The challenge of unlearning (from the archives)

New students at our elite training institutions often have to undo the damage of bad amateur training before they can progress to professional level.

First-year students arrive at The Australian Ballet School, the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) and other institutions full of passion, excitement and talent.

But  sometimes they also come with a suitcase full of bad habits that have to be unlearn before they can really come to grips with their new training regimes.

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Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts