THE “big reveal” of Stage 2 of the Belconnen Arts Centre development is on Friday, August 21.

When Stage 1 opened in August 2009, the then-Chief Minister Jon Stanhope put the challenge to the arts centre to fill it with activity if it wanted to be granted funds for stage two – and they’ve done just that, with visual art exhibitions, dance, classes, events and concerts, an artist-in-residence program, with mini-offices housing arts organisations like Musica Viva and The Griffyn Ensemble and individuals, such as actor Christopher Samuel Carroll.

The original design by Williams Ross Architects for stages 1 and 2 was abandoned when, during the run-up to the 2016 election, the ACT government pledged funding for stage 2 and a totally new design process was set in motion, which resulted in the engagement of DJAS (Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn) Architecture and PBS Building for construction.

Now the two designs, old and new, are visually linked by the evocative yellow whispering “reeds” sculpture, “Dancers on a Lakefront”, by Konstantin Dimopoulos.

I took a tour of the new facility with staffers Skye Rutherford and Shan Crosbie recently, skirting around a lot of wires being wrestled into submission by technical manager Linda Buck.

The state-of-the-art facilities include audio-enhancement for people with hearing disabilities, new public toilets and a small art gallery facing the street.

That joins the previous main gallery, now called the West Gallery. The old foyer, now called the Generator Gallery and the central Pivot Gallery (“because everything pivots around it”, they tell me) to make a suite of four substantial exhibiting spaces.

The Pivot Gallery adjoins the grand foyer, which leads to stage two. There’s a coffee shop and a rehearsal room/dance studio, but without doubt the essence of it all is the new, large theatre.

Equipped with lighting catwalks, impressive acoustics, a cyclorama and curtains, it is essentially a big black box with retractable seating for around 200 people and movable seating for another 200.

Backstage is impressive, with several dressing rooms, a green room, a substantial loading dock giving access to the whole centre and high-ceilinged corridors leading to production offices and dressing rooms.

Co-CEO/artistic director, Monika McInerney and fellow-CEO, Jack Lloyd, have inveigled Minister Gordon Ramsay and a bunch of insiders and media to wake up early on August 21 for a sunrise smoking ceremony overlooking Lake Ginninderra, performed by Duncan Smith’s group, Wiradjuri Echoes.

Then there’ll be some fun and music in the evening in a staged opening to the public that McInerney calls “singing the space into life”.

As for showbiz, that will kick off in September with a daring circus called “L’entreprise du Risque” in which aerial expert Bernard Bru, costume designer Olga Dumova, circus performers Adam Read and Jake Silvestro and young artists from Canberra’s Warehouse Circus will weave aerial magic under the 6.5m high catwalks, plainly signalling joy and fun at the recently re-named Belco Arts.

Bookings to Belco Arts’ opening night function on August 21 at tinyurl.com/belcoarts

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