News Release:
UNE academic launches world's first national online theatre database
| 25/2/04 036/04 A Professor from The University of New England will see the concept of a national online theatre database - the first of its kind in the world - come to fruition next week, where it will be launched at the Adelaide Festival. AusStage has been six years in the making and cost nearly $1 million in funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), Professor Adrian Kiernander said. It is described as an electronic gateway to Australia's performing arts. Theatre scholars from eight Australian universities, including UNE, collaborated on the project. Professor Kiernander is a Chief Investigator and chair of the AusStage Management Committee. Together with Robyn Archer and Circus Oz, he will launch the database as part of next week's Festival of the Arts in the South Australian capital. "AusStage will be an invaluable tool for anyone interested in the performing arts, but specifically for scholars and students of theatre," Professor Kiernander said. The website contains information on almost every aspect of Australian theatre, from biographical data on playwrights and actors, to reviews of performances and critiques of plays.
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It currently has details of every major performance held across the nation from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s and from 2001 to the present day. Said Professor Kiernander: "Apart from very popular and world touring productions, many performing arts events are largely forgotten about in a matter of months. "Unless one knows that an event took place at a certain time in a certain place, tracking down such an event as part of a research project is often a matter of chance. "AusStage will remedy this situation by creating an extensive
index of as many Australian performing arts events as possible." AusStage is online at www.ausstage.edu.au Media contact: Professor Adrian Kiernander, 0418 499 839, or Lydia Clifford, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 2779 |
