Kids love live performance and creative fun. Whether it's dance, musicals, puppetry, storytelling or drama, the energy they receive year after year from the Calgary International Children's Festival inspires and excites them, and broadens their empathy, understanding and intellect.
In 2011, the line-up of children's shows and creative projects, provided with the ongoing support of Qualico Communities, continues to bring them imaginative, creative and thought-provoking works, like Australia's The Tragic Life of Cheeseboy, a musical drama with comedy to lighten it and a playful use of props that will be sure to enchant all ages.
Cheeseboy is marooned on earth after his planet dissolves into a fondu. Have his parents been melted, or are they waiting for his return? And why are the moon and sun adversaries? Stephen Sheehan is the Magical Storyteller who presents Cheeseboy's story using props like miniature sandboxes, tiny boots, globes and trunks with the same spontaneous imagination as children use found objects when they play. Sam McMahon is the storyteller's silent assistant, much like a child's invisible friend, providing support and helping the magic happen.
Developing the imagination
For the show, the entire stage and seating area has been transformed into a caravan-style tent, which creates a very intimate space where the audience feels like the actors are incorporating them in the story. But it isn't just the stagecraft which brings the audience right into the action. By crafting the key plot points with actions that resemble child's play, where a fingers with toy boots on the ends of them become Cheeseboy's legs, the audience is expected to fill in details with their own imagination. They are active in producing the experience. So much that is made for children lacks this key element which separates art from entertainment, yet without this, children lose even their ability to play, freely, spontaneously, imaginatively — without structure.
"We're very fond of the festival's ability to present these jewel-box productions," Carolyn Luhning, CICF's media director, explained. "The use of the Epcor Centre for Performing Arts gives us access to the best-quality venues for large shows, but we also have these small, intimate spaces for plays that fall outside the usual stages."
Learning to be artists, musicians, actors and dancers
At the festival, children are not expected to always sit back as passive consumers of art and entertainment, either. Workshops are provided where they learn:
- percussion and rhythm
- making music
- dance
- sculpting with clay
- crafts with recycled materials
- working with puppets
- improv
These are not the standard school or conservatory lessons, either. The percussion workshop has a distinct Brazilian flair thanks to the Calgary Escola de Samba. The puppets are shadow puppets from the W.P. Puppetry Company. The dance lessons are in hip-hop, vogue-ing and breaking from Pulse Dance Studios. The lessons in ceramics are from Kids with Clay. All these companies provide expertise with an unusual and original approach.
Rain and cold have not kept children away from the many free onsite activities provided at Olympic Plaza.
The 2011 Calgary International Children's Festival wraps up on Saturday, 28 May, 2011 with a special festival highlights performance at the Jack Singer Concert Hall.
Be sure to book your tickets today.
Simone Keiran - Simone Keiran’s book A Brief History of Western Sculpture, Quantum Books, was released at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair. Her articles ...
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