Those of you interested in the arts in Australia will likely know that the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne was earlier in the year merged with Melbourne University. The college gave practical training in the arts, and included a post graduate puppetry course, the only school of its type in the Southern Hemisphere. The puppetry course has been suspended, many staff have lost their jobs, and the practical elements of courses are being cut back. You can read up on the back ground of the merger at Save the VCA.

Today organisers are hoping for a big turnout to protest these changes. Here are the details:

Friday 21st of August,10am

MEET
VCA Campus at 10am.
234 St Kilda Rd, Southbank
Featuring live performances and speeches from prominent industry figures, featuring Julia Zemiro (Rockwiz).

MARCH
Show your support and march down Swanston St, along Collins St to Parliament. Final speeches, featuring John Micheal Howson (Shout).

When I first started making puppets in about 1995, I had the great fortune to be taken on and coached by Company Skylark and their new artistic director, Peter J. Wilson. Peter is not only a brilliant puppeteer; he also had a vision for setting up professional puppetry training to support development of  a vibrant puppetry artform in Australia. He went on to achieve this in setting up the puppetry course at the VCA.  I admired that, and feel sadness over the loss of the course somewhat personally, too, for that reason.

Over the last seven or so years the puppetry course has produced innovative work and graduates, supporting that wider idea of puppetry as artform, where it belongs. And of course this has benefited both the arts and wider community. Ironically, while merger discussions revolve around budgets and money, and draw in the question of funding for the arts in general, the puppetry course itself had managed to bring in outside money consistently since its inception with the patronage of the Cattermole family.