Children’s festival launches program celebrating 50 years
The DreamBIG Children’s Festival program launched today with over 70 shows, interactive events and exhibitions to celebrate their half-century.
The world’s longest-running curated children’s festival, DreamBIG returns to the Adelaide Festival Centre with the theme ’I Was, I Am, I Will Be’ asking children to reflect on their past, present and future throughout May.
Creative Producer Georgi Paech says the theme “reflects on DreamBIG’s legacy while contemplating how it might evolve in the future.”
Opening the festival is DreamBIG’s Birthday Parade on May 7, a returning event from the festival’s past life as the Come Out Children’s Festival. The Birthday Parade will be held at the Festival Centre, with teachers encouraged to book their classes in or host their own event at their school.
The Come Out Parade Festival, 1989, image via State Library of South Australia, SRG867/19/6
To celebrate the milestone, the Festival Theatre Galleries will host an exhibition called 50 Years of Dreaming Big exploring the history of the standalone festival since it began in 1975.
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The festival’s Big Family Weekend from May 10-11 is filled with free events for children of all ages, including String Symphony where you can wield a giant marionette, use flowers as instruments in The Plants and build a time capsule in The Museum of the Everyday.
Excitingly, Scribble Zone allows kids to go nuts and draw on the walls, ceiling and floors to create a collaborative work of art.
Adelaide Festival CEO and Artistic Director Douglas Gautier says a strength of how the children’s festival has evolved over the years is the focus on events that kids can participate in.
“We engage with over 600 schools a year in our education program,” Gautier says.
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“Our education team and people who produce Dream Big are really on top of those changing circumstances and tastes that kids have and how they receive their information, which is very different now certainly, from when I was younger.”
Fancy Long Legs is a glittery adventure following a spider who loves to create. This picture: Jade Ellis
Play School host and hip-hop artist Zindzi stars in musical adventure Zindi & The Zillionaires and local artist Stephen Noonan will present his award-winning, non-verbal performance The Boy and the Ball at the State Library.
In a fusion of Japanese folklore traditions and contemporary storytelling, Omusubi Productions presents Little Bozu and Kon Kon, a story of self-acceptance and empathy through an unlikely duo of a raccoon and fox.
Australia’s leading theatre company making work specifically for young audiences with disability and their friends, Sensorium Theatre, presents immersive and multi-sensory experience Wonderbox.
The Bookbinder. This picture: Phillip Merry.
International shows include dark fairytale The Bookbinder from New Zealand company Trick of the Light Theatre and UK Interactive dance event Mini SPIN, hosted by three Deaf hosts and a DJ, which is open to all Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Children of Deaf Adults and hearing children.
The Space Theatre will host the magic circus comedy Whalebone performed by clown and inventor Jens Althemier and a reimagination of a classic in The Princess, The Pea and the Brave Escapee which features live music performed by Australia Chamber Orchestra musicians.
The Princess, The Pea and the Brave Escapee. This picture: Maria Boyadgis
“We encourage families to explore the rich opportunities in this year’s program, and to engage their young people with the wonderful world of arts, culture and creativity,” Arts Minister Andrea Michaels says.
DreamBIG Children’s Festival is running May 7-17 at the Adelaide Festival Centre.