Diploma in Performing Arts - Singing

By JANINE OGIER


THE COURSE

The Wellington Performing Arts Centre's fulltime singing diploma teaches the musical theatre skills of singing, acting and dancing.

Students receive a lot of practical performing experience in the two-year course under the watchful eye of senior tutor Ellie Smith.

Content includes singing technique, performance skills, acting, improvisation, different styles of dance, chorus staging, body conditioning and audition technique.

Students also learn the history of musical theatre, career management and production skills.

The course involves 25 hours of contact time each week, plus at least 10 hours' rehearsing and completing assignments. There are 38 weeks of study each year.

Second-year students devote their time to workshops, rehearsals and performance. They set up a co-operative company and make a short tour of the Wellington region, fundraising, publicising and organising the tour themselves.

An academic panel formally assesses students, taking into account written assignments, in-class appraisals and attendance records before awarding the diploma.

Entry to the course is by audition and 16 places are available. Prospective students can apply this month for the course beginning next month.

Students must be over 17 and should have had at least two years' vocal training at secondary school or by private tuition as well as some theatrical experience.

Professional performers are only rarely employed full-time, but graduates get work singing, dancing and acting locally and overseas in cabaret shows, on cruise liners and in touring companies.

Graduates can perfect their performance techniques through the graduate diploma in performance - the singing actor course.

The diploma fees are $5650, plus a $200 non-refundable registration fee.

WHAT PAST STUDENTS THINK


Jess Mohi, 26

Sky is the Limit Dance Company

Wellington

Graduated 1996

"I met some amazing tutors and got to work with some wonderful people on the course.

"We had a basic structure of physical things - dancing, singing, acting and improvisations - but there was also a lot of 'getting in touch with yourself' type of thing.

"Being thrown into quite a crazy industry of performing with actors and all their personalities, it was really beneficial to be centred. Before you can take on other roles, you need to figure out who you are.

"The course gives you the opportunity to see everything in the industry and then figure out more specifically what you are drawn to.

"It gives you an insight into how the professional world works. It's not all about what happens on stage, but also the business side of the industry.

"Jenny Stevenson, the school director, got me into my first professional gig the year after I graduated when they got contacted by an Australian dancing agent who needed girls over 1.75m.

"That was how I got my first break in Japan and it took me into my professional dancing career.

"I now have my own dance company specialising in corporate entertainment and sports events and run a dance school."

WHAT EMPLOYERS THINK


Tricia Macpherson

Theatrical producer

The Stetson Group

Wellington

"When applying for an audition, if you can send in a CV and part of it is that you are a graduate from the Wellington Performing Arts Centre, we continue reading.

"Having the course on your CV would perhaps give somebody an audition time over somebody who has done only amateur dramatics and has not gone to the trouble of being taught music.

"Graduates have worked with professional actors, so we would make the assumption that their standard would be higher, and coupled with that is the professionalism that they need to bring into the company.

"One of our joys is in picking out one or two people who have perhaps not had a professional job before and bringing them into the team to give them a leg up into the business that they love.

"There are a lot of skills to learn [as part of a professional company] - to be able to work within a team and to be able to tour away from your home town and still perform eight shows a week to the best of your ability."

Wellington Performing Arts Centre

Phone: (04) 385 8033

Website: wpac

Email: wpac@actrix.gen.nz