UK - Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) presented its Design and Technology Futures Forum 2004, an industry-meets-academia event designed to encourage interaction between the professional production industry and the college. This inaugural event was organized by Kathy Sandys, lecturer in Theatre & Performance Design. Its ultimate aim, explains Sandys, is to ensure that LIPA continues to produce graduate students equipped with the relevant practical and theoretical skills to be employable when they leave.
The forum attracted nearly 60 people from all areas of the industry. Speakers included Bandit Lites UK director Mark Powell, and two LIPA graduates - Matt Gant and Sion Clarke - both now working as TV production designers. Powell paid tribute to the great creative energy at LIPA, and the commitment of the teaching and support staff to ensuring that students receive quality, relevant information. Other attendees included Steve Warren, sales director of Avolites, Adrian Searle, Paul Bell and Tim Routledge from Stage Electrics, and Andy Dockerty and Dave Kay, directors of locally-based Adlib Audio.
The 24-hour programme of events included a performance of LIPA's Spring/Summer production of the Sondheim musical Sunday In The Park With George - staged in their main performance space, the Paul McCartney Auditorium. The next morning, a tour of the building was followed by the keynote speeches, and then a detailed presentation on LIPA's Design and Technology curriculum by the heads of department. This explained how students are taught various modules including, sound, lighting, design, set, costumes, site-specific performance, installation works, contextual studies, business management and more. In the afternoon, the Forum was divided into several workshop groups for discussions on the major technical areas of audio, lighting, design and production.
The event proved a great success. "The information we've gained, even in a short amount of time, is absolutely invaluable," says Sandys. All the feedback gleaned from the Forum - both from the discussion groups and a questionnaire - will be fed directly back into LIPA's curriculum. The Forum also served as a research exercise, and the curriculum can be changed in response to specific feedback patterns.
As a higher education institution, LIPA also has to satisfy a series of quality assurances. The Forum also supplied valuable information to improve the way higher education should be looking at students, how and what they learn and what they are prepared for on leaving. Sandys sums up: "We'll be engaging with the various participants in the future through nurturing placement and internship relationships and sessional teaching workshops. All participants will be kept up to date with the progress of their input. We hope this Forum will act as a model for other Universities in terms of keeping in touch with current practice. It'll certainly give the further development of LIPA's curriculum a very clear focus."
