Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts

Infobox Historic building


caption= LIPA's main entrance, on Mount Street
name=Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
location_town=Liverpool
location_country=ENG
architect=
client=
engineer=
construction_start_date= 1990
completion_date=7 June 1996
date_demolished=
cost=£20m
structural_system=
style=The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) is a school in the English city of Liverpool that offers training in Acting, Dance, Music, Sound Technology, Arts Management, Technical Theatre, and Theatre Design.

It offers nine full-time BA (Hons) degrees, as well as Post Graduate Diplomas and more recently has added Master of Arts (postgraduate) programmes to its prospectus.

LIPA also offers weekend performing arts classes for 4 to 19-year-olds.

History

How LIPA came to be

LIPA was started by Sir Paul McCartney and Mark Featherstone-Witty.

It was a meeting of two ideas: McCartney had discovered that his old school — the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys — was derelict, and wanted to be able to save the building; Mark Featherstone-Witty had set up the Brit School in London, and wanted to try his ideas on a bigger scale.

Featherstone-Witty had been fired up by Alan Parker’s 1980 film "Fame", about the New York High School for the Performing Arts. The film inspired him to think about what training would have best prepared him and others for a lasting career in the arts and entertainment industry. The film gave him the idea that performing artists needed to train in all three performing arts (acting, dance and music) at the same time. Then he read a book about musicians who had failed to understand they were entering a business, despite the phrase "show business". He also took on board the idea that performers formed the tip of an arts and entertainment employment iceberg. Performers were a fraction of the employment. From these basic concepts, he created a blueprint for a new type of training and then spent three years quizzing the industry and refining his philosophy. By 1985 he had nearly 50 artists, directors, choreographers and entrepreneurs backing him.

Record producer Sir George Martin knew that Featherstone-Witty was looking for somewhere to develop a school, and that McCartney was looking for someone who could save the building, and so introduced them. The struggle to create the facility and the school took seven years and is described in more detail on LIPA's website, and in a book by Featherstone-Witty. It was not easy, but then, as McCartney reminds Featherstone-Witty from time to time, "if it were easy, everyone would be doing it". It took £20m for the facility, the curriculum and the support to maintain and develop all three.

1996 - today

LIPA was opened by The Queen on 7 June 1996, and since then its range of courses has expanded with each new academic year. From the start, the desire and so the challenge was to achieve excellence with access. The final solution was to offer higher education courses to achieve excellence and a range of open and flexible learning courses to achieve access. To this day, both embody the heart of the Institute.

10th Anniversary

LIPA celebrated its 10th Birthday on January 30 2006 at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall with a performance designed to celebrate the past, present and future, alongside the launch of a new book: "LIPA - The First Ten Years In Pictures". This event also served to launch 2006 as "Liverpool Performs", one of the theme years leading up to Liverpool's time as European Capital of Culture 2008. [ [http://www.liverpool08.com European Capital of Culture 2008] liverpool08.com - Retrieved 19 October 2007]

Current Courses

Diploma

Diplomas are validated by LIPA, and are offered mainly as a course which willallow entry into higher education, either in LIPA or elsewhere.

*LIPA Diploma in Performing Arts (Acting)
*LIPA Diploma in Performing Arts (Dance)
*LIPA Diploma in Performing Arts (Song)

*LIPA Diploma in Popular Music and Sound Technology

=Undergraduate (Degree)=

Degree programmes are all validated by Liverpool John Moores University

*BA (Hons) Performing Arts (Acting}
*BA (Hons) Music, Theatre and Entertainment Management
*BA (Hons) Performing Arts (Dance)
*BA (Hons) Music
*BA (Hons) Performing Arts (Music)
*BA (Hons) Sound Technology
*BA (Hons) Theatre and Performance Design & Technology
*BA (Hons) Community Drama

Postgraduate

*Diploma in Acting

MA Postgraduate programmes

*MA in Performing Arts Education
*MA in Dance Theatre Practice
*MA in Community Music
*MA in Contemporary Theatre Practice

Companions

LIPA is not able to issue its own degrees, so rather than issuing Honorary Degrees like other British Universities, it awards "Companionships".LIPA awards companionships to individuals in recognition of their contributions to the world of art and entertainment, particularly within the sectors to which LIPA is linked.

Prospective companions usually attend the Institute at least once before they are invited to become companions in order to give masterclasses to students, or to participate in "Conversation with" type question and answer sessions. Some then revisit the Institute at later dates.

As of July 2008, LIPA's companions are:

2008
*John Hurt
*Trevor Horn
*Cathy Dennis
*Ann Harrison
*Nitin Sawhney
*Lea Anderson

2007
*Anita Dobson
*Alan McGee
*David Pugh
*Ralph Koltai
*Steve Levine
*Ben Elton

2006
*Lynda Bellingham
*Sir Ken Robinson
*Jorg Sennheiser
*Terence Stamp
*David Stark

2005
*Guy Chambers
*Robin Gibb
*Alec McCowen
*Tim Wheeler

2004
*The Bangles
*Ken Campbell
*Tim Firth
*Terry Marshall
*Arlene Phillips
*Willy Russell
*Jon Webster

2003
*Barbara Dickson
*Anthony Everitt
*Nickolas Grace
*Andy McCluskey

2002
*Stephen Bayley
*Anthony Field
*Thelma Holt
*Anthony H Wilson

2001
*Joan Armatrading +
*Benny Gallagher
*Malcolm McLaren

+ denotes a Companion who is also a LIPA Patron.

Notable Alumni

*Leah Hackett, actress who played Tina Reilly in Hollyoaks
*, composer at Lucasarts
*Lindsay McKenzie, actress who played Princess Erina in the CBBC programme "Raven"
*Liam Lynch, US based singer, writer & director
*Dawn Porter, television journalist and presenter
*Kent Riley, actor who played Zak Ramsey in Hollyoaks
*Sandi Thom, a Scottish singer-songwriter
*The Wombats indie trio
*Javier Martínez Maya, music producer, composer and arranger
*Liz White, actress best known in Life on Mars
*Jan Burton (singer songwriter) Syntax www.myspace.com/syntaxofficialsite apperance on top of the pops 2oo4 signed to Sony
*syntax (band)
*Jan Burton

ee also

*Liverpool Institute High School for Boys

External links

'History section' adapted from the [http://www.lipa.ac.uk/standard/aboutlipa/pottedhistory.asp LIPA 'History Page']
* [http://www.lipa.ac.uk LIPA website]