Theatre for young audiences should be seen as critical for children’s cultural agency
- Written by Sarah Austin, Senior Lecturer in Theatre, The University of Melbourne
Young children are spending less and less time outdoors. Most Australian preschool children don’t play outside every day. This is despite research that suggests time spent in non-urban outdoor environments is linked to better physical and mental health, social competence, resilience and stronger learning outcomes.
Polyglot Theatre’s new work, Forest, is a direct response to these alarming statistics. Director Cat Sewell powerfully demonstrates the power of theatre to model new possibilities, transform thinking and to centre the rights and needs of children.
Amid the mossy floors and rustling, critter-filled trees of the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne, the performance begins by carefully positioning children aged 4–10 and their families as “visitors” to this beautiful landscape.
They are invited to tread lightly in this special place, and to explore with all of their senses, which, they are reminded, they take with them everywhere they go.
In the middle of the forest, the audience is led through a constructed blue archway (described by a child at the performance I attended as the “magic waterfall archway”) to mark the beginning of the show.
Finding and creating possibilities
Three skilled performers create pathways and opportunities for play-based exploration. Some children need little encouragement, picking up sticks and finding shapes and worlds and possibilities right away.
Others are more tentative, and gently mirror the performers as they make shapes of the trees with their bodies; examine the texture and colour of the ground up close; copy the performer’s raucous calls to test how far their voices will travel.
Delight unfolds. The children embrace the opportunity to explore, play and follow their curiosity. Simple theatrical objects are introduced to support their play and investigation, and to encourage parents to participate, too.
Children explore framing parts of the forest they find beautiful or compelling with simple wooden circles placed on trees or around wombat poo or tiny saplings on the ground. Mirrors are handed out and sunlight is bounced around the trees.
A rave party emerges as the audience create disco strobe lights with mirrors and the performers dance to electronic music from a Bluetooth speaker.
Suddenly everything goes quiet. Stillness descends and we are invited to listen. Wind whistles; birds sing. The performers slowly move toward tree trunks and beckon the children to join them. They press their ears to the trees to listen to the sounds the trees make. They lie on the forest floor to see what tiny worlds they can see up close. They run their hands along soft and spiky shrubs and rub sticks and leaves between their fingers.
The Forest is a tactile, sensory, immersive story wonderland. And unlike the moment when a show ends in a theatre and the world of the story disappears as you enter the foyer, the forest is still there, inviting you to connect and to return to its stories and possibilities at any time.
Supporting imagination
Building the muscle of imagination and creativity in young people is more important than ever before.
Theatre and performance for children and young people should be part of a holistic approach to some of the most pressing issues our society faces. Arts participation for children and young people leads to a range of positive impacts. It builds civic capacity, a strong sense of belonging and wellbeing, it supports social and emotional development, and can promote creative resilience.
It also engenders a sense of beauty and wonder and can critically challenge and provoke children in powerful ways.
And yet, our arts ecosystem for young people in this country is broken. We have seen a decline of arts education in the early years and in schools and tertiary settings. Since 2007, we have seen a steady reduction in federal funding to organisations who are dedicated to working with children and young people.
But the value of arts is beyond its health and education benefits. It’s value can’t always be measured – and instead happens in the small changes it can bring about in its audience, and the way it offers young people creative and cultural agency.
Forest is full of risk, ambition, creativity and challenge for both the artists, and for the audience. It resists any need to “educate” its audience. (We weren’t given lists of tree species or forest animals to find – although the garden has fantastic educational pamphlets for children to this end!) It knows its audience already had everything it needed to connect with this world it would enter and make sense of it.
Forest is a fantastic reminder of the power of theatre to re-frame and reposition the environments around us, to create new ways of seeing and thinking and doing, to encourage us to think differently.
All children around Australia should have access to these kind of experiences. To do so, we need to see radical change in how we value and invest in the arts and a new approach to seeing children as cultural agents and artists in their own right.
Forest, from Polyglot, is at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne, Victoria, until May 17.
Authors: Sarah Austin, Senior Lecturer in Theatre, The University of Melbourne
