Image via Home, Arts Centre Melbourne
Here’s a quick quiz. Which of these best defines a Performing Arts Centre (PAC)?
- a venue for major performing arts companies to produce high quality work
- a gathering place for people to be entertained, eat, drink and socialise
- a community organisation, with a range of activities, in and beyond the building
- a support system for independent artists
- all of the above
According to US analyst Steven Wolff the answer may well depend on the generation in which your PAC was built and whether its management has changed with the times.
Often built as visible edifices of government invesment, the PAC is redefining itself as a central part of the arts ecosystem.
Wolff, principal of AMS Planning and Research, has identified four generations of performing arts centres in the US market: the PAC as home; the PAC as place; the PAC as community; and the PAC as creative generator.
QPAC Chief Executive John Kotzas adds a Stage 5, which might be called ‘All of the Above’: ‘A period where you are so entangled with the community that you are so important to them that the fabric of the building itself doesn’t matter. The institution has become so important that the activity that normally happens inside can happen outside and inside and is entirely embedded in the community.’
Like most executives running PACs, large and small, Kotzas sees Wolff’s model as a useful way of analysing the multiple roles of the modern PAC but he argues most Australian PACs are now working at many ‘stages’ simultaneously.
‘I don’t think you stop one and start the other. I think they all merge together. While we are the home of the Queensland Ballet it doesn’t stop us from looking at activities in the courtyard where people can come and participate,’ he told ArtsHub.
Performing Arts Centre as Home
The traditional starting point for the modern PAC was as a base for resident companies .
Arts Centre Melbourne has four home companies; two of its own – the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Melbourne Theatre Company – and two shared with the Sydney Opera House – the Australian Ballet and Opera Australia. It also has a second tier of regular performers including Bangarra, Bell Shakespeare, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. New Chief Executive Claire Spencer said the Centre’s success was ‘deeply entwined’ with the success of home companies, which account for about one third of the Centre’s venue utilisation.
At QPAC the five home companies represent only 17% of business and 20% of occupancy. QPAC also hosts small resident companies, which it changes every couple of years, providing a leg-up for independent companies. ‘We have a responsibility to play big brother or big sister to companies that need our help,’ said Kotzas.
Small regional arts centres such as Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, an hour south of Perth, often don’t have resident companies, but they would like to. Mandurah is currently approaching local companies to offer them a home. ‘It offers an ongoing relationship not just with the performers but also with audiences,’ said General Manager Guy Boyce.
Performing Arts Centre as Place
Successful Arts Centres are attractive hubs for other activity, both commercial and artistic. Cultural precincts grow up around arts centres; restaurants and bars sprout to serve the pre- and post-theatre traffic; apartment buildings, shops and offices all consider arts centres to be valuable neighbours.
At Mandurah the PAC is at the centre of a 30-year-plan to create a civic and cultural hub in an area that had none of the infrastructure when it arrived.
‘This institution was plonked here 17 years ago by the State Government and all those pieces of infrastructure have grown up around this institution … regionally we are really important,’ said Boyce.
Kotzas said his staff work consciously at being connected to the precinct and keeping it vital, actively promoting locals bars, restaurants and cultural institutions rather than trying to keep their audiences eating and drinking in-house. ‘The two driving influences at QPAC in the past couple of years have been to identify what our role is in the precinct – and part of that is a leadership role and that is informed by the whole notion of what is public value and how you generate public value – and then the second part of that is how do we generate entanglement across the precinct? How do we make the business community feel they are part of the cultural precinct?’
Spencer said audiences increasingly want an ‘amplified experience’ taking in food, beverage, entertainment, and social opportunities. Having recently moved from the Sydney Opera House she said the Melbourne arts precinct was a huge advantage.
‘One of the things that has really blown me away since I have arrived in Melbourne is this whole arts precinct and you look over the river and there’s the sports precinct and you think this is a master stroke of urban planning. For us, being part of that is fantastic. It brings audiences to the area, it raises awareness and it creates a lovely creative environment.’
Performing Arts Centre as Community Centre
Perhaps the biggest change in Performing Arts Centres has occurred as they move away from being centred around their venues and instead are centred around their communities.
Focusing on community not only supports arts beyond Centre-based performance, it also brings new audiences into the venues. Boyce cites a program he ran when Mandurah PAC hosted choir Australian Voices, after a period working with eight community choirs.
‘I would have expected with our current uptake we probably would have got 150 people to that concert,’ said Boyce. ‘But because we have been working with local choirs we got 67 of them to a workshop beforehand. Then they performed the last number before interval with Australian Voices. They all had the time of their lives, they got to hear an outstanding choir, and we had an audience of just under 300.’
In the big centres too, community is now at the heart of everything PACs do, said Kotzas. ‘I think at our hearts every Arts Centre, whether in the city or in regional areas, we want to use the arts to actually build communities and make people feel like they belong. That’s the greatest thing we can do as Arts Centres, help people get a sense of belonging. If we can help define that sense of belonging then we are greatly adding to the civicness of the city and the state.‘
The Performing Arts Centre as Creative Enabler
Modern PACs are much more than venues: they see their role as facilitating cultural expression, enabling participation, and supporting arts and cultural activity.
Kotzas said QPAC uses its large programming and marketing department and its temporary residences to help other companies have the resources they need to create. ‘Compared to most of the other centres in Queensland we have a large share of resources so we take that responsibity of leadership very seriously. And I think there’s an expectation from government, especially in hard times.’
In Mandurah the challenge is more in enabling audiences. ‘The tertiary education level in this area is quite low, 14% compared with a state average of 31%, so what that tells me is that they don’t have the background. So we need to develop a whole range of other programs – public programs, community engagement programs – and ensure as many as possible entry points for our audience members to start that education, even though they might be arriving in Mandurah when they are 55 or 60. It’s not just a case of them purchasing a ticket to a show,’ said Boyce.
PAC are increasingly working outside their own buildings. Mandurah ran a projection festival on local walls. QPAC provides simulcast performances in regional halls across Queensland.
Arts Centre Melbourne recently ran a more complex project which demonstrates how community, venue, and creative facilitation have become enmeshed.
Home began with the supply of 7,000 tiny wooden houses to community groups, hospitals, schools, and detention centres. Participants were encouraged to decorate the houses and 1,000 of them returned to the Arts Centre within a big house on the venue’s lawn during January. The project also has a social media overlay which allows participants to track the on-going life of their house.
As Spencer said: ‘What I love about this program is it’s not performing arts, it’s not about what we would traditionally have at the Arts Centre, but it’s created this wonderful sense of community and creativity within our broader community that absolutely hit the nail on what we are trying to achieve.’
