The long black gloves of Yvette Guilbert beckoned even as she mocked and jeered. The stroll to the Moulin Rouge seemed fraught with danger as the people of the night - prostitutes, dancers, pimps - emerged from the shadows.
Inside, the world of Toulouse-Lautrec was dark and music filled - the raucous gaiety tinged with menace. We strolled among the gorgeously-costumed, heavily made-up ladies, while the boneless man danced fluidly and La Goulue despairingly proclaimed her supremacy.
It was a strange welcome to Waterford Institute of Technology. Living art was imitating two-dimensional art as the students of the national diploma in art brought the world of the French artist to life in a performance piece staged in their Newgate Street premises, a shoe factory become college. The art and design faculty is based here and in the former Good Shepherd convent and Magdalen laundry which now houses the humanities faculty of WIT.
Peter Jordan, course leader of the national diploma in art, explains that the course offers students "a unique opportunity to study art through a course with a clearly contemporary basis. It's been designed with the latest Irish and international artistic developments in mind - these emphasise the importance of a broadly-based artistic education aimed at developing flexible creative skills and attitudes, the significant creative opportunities provided by new technology and the need for greater dialogue between artist and public."
The students spend the first two terms of first year studying basic visual communication. The third term is devoted to art and the environment where they learn to produce, research, negotiate and create site-specific art, such as murals or sculptures, within the city environs. In the past, students have created games on the surface of a playground, mounted a temporary exhibition on the hill beneath Jury's Hotel and created a mural which reflected the archaelogical activity in the city.
In second year, the remaining three themes - art and technology, art and society and live art - occupy the three terms. Dudley Snidall, lecturer in art and technology, explains that the college brings a poet into the class and each student develops a poem. The poem is then given to the music students who interpret it, while the art students interpet it in 3D animation.
At the end of the term, the animation and the music are brought together in a video. Snidall says that often students who were afraid of technology end up specialising in the area after they have been immersed in it for a term.
This is the fifteenth year that students, in the live art term, have chosen an artist and brought his or her work to life. It all began with Jack B Yeats. This year, it's the turn of ToulouseLautrec. Last year it was Christo, the man who wrapped the Reichstag . . . next year it may be Magritte. Lecturer Tony Ryan says that one of the most difficult subjects was Turm der Mutter, a bronze by Kathe Kollwitz.
The final specialism, art and society, involves students in projects of a participative nature. Students work with community groups and explore social issues, usually through photography. After being exposed to all four themes, students spend third year specialising in their chosen area.
The catch is the lack of an appropriate add-on degree year. The NCEA has approved a degree entitled Art in Society but, as yet, it's not up and running. Peter Jordan says that there is some frustration among ex-students who would like to do the degree but, as yet, he has not got the go-ahead to put it in place next September.
While students from other colleges will be eligible to apply for the degree, it's likely that they will have to do a bridging course as the WIT diploma is unique in its structure.
Jordan says that the degree has been informed by findings of the international art educational forums which have identified the "concepts of interand multi-disciplinarity, the importance of new media and the need for greater public accountability on the part of the artist as significant areas for development." The Arts Council has also pointed to the need for greater public access to art. Jordan says that the theoretical dimension of the proposed course will provide students with a clear understanding of the development of modern and post-modern art, and the critical and theoretical debates pertaining to it. A course in sociology will form a significant component of the curriculum, he adds.
If the energy and enthusiasm of staff and students is an accurate barometer of the future, the art in society degree will not be long waiting in the wings.
