By Helen Musa

In an intimate event at Tuggeranong Arts Centre in late May, an educational initiative of great significance to the performing arts in Canberra was launched.

The elephant in the room was the black hole in Canberra’s arts scene, which is blessed with university schools of music and art, but not performance.

The new Hand to Hand Academy is an initiative of Warehouse Circus, now celebrating its 35th year in Canberra and ready to get behind Registered Training Organisation training certificates recognised by the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, helping put the ACT on the national map alongside training offered elsewhere.

This new enterprise involves a collaboration with Tuggeranong Arts Centre, where many of the training courses will take place.

Although Warehouse Circus began in Belconnen during 1990, it now operates in Chifley, much closer to Tuggeranong and, according to CEO Aleshia Johnson and artistic director Tom Davis, the move meant they were on the cusp of something big, both locally and nationally.

In what Johnson described as “a ground-up endeavour”, Hand to Hand Academy will allow specialist theatre and circus practitioners to stay at home if they want and get their formal qualifications here in Canberra, without moving interstate or overseas.

Johnson emphasised that both Warehouse and TAC were providing safety training in the performing arts, explaining that they had now partnered for this purpose with Showtech Australia, the industry leader in entertainment rigging, staging, automation, flying effects, performer flying and stage lifts.

“Parents often pause before letting kids get into circus, but in practice the risks are outweighed by the skills they gain,” she said, adding that Hand to Hand would not be competing with other organisations in the sector, but would instead provide training in acting for screen, musical theatre, backstage technical skills, working safely at heights, and what is described as Canberra’s first nationally accredited circus training.

Georgia Briggs, deputy chair of Tuggeranong Arts Centre, described it as “an interesting and quirky thing to do at TAC, among all of the cool and unique things we do.”

She praised the venture, which would allow talented students to leave school at Year 10, complete their certificate course and then later go on to bachelor’s degrees elsewhere.

On hand was former long-serving artistic director of Circus Oz, and founder of the travelling physical theatre troupe Circus Monoxide, Mike Finch, who said Warehouse Circus had been producing some of the most rounded circus performers in the business.

He looked back to Warehouse alumni Jake Silvestro, Elena Kirschbaum, Jeremy Davies and Paul O’Keefe, who had all enjoyed genuinely illustrious careers since their early days in Canberra.

Finch lamented the demise of both CircoArts in Christchurch and the theatre/media course in Bathurst, where he had trained, but described the hook-up with Showtech as “a real coup”.

Of course, he said, the National Institute of Circus Arts would still be there in Melbourne, but as Mark Finch put it: “NICA will make you specialise, but this course will offer you a range of skills. Circus is such a broad church.”

Hand to Hand Academy, cpaw.au/HandtoHand