Performing arts industry experience (ARTS3013)

This course provides you with an opportunity to gain industry experience by undertaking Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) on placement with a performing arts organisation. Students must attend a CV workshop in Week 1, T3 and complete a work experience placement with an industry organisation of 90-100 hours (to be scheduled according to host and student availability). After their placement, students must submit a summative report and a portfolio of work produced for assessment in T3. 

Enrolment advice 

Interested students must complete an Expression of Interest form, prepare a CV which will be developed during the workshop, and conduct a meeting in person or by phone with the course convenor (by appointment only) to discuss their eligibility and the placements on offer. Students must have completed 48 UOC overall, including 6 UOC at level 1 and 6 UOC at level 2 in the following declared streams, Music or TPS. Or 96 UOC overall and enrolment in a Music single/dual degree. Students must have a WAM of at least 65. Please check that you meet these pre-requisites before making your application to the course convenor. 

As enrolment is subject to course convenor and School approval, students interested in gaining academic credit for industry experience under ARTS3013, should follow these steps: 

  1. Check your eligibility (TPS or Music Major and WAM above 65).
  2. Prepare your Expression of Interest Form and a CV with your contact details and apply for the year of enrolment so placement is confirmed by Term 3 - Census Date (26 Sept). Submission will not be considered after this time, however you can submit anytime from late October the year before.
  3. Your EOI will be submitted to WIL who will then generate a request to the convenor to accept the enrolment.
  4. The course convenor will contact you to discuss industry placements on offer and your eligibility. The course convenor will then organise an interview for you with an organisation best suited to your experience and career aims. 
  5. Faculty staff will manually enroll you once we have confirmation that the requirements have been met. 

Insurances will be organised for the student once we have their date range and they will have assessment guidance so they can gather the right information as they go. 

Industry hosts

  • Stalker Theatre is one of Australia’s pre-eminent physical theatre companies. Founded in 1989, it celebrates over two decades of outstanding achievement in the production of innovative, inter-disciplinary, physical and visual theatre. Stalker has toured its hallmark outdoor and indoor productions to remote and urban locations across Australia and to Europe, Asia and Latin America. 

    Stalker makes high quality contemporary physical theatre in Australia across a range of cultural, social and political contexts, regions and nations, and delivers its work to extraordinarily diverse audiences. Its striking physical and visual productions communicate powerfully and imaginatively far beyond the constraints of traditional theatrical contexts. Its challenging new approach to physical performance draws on contemporary dance, new circus, martial arts, innovative approaches to dramaturgy, and inter-disciplinary and inter-cultural practices and processes. 

    Stalker produces a portfolio of distinct works, ranging from small, mobile street theatre productions to large site-specific outdoor work, and includes both intimate and large scale indoor works, as well as a series of ongoing masterclasses. 

    Stalker produces the works of its directors David Clarkson and Rachael Swain as well as the projects of the intercultural company Marrugeku, which creates intercultural performance in Indigenous contexts in Broome, Western Australia. Find out more about Murrugeku.

  • Carriageworks presents a contemporary multi-arts program that engages artists and audiences with contemporary ideas and issues. The program is artist led and emerges from Carriageworks’ commitment to reflecting social and cultural diversity. The Carriageworks artistic program is ambitious, risk taking and unrelenting in its support of artists. Carriageworks is a cultural facility of the NSW Government and is supported by Arts NSW. 

  • Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) has been bridging the divide between young people and professional theatre practice since 1963. As Australia’s oldest and largest youth theatre company, they're driven to create work that impacts the way young people engage with theatre nationally. 

    ATYP specialises in integrating professional theatre practice with supportive youth theatre process. The Theatre loves working with all levels of the arts industry, from the most celebrated national companies to the smallest youth theatres. ATYP's work supports young people from their first theatre experience to their first professional production. 

    The ATYP vision is to forever raise the national expectation of what theatre with young people can achieve. 

    They do this through four inter-linked aspirations: 

    1. Be a fearless theatre company with a national impact that all levels of the industry love to work with. 
    2. Build an active playwriting community that champions and supports young artists and their work. 
    3. Be the first place teachers turn to for inspiration and support in drama education. 
    4. Maintain a vibrant creative hub and company culture that young people around the country want to be a part of. 
  • Led by Artistic Director Kate Champion, Force Majeure produces critically acclaimed dance theatre works. Established in 2002, the Company is based around a collective of artists from varying disciplines who are committed to creating stimulating movement-based theatre. Artists include dancers, actors, writers, visual artists, composers and filmmakers. 

    Since its inception, Force Majeure has created five major works, two collaborative works, a short film series, and has received five major national awards. Force Majeure produces stimulating, accessible, highly produced dance theatre that questions, reflects and engages with contemporary culture using intelligence, humour, pathos and insight.The Company has toured to the prestigious Lyon Biennale de la Danse, Place des Arts Montreal, Dublin Theatre festival and the Seoul Performing Arts Festival. 

  • Established in 2004, Critical Path is a dynamic, responsive organisation dedicated to supporting innovative research by NSW choreographers. Critical Path delivers a program of research opportunities which promote innovation by creating opportunities for choreographers to explore new ways of working, develop new networks and engage in debate and critical appreciation of dance. Best practice in artistic research is incorporated into a diverse program which features a two-strand model of facilitated and responsive projects. 

  • De Quincey Co is a performance company at the intersection of dance, visual arts, theatre, music and performance. Led by Artistic Director Tess de Quincey, the company creates works of shifting scales for specific spaces – from a black box studio to a desert riverbed. Works currently in repertoire are listed on this site. 

    Created through a rich collaborative process of interdisciplinary and often cross-cultural exchange, ideas are researched and developed by De Quincey Co’s ensemble of dancers and a creative team that can include architects, philosophers, scientists, filmmakers, writers or visual artists. 

    The company’s new developmental program and auspicing agency The Weather Exchange presents the works of independent artists based in BodyWeather and related disciplines. 

  • PACT Centre for Emerging Artists Inc. supports, produces and presents the work of emerging artists. 

    The Centre's artistic program offers support for creative development of new works through Around the Kitchen Table, The Space Program and Vacant Room; the showcasing of works in development through PACT Platform and the presentation of tour ready and/or commissioned works through PACT Presents. PACT supports emerging curators through The Erskineville Performance Arts Festival (currently aka Tiny Stadiums Festival) and supports a month long emerging and experimental performance season in partnership with The Sydney Fringe. PACT supports training in voice, movement and devised performance through the PACT Ensemble and ad hoc masterclasses. 

    PACT forms creative partnerships with local and national organisations such as Next Wave Festival, Metro Arts and National Association of Visual Arts to support artists create work for national projects. 

    They also initiate projects outside the programs above responding to the needs of the sector and associated artists. 

  • Creative Practice Lab (CPL) is a specialised arts unit within UNSW School of the Arts & Media that supports teaching and practice-led research across a diverse range of disciplines. The Lab manages the School's performance venues, rehearsal studios and technical resources. CPL staff members are industry professionals, technical magicians, filmmakers, producers, sound makers and production designers. CPL works closely with students, researchers and artists to develop new work and program a range of inspiring events throughout the year. 

  • When the Nimrod Theatre building in Belvoir Street, Surry Hills, was threatened with redevelopment in 1984, more than 600 people – ardent theatre-lovers together with arts, entertainment and media professionals – formed a syndicate to buy the building and save this unique performance space in innercity Sydney. 

    Almost 30 years later, under the artistic leadership of Ralph Myers and General Manager Brenna Hobson, Belvoir engages Australia’s most prominent and promising playwrights, directors, actors and designers to realise an annual season of work that is dynamic, challenging and visionary. As well as performing at home, Belvoir regularly takes to the road, touring both nationally and internationally. 

  • Campbelltown Arts Centre (CAC) is the South West Sydney region’s major cultural venue and cultural services provider. The Centre services an audience market and community that spans Campbelltown, Camden and Wollondilly Local Government Areas. 

    Campbelltown Arts Centre was opened in June 2005 following a $15M capital development program undertaken by CCC in partnership with the NSW State Government to redevelop the City Bicentennial Art Gallery (established in 1988) into a contemporary multidisciplinary arts centre. 

    Campbelltown Arts Centre consists of exhibition spaces, workshop and studio spaces, a 180-seat performance studio, residency apartment, Sculpture Garden, Japanese Garden, amphitheatre and café. 

    The core focus of Campbelltown Arts Centre is to develop and deliver innovative high quality contemporary arts programs that maximise opportunities and avenues for communities to engage with contemporary, multi-arts practice. The Centre’s program encompasses all forms of the visual, performing, literary and new media arts. 

    CAC aims to engage, inspire and respond to the issues of the region's communities through the production of contemporary cultural programs. 

  • Sue Healey's creative manifesto speaks to the production of a highly-detailed movement language. Experimenting with form and perception, Healey creates dance for diverse spaces; theatres, specific sites and the camera. 

    Her live works and films embody technical excellence and high production values, and employ the finest of dancers. 

    Associate artists Shona Erskine, Lisa Griffiths and Nalina Wait have been integral to Healey's work since 2002. 

    Works have been described as masterful in their handling of organic human stories, space and time through dance. Her films transcend the performance space, allowing a new focus and magic to enter; time lingers, even reverses, details are enlarged for intricate scrutiny, elements are introduced in an alchemic fashion, all using the genius of cinematography and an acute awareness of movement. 

    Sue Healey has established a reputation as a key figure in the development of choreography and has worked to build strong ties into the artistic and academic communities in Australia and the Asia Pacific. As her artistic statement reads: 

    "I create dance that acknowledges the potency of the human body to take us into the realm of the extraordinary. I believe dance to be vital human research and as a means to communicate across cultural boundaries. I am committed to creating a theatrical language that illuminates and transforms, revealing subtle layers of movement and perception." 
  • In giving the world one of the 20th century’s greatest buildings, Jørn Utzon changed the creative and cultural landscape of Australia forever. Sydney Opera House is committed to continuing the legacy of Utzon’s creative genius by creating, producing and presenting the most acclaimed, imaginative and engaging performing arts experiences from Australia and around the world; onsite, offsite and online. As the creative and cultural flagship of Australia, Sydney Opera House is the place where imagination takes you. 

  • Legs on the Wall is the home of independent circus and physical theatre in Sydney. The organisation creates physically virtuosic, visually remarkable theatre with productions telling stories that fearlessly explore form and play with ideas. 

    By collaborating with exceptional artists and performers and producing partners intent on taking work to diverse audiences, Legs on the Wall aims to create the most thrilling physical theatre in the world. 

  • From performances at the Joyce Theatre in New York, to the Grand in Shanghai, the Stanislavsky in Moscow and the Sydney Opera House at home, Sydney Dance Company has proven that there are no passive observers in a contemporary dance audience.

    The reward of truly moving audiences, and the raw pride of sharing Australian art with the world has driven their ensemble of 17 dancers, led by Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela, to become one of the world’s strongest forces in contemporary dance.  Alongside Bonachela’s original works, the Company's programs have featured guest choreographers like Jacopo Godani, Alexander Ekman, Gideon Obarzanek and Cheng Tsung-lung, as well as collaborations with Sydney Festival, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, David Jones and composers Bryce Dessner, Nick Wales, 48nord and Ezio Bosso.

    Sydney Dance Company has a broad community beyond the practice and performance of theirlead dancers. The Company believes in the universality of dance, and with the largest public dance class program in Australia, help over 70,000 people a year connect with the grace, strength and creativity that lives within all of us. Their nation-wide education program offers a strategic curriculum targeting primary and secondary students through to career focused study for pre-professional dancers and university graduates.

  • Urban Theatre Projects (UTP) re-imagines what theatre can be, and who it can be for. Based in Sydney’s south west, the UTP tells contemporary Australian stories that show the universal within the uniquely personal.

    The company has a 38-year history of creating groundbreaking work, and under a handful of visionary artistic directors has played a vital role in Australia’s cultural landscape.

  • As Australia’s leading Indigenous performing arts organisation, Bangarra Dance Theatre fulfils a dual role of creative producer and cultural agent. Bangarra’s key objectives are to contribute to improving the lives of Indigenous Australians and to tell their stories through innovative world-class dance theatre. Bangarra tours extensively to national, regional and remote centres across Australia and internationally each year. 

  • Milk Crate Theatre uses performing arts to change the story of homelessness. The Theatre works with an ensemble of artists who've experienced homelessness or social marginalisation to provide creative opportunities for participants to build confidence, skills and social connection to help make positive changes in their lives.

  • Performance Space is where exciting futures for Australian contemporary arts and artists are forged. The organisation's mission is for artistic excellence and innovation to inspire, captivate and create audiences. Founded in 1983, Performance Space is Australia’s leading agency for interdisciplinary arts, producing and presenting new artistic experiences across a multiplicity of sites, locations and venues. 

  • Performing Lines develops, produces and tours new and innovative Australian performing arts regionally, nationally and internationally. Performing Lines makes things happen. We nurture and recognize creativity, provide artists with access to broader audiences, and contribute to the enhancement of a distinctly Australian culture both in Australia and overseas.