All change

And so draws to an end the penultimate Lent term of my time at the University of Southampton – traditionally, the most hectic, jam-packed and assignment-stuffed part of the academic year, it’s certainly lived up to its reputation this time around!

Whether it’s been dissertation central (as has often been the case this term – three and a bit weeks until the final deadline, ahhh!), show performances aplenty, or just finding more and more inventive excuses to procrastinate doing something properly productive (usually involving my housemates and the television in our kitchen!), the schedule has, as ever, been completely jam-packed, varied, and challenging, and as a result time seems to have flown by. What’s weirdest is to think that so many people I’ve known throughout these three years only have a term left before they’re graduating and finding employment – somehow, we all still seem way too young for that!

Since I last wrote, I’ve been along to a few performances (as usual!), namely Theatre Group’s productions of the comedy classics God of Carnage and Blithe Spirit, with both pulled off with customary excellence and hilarity, as well as attending my first ever experience of the annual talent showcase that is Pure Dance, which Kristin has written about (and performed incredibly in – the Advanced Jazz Dance routine she was part of was absolutely breath-taking!) below.

It was wonderful to see so many people successfully pulling off some truly challenging yet stunning and imaginative choreography, including many of my fellow theatrical comrades and indeed one of my housemates, who made a wholly successful Performing Arts debut as part of the Intermediate Street dance crew, despite my best efforts to stare him out from the audience! It was a remarkable show on numerous levels, demonstrating the power of student collaboration, so a huge congratulations is in order to everybody involved!

My view of the mesmerising Pure Dance 2014!

I’ve also been working heavily towards tackling multiple assignments, such as an essay on applying the philosophies of Total Quality Management to a real-world scenario (challenging – but fascinating in such a context!), and also completing my Third Year Project (the Computer Science equivalent of a dissertation), including getting my teeth stuck into a ten-thousand word report on my year’s work. It sounds like a lot (particularly when the pages are blank to start off with!), but at the moment I’m almost worried it won’t be enough, although maybe I should make that judgment when I reach the figure! Either way, I’ve got my fingers crossed it’s a good sign that everything seems to be progressing well, and hopefully I can use the Easter break to close it out as well as I possibly can, before I have to explain and defend it at a ‘Project Viva’ next term (a terrifying prospect in itself!).

And, as ever, Performing Arts has also taken its fair chunk of my recent time, with a Creative Industries career session, organised by the Students’ Union (SUSU) with guest speakers from the University and on-campus John Hansard Gallery, Turner Sims Concert Hall and Nuffield Theatre, providing plenty of experience, activities and expertise, granting many of us the chance to investigate potential artistic careers and do some networking with figures in the industry who’ve between them seen it all.

I found it a great initiative for answering many of the questions I had posed about the theatrical industry, and as a result am now strongly considering pursuing one or two avenues into it alongside my course next year – which, all things being well, should hopefully provide me with a nice dilemma to have one graduation-filled day! Regardless of these aspirations, the season as a whole was invaluable, and is representative of the sheer number of opportunities to improve your knowledge of the working world on offer, all stemming from the tireless work of the Union, the University’s Careers department, the Electronics and Computer Science Careers Hub, and many more services I’m sure I’ll be making use of this time next year!

Because as a student on a four-year programme, I do still have one final academic session left next year, during which I plan to spend most of the time feeling ‘old’, particularly when I consider how many people I know will have graduated by that point! But as ever with University things are constantly changing, refreshing and moving forwards, and it is with this knowledge I headed along to two Performing Arts society Annual General Meetings (AGMs) at which new committees were to be elected to lead my favourite student groups.

Having experienced what it’s like to be at the heart of a society’s operations as Webmaster on this year’s Theatre Group committee, I can’t begin to explain how great the chance to represent its talented membership base has been, working as part of a team to make the decisions which could drive the society, from financial to political to voting for which productions would get the chance to take to the stage. It’s been an absolute blast, and I’ve made some lifelong friends from it!

It’s weird to think a whole year’s passed since I was elected onto Theatre Group’s committee – time definitely flies!

But all good things must come to an end, and so it was time for me to move on to new projects within the Performing Arts. The first avenue through which this came about was at the Showstoppers (the musical theatre society) AGM, at which I decided to run for (in tandem with my good friend Anna as Vice-Presidential candidate) society President – and was somehow successfully elected, which I couldn’t believe!

Showstoppers is a society I’ve really come to care for a great deal over the latter half of my time at University, particularly after getting to know so many of its members this year through Little Shop of Horrors and Guys and Dolls, and its potential for growth and development is vast and exciting - as I mentioned in my pitch, I’m hoping to get original Southampton-based musical theatre talent up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next year, one way or another! To be granted the opportunity to head Showstoppers up next year is amazing (if slightly intimidating at first!), and just being elected itself was incredible; I can’t wait for the challenges to come, using my experience in Performing Arts as a whole and working alongside an enthusiastic new committee to expand Showstoppers still further following a stellar year at the hands of a brilliant 2012-13 committee!

Swiftly following was the Theatre Group AGM, along with its traditional format of a financial report (where we see how much every show made – Equus had the highest Theatre Group turnover ever, but lost out on the most profit due to expenses!) and then the infamous fundraising ‘raffle’, the prizes for which are sourced from anything the committee members can (often at the last minute!) lay their hands on! My own contribution was a promise of one free website page (the only decent thing I had to offer, as Webmaster!), but others included a ‘mystery script’, a committee member’s band’s EP, a set of friendship bracelets and a ‘luxury hair massager deluxe’!

With funds going to our Edinburgh trip, tickets sold well – I scooped a set of highlighters and a “Wicked the Musical” book, ironically!

Finally, there were the elections for the 2014-15 committee. It felt bizarre not to be running for anything at a Theatre Group AGM given how closely involved I’ve been with it for a while, and I was strongly tempted on the day, but with many of my closest friends in the society on the cusp of graduating, and the whole of Showstoppers to represent instead, part of me knew it was probably best (not least in terms of time spent on my degree!) to explore new opportunities within Performing Arts. That being said, I fully intend to hopefully audition for a show or two, and come along to some of the new committee’s meetings, if only to express my own “back in my day”-esque sentiments!

One candidate managed to run for a position all the way in Canada!

So, for me at least, it’s all change, both in personnel and in preparation, for the new 2014-15 academic year, although something tells me there’s still plenty of life left in this one yet! Particularly in those ten-thousand words to write – speaking of which, I best get back to it!

Robin