MEDIA

* Update *

27 March 2020

The COVID-19 crisis has created unprecedented challenges for the world, our country and our organisation, and it has impacted everyone in a different way. Here at NICA, our greatest challenge is the inability to deliver our programs the way we have been.

Over the last two weeks the NICA team have transitioned much of our teaching and learning online, continuing to engage our students in a range of subjects essential to their course with careful consideration of how we can embrace technology for some aspects of our program delivery. During this time, our staff have transitioned to working remotely.

We can now confirm that our higher education and vocational education classes will not continue as normal for the rest of semester one. We will continue our remote learning and training program, while planning to mitigate in future semesters any impact on the more practical components of our courses. 

We are extremely proud of our students’ resilience and their commitment to continuing their learning and development. The NICA team remain committed to providing learning, structure, support, reassurance and a continued sense of connection for our students, staff and the wider NICA community.

Our CircaNICA agency and short courses continue to look to the future and remain open for business as soon as safely allowed.

18 March 2020

From 17 March 2020, Swinburne University have taken the decision to pause all teaching until Friday 20 March. During this time staff have been preparing to transition our tertiary courses to be delivered online where possible. For the most recent updates on Swinburne University's response to the extraordinary and developing COVID-19 situation, visit the Swinburne website.

In light of the developing situation, and to protect the health and safety of our community, NICA have ceased all public programs until further notice. This includes our Term 1 short courses, our Autumn Holiday Program, Come & Try day and any external bookings or events to be held on the NICA campus. We will initiate a process for refunds of our short course program in the coming days.

We are happy to reassure you that there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Swinburne or NICA community. We will continue to exercise care and caution in our approach with a view to doing all we can to delay and minimise the spread of the disease.

We recognise that with the constantly changing COVID-19 situation around the world, this is an unprecedented time for everyone - a time that, for many, is filled with uncertainty. Our thoughts go out to all of our community under stress at this time, and especially our wider circus and arts community, many of whom are facing a devastating loss of work and income. Over the coming months we will be considering the ways that NICA, as a centre of excellence in education, training, performance and research in contemporary circus, can contribute to revitalising a robust circus community.

For now, follow us on Facebook and Instagram and see our website for further updates. If you have any questions please contact us at [email protected].