The age-old tradition of experimentation is alive and well in Illawarra student theatre, according to those in the spotlight. “The beauty of theatre is that it’s unpredictable. You can have a script ready to go and you can’t change the words on paper, but in almost every adaptation, the end product will be something different,” theatre director, actor, and third-year performance major Aaron Lucas said. Despite significant acting experience, Lucas said, as a student director at the University of Wollongong, he is given ample freedom to explore unique and original methods of theatrical adaptation. In March this year, Lucas directed his own play…
Author: Matthew Waite
A new study has revealed the vast majority of people working in the creative arts industries do not have a degree in the field. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report indicated many did not officially pursue creative arts as a career outside of university and TAFE. “In high school, there was this massive emphasis on a lucrative career. Creative arts was not considered one at all. I kind of just didn’t listen. Now I’m having the time of my life and I’m seeing people from my degree getting acting jobs and directing plays at local theatres,” third-year UOW student Isabella…
Mindfulness meditation is becoming popular as an alternative to conventional medical and psychological therapies. Recent years have seen the enthusiastic embrace of mindfulness meditation and other techniques drawn from Buddhism as therapeutic interventions in psychiatry. While mindfulness can be practiced quite well without Buddhism, Buddhism cannot be practiced without mindfulness. In its Buddhist context, mindfulness meditation has three overarching purposes: knowing the mind; training the mind; and freeing the mind. One of the first participants of the Nan Tien Temple’s mindfulness meditation program, Matt Herbert explains how this cultural practice has impacted and improved on his life, on and off…
A new kind of competition has sprung up in recent years, inciting passion and fervour as sports have for centuries. However, these competitions take place not on a court or a field, but inside the world of video games. So-called ‘e-sports’ are growing rapidly and powerfully: tournaments offer a rich purse, a huge audience, and plenty of glory for the winners. E-sports have devoted fans, famous superstars, huge spectator numbers, and plenty of trash-talking. Those involved claim competitive gaming requires just as much skill and mental focus. Comparably, chess is a sport; it requires strategy, is played worldwide, and is…
“… maybe you should just look the other way.” Some academics, including UOW’s own Prof. Wenche Ommundsen, claim Thomas Pynchon’s arrival on the scene of literature marked the birth of ‘Postmodernism’. Non-linear narratives, the stress on irony, hyper-realistic characters and an often-nonsensical plot are frequent features of Pynchon’s work, and likewise with Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Inherent Vice, one of Pynchon’s latest. Perhaps the most prolific complaint in the history of book-to-film adaptation is that the film never stays completely faithful to its source material. That is where Inherent Vice excels. As if the film’s costuming, soundtrack (which you can listen to…