I wanted to share with you some of the exciting activities that we have been up to in the BFA (Acting) course AT NIDA, including the Singing Actor stream.

I came to NIDA from WAAPA and moved to Sydney from Western Australia. My artistic practice has been in theatre with music, musical theatre, and operetta, but with acting always at the forefront. The singer is an actor first. NIDA is a wonderful playground for young actors, whether they specialise in theatre with music or whether they are diversifying across film and theatre. It’s exciting for me to be able to foster the emerging actor’s creativity through the music lens.

I’ve been primarily working with BFA (Acting) year 1 and 2 students. Yes, we are online, but we come to the sessions with a mindset of not what we can’t do, but what can we do.

The most amazing creativity has come out in the students and in the tutors as artist-educators. For example, one minute we’ve been singing while climbing a tree or standing on a bar stool, the next minute we are doing scenes on film with musical underscoring. In the next session a group is creating dream ballet sequences and pirouetting through the kitchen, in another we are looking at the musicality of speech and the way that all human beings are musical all the time, and how we can use that to create and express ourselves with authenticity.

Online learning is enabling our students to think of new ways to develop and use their skills.

Nicole Stinton
Head of Music, NIDA