Cecil street studio: improvised community and sustainable practices

It is a little after 7.00pm on a Sunday evening and people are still arriving, slightly hurried as they kick off their shoes before entering the studio. They pay $7.00 and find a seat facing the bare studio floor; white floor against the pink walls. The room seems crowded, although the numbers are not large, and people talk comfortably sitting on the few benches and chairs or on the floor. One of the performers emerges from her conversation amongst the audience to front the group and the babble drops away. “How many of you are new to Conundrum?’ she asks. A few people raise their hands, but many do not. The question is a litmus test for the state of the audience and as a way to bring the novice into the game. “Everything performed here tonight will be completely improvised” she continues. “And tonight on Conundrum we have…” and she rattles off a list of the names of the groups or solo performers who will be performing that evening. Some of the names or groups are different from the last Conundrum one month previously. But two of the groups, State of Flux and 5 Square Metres, have been performing at Conundrum, on the last Sunday of every month, for the last eight years.

The reader as audience : the appeal of the writers' festival to the contemporary audience

The contemporary popularity of the writers' festival might appear something of a contradiction, given that such festivals are based around an art form that has been chiefly a solitary experience for the reader for several centuries. Taking the 2009 Eye of the Storm Writers' Festival in Alice Springs as its case study, this article examines the motivations of the audience for participating in community-based writers' festivals. Interviews with audience members suggest that the writers' festival serves a much larger cultural and social role for the audience participant than simply increasing their enjoyment of literature.

History is our audience

History is our audience is intended to interrogate the role of the audience, history and community within experimental artist run initiatives and contemporary art organisations.

The rhetoric of ‘community’ : ABC local radio's coverage of the 2009 Victorian bushfires

This article joins recent debates in media and communication studies concerning audience participation in news journalism. Specifically, we investigate the impact of an increasing reliance on audience-generated content on newsroom practice in traditional media organisations. We do this by recounting and analysing the experiences of journalists involved in ABC Radio's coverage of the dramatic Victorian bushfires of early 2009, which relied heavily in listener contributions and was closely integrated with the ABC's online coverage. Interviews with two staff at ABC Gippsland, and the ABC's Manager of Emergency Broadcasting provide the basis for a case study of the kinds of tensions that media workers routinely confront within an organisation like the ABC. The interviews suggest that in negotiating the possibility of increased audience participation, journalists and their managers are thinking about much more that the rhetorics of democracy and the validity of news values: their focus is also on a complex structure, the need for skill (re)development and the precise mechanics of creating and maintaining productive relationships with local communities. The significance of the research lies in its attempt to bring together a number of related factors: the increasingly active role of audiences in generating and supplying news content; the impact of digital communications technologies on news production practices; and the ABC's ongoing development of its now contested role as an 'emergency broadcaster'.

Balancing risk? First year performing arts students’ experience of a community arts event

This study examines participants’ responses to first year students’ street performances as a non-placement work-integrated learning (WIL) activity over a two year period. The purpose of the study was to determine: (1) community perception, (2) continuous improvement, and (3) future needs. Data was collected through surveying participants’ post-viewing of the street performances, students’ reflective notes, and a recorded focus group interview. The findings indicated that audience members require additional assistance to value the students’ street performances. The results revealed that students require more guidance around researching the sites of practice, understanding group work dynamics, relaxation methods, intra- and interpersonal skill development, conflict resolution and how to effectively build community relations with the local government Council. From the findings, specific recommendations for continual improvement are made. These include offering an explanation of the street performances’ historical and aesthetic connections to the building sites for audience members, affording battery operated body-microphones and light rostrum for improved sight lines, delivering group dynamics information and arranging opportunities for students to engage more effectively with the Council. While the recommendations in this study are intended to advance the field of research that evaluates non-placement WIL performing arts curriculum in higher education, the findings are relevant to any group-based performance activity in learning and teaching.

A map of community-based obesity prevention initiatives in Australia following obesity funding 2009-2013.

Obesity is the single biggest public health threat to developed and developing economies. In concert with healthy public policy, multi-strategy, multi-level community-based initiatives appear promising in preventing obesity, with several countries trialling this approach. In Australia, multiple levels of government have funded and facilitated a range of community-based obesity prevention initiatives (CBI), heterogeneous in their funding, timing, target audience and structure. This paper aims to present a central repository of CBI operating in Australia during 2013, to facilitate knowledge exchange and shared opportunities for learning, and to guide professional development towards best practice for CBI practitioners.