusion of a venue on campus and a comprehensive plan for the interim construction period. With the endorsement of the ANUSA Student Representative Council (SRC), the campaign culminated in a submission to ANU Council with 500+ signatures and 70+ testimonials from students, ANU theatre groups, alumni, and the wider Canberra community.
  The submission and the campaign were considered successful, as members of the ANU Executive pushed for the inclusion of a theatre in the redevelopment. As the 2016 National University Theatre Society (NUTS) Artistic Director and ANUSA CASS Representative, I was invited to sit on the Cultures & Events working group. This group was tasked with assessing the specific requirements for the Cultures & Events building.
   
  The Interim Theatre Plan
  A key facet of the Save the Arts campaign was to ensure that external venue hire was subsidised by the ANU during the construction period to the cost of the Arts Centre . The external venues available to student hire were almost double the cost of the Main Stage ($1,050 per week for 342 seats) for less capacity.
  Canberra Repertory Society (Rep), the production company based in Theatre 3, supported the ANU campaign and later struck a deal with the ANU Administration to ensure the subsidisation of venue hire for ANU theatre groups. In 2018, Rep will provide up to 12 weeks of venue hire in the academic periods for student productions, by adjusting their own production season slightly.   
  There are approximately 20 productions operating at ANU so this deal with Theatre 3 was insufficient for sustaining the entirety of ANU theatre. And so the Save the Arts Campaign reignited to ensure that this subsidisation was extended to other external venues. Earlier this year, this agreement was extended to include the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centre venues – those being the Ralph Wilson and C-Block Theatre.
  This plan is not perfect. For many productions, the subsidised venue hire costs are still too high for the capacity the venues provide. Additional costs have been added for the inclusion of staff and ticketing for some venues. Most notably, the disorganisation of this plan has led to problems of matching production companies and venues. Small productions have been given access to Theatre 3, which has the largest capacity of the options available under the subsidy, whilst musicals and revues have not. This is not by any means the fault of the student groups or Canberra Rep, but the fault of the ANU Administration for not providing enough structure for this interim theatre plan.
   
  The Final Design
  The Cultures and Events building within the new Union Court precinct will include theatre facilities. This will include a dedicated theatre with flexible seating and staging, with capacity up to 120 seats. This will operate as a teaching space for ANU Drama as well as a venue for the majority of ANU theatre shows. There will also be limited access to a 500-seat events space for larger musicals and revues. This space will further operate for other events and lectures.
  An interior design working group was established during Semester 2 2017 to discuss specifics of the building. This group included the School of Music venue team, representation from ANU Drama, and student representation. The working group submitted a wish list to the architects working on the project. This included specifics about seating, stage configurations, and technical components regarding sound and lighting. It remains unclear, currently, what elements will be included in the final design.
   
  The Future of ANU Theatre
  Though the ANU will have theatre facilities available in 2018 and beyond, this doesn’t guarantee a sustainable or quality future. Our theatre community is remarkably decentralised. Before 2016, there was limited collaboration and resource or information sharing between production companies. The community came together in crisis. With high turnover of production teams and executive, this isolation has set in again. Answers aren’t easily obtained and support is not available. Without institutional support, ANU theatre will only be as good as the individual people who pursue it.

  Kat Carrington

• The Blue Bus is Callin’ Us, Driver, Where You Taken’ Us

  August 27, 2017 10:47 pm Comments Off on The Blue Bus is Callin’ Us, Driver, Where You Taken’ Us

  ‘O! I can feel the cold earth upon me — the daisies growing over me — O for this quiet — it will be my first.’
  We now know the fate of ANU Bar and the ANU Union. 52 years of students deciding what they want has come crashing down in a noxious cloud of asbestos and corporate authoritarianism. God’s has gone, and their decision to settle was ominous for the Union in the long run.
  So, The End circles campus, slowly engulfing it. What’s next?
  The dust will settle; it always does. For the first time, since they were flamboyantly painted, the bar’s seats will be allowed to creak in peace. The chatter of friends will no longer sweeten the creek’s air. The Refectory’s floor will be clean at 6pm. And the students will head back to their tutorials and Mooseheads.
  With its closure, ANU Bar and the rest of the Union were replaced with a ‘Braddon style’ decking. Braddon’s shit, I know, I’m from Fenner Hall – I live next door. No bar goes off like our under-resourced Warren, even if it’s not allowed to serve spirits. Braddon’s a mix of young professionals and fledgeling, lost adults both too risk-averse to leave Canberra and too old to dance like nobody’s watching. Newly-minted DFAT employees searching for the most freshly pressed almond milk, closest hitching post for their fixie-bike, and an answer to whether their dream of saving the Barrier Reef is going to be accomplished by rubber stamping another coal mine.  In Braddon, they’re squeezing everyone in – lots of new residents, no neighbours though.
  It’s a bit Flat, it’s a bit White.
  A conglomerate of forces calling time on our ANU has ringed the ANU Bar’s death knell. An Instagramming generation trapped between a neoliberal government and an accountant-driven university.
  Give me a rock and a hard place any day.
  On every metric, the ANU stood top. Top of the rankings, with an out-of-class culture and relatively high contact hours. We turned down the rotating door method of the University of Melbourne, the UNSW’s queue-inducing light rail connections, and the UQ’s architectural glitz and glamour.
  Squat, Soviet bungalows, small class sizes all situated on a leafy green campus. We’re the public-school kid receiving the perfect ATAR in a room of private school kids. We did the same, but we did it better.
  Today is too warm to be so nostalgic, and I have too much to do. I should probably get back to studying. However, I’ve spent the last half an hour slipping into the serenity of Sullivan’s Creek, staring at something very far away.
  I can’t stop thinking about a shitty green couch. It was a relic of the days when I had no siblings, and my parents hadn’t fully mastered the art of adulthood. We used to eat on it, sit there far too late on school nights, jump and cavort until I inevitably hurt my undeveloped body. Persistently there, consistently shitty, forever in the most sepia-toned of vignettes. Pay rises, more kids, and the creaks of age called the curtain on this Act in the King House. The mis-en-scène – that seminal couch – had to go; it offered nothing but memories, and we needed some Italian leather. I cried a lot, kicked a little, possibly bit – I could be a real shit at times. I may have made some sage arguments; I can’t have been older than six– how apt could they really have been?
  When the day came, I hugged it, gripped every corner, cushion and cloth until the knuckles on my little hands were white.  But after some time, all that was left were four whitewashed-walls and a little boy hugging a green seat cushion; every other bit, down to the detritus down the sides of the couch had been binned.  That day The End came for me. Definitiveness has a way of tainting memories; you can’t save the page from the spilt ink. We forget how permanent change is in the ferocious passage of time. Forget to spend another day on the shitty green couch.
  A biting, Canberra breeze takes me back to the fact this is probably it. Our End this time.
  Our chance is over, ‘Deal with it dickheads’ was as close as we got to negotiations or a facilitated discussion. At least the Acadz bouncer assures you it will be for the best when he turns you away. Fake hope is hope of a kind. We can’t drag ourselves back to Mr Wolf, our Thursday night is over. We’ll just have to loiter in a building site for the next couple of years.
  Now it’s time for ReUnion Court. Time to turn around, run backwards and join the others in Australian Higher Education’s race to the bottom.  
  Does it make it any better if we think we’re going forward?
  I hope the avocado in your $20 lunch is perfectly ripe, your chardonnay a palate-watering seven degrees Celsius and your parking spot closer to Copland. Only then might you be able to enjoy this new university you won’t be able to afford.

  Liam King