Arts

DreamBIG Children’s Festival Announced For 2017

The new name replaces Come Out and was suggested by an 8-year-old, while the new poster was designed by a local 13-year-old student too.

The 2017 DreamBIG Children’s Festival is bursting with exciting shows, events, activities and workshops that promise to entertain, inspire, educate and motivate young South Australian minds.

The Festival runs from May 18-27, 2017, and kicks off with a spectacular opening event that is fast becoming a festival tradition. More than 2000 school children from primary schools across the State will gather outside Telstra Plaza, Adelaide Oval, for a singalong as the Mighty Choir of Small Voices then walk and sing their way across the Adelaide Oval Footbridge in an event called DreamBIG Singing. How sweet!

They will sing a newly composed song, ‘Dream Big’, written by local musician Robyn Habel. The song celebrates the re-naming of the Come Out Children’s Festival as the new DreamBIG Children’s Festival.

The new name was suggested by eight-year-old Clementine Struthers, a year three student at Prospect North Primary School, who won a state-wide competition to rename the iconic festival.

The new poster image and branding for the Festival was chosen in a State-wide competition. Hundreds of local school children took part and the winner was 13-year-old South Downs Primary School Student Nicole Groot.

This year, the theme of the festival is ‘Feed The Mind’ and the opening spectacle will be a journey across the footbridge towards the Adelaide Festival Centre beneath 20 large parachutes, designed and decorated by 20 regional schools with images describing all the wonderful things that can feed our minds.

These parachutes will be held aloft by 100 retired teachers as a guard of honour, acknowledging their instrumental role in feeding the minds of our children. This joyful event will meld metro and regional schools in a cross-generational and symbolic celebration that salutes how the arts feed our minds for a lifetime.

“DreamBIG Children’s Festival marks a new beginning for this much-loved children’s festival. More than two million South Australian children have enjoyed this iconic event since it first began more than 40 years ago and for many youngsters, this festival provides their first steps into the magical world of theatre and performance. We know the 2017 program will feed the mind of all our young arts lovers, entertaining and educating, as well as igniting a lifelong love of the arts”, says Minister for the Arts, Jack Snelling.

Following the huge success of the Big Family Weekend in 2015, it’s back again, on the weekend of May 20-21. This year it will take the form of a trail of delight and wonder for the entire family. The trail will be along North Terrace and various side streets and will incorporate shows, workshops, exhibitions, activities, eating, making, watching, laughing, thinking, chatting, questioning, dancing and singing. Follow the trail and discover an assortment of great events at the Botanic Gardens, Ayers House, Adelaide University, Freemasons Hall, Art Gallery of SA, SA Museum, State Library, Migration Museum, Adelaide Festival Centre, Mercury Cinema, and more. The full schedule of events will be released in April 2017.

DreamBIG Children’s Festival is a celebration of our creative kids and their incredible minds. Some of the most important attributes we want children to develop for the future are communication, collaboration, problem-solving, self-confidence, compassion, curiosity, imagination and creativity. And study after study has shown that an arts rich education is incredibly effective at developing all these vital skills”, says the Festival’s creative producer Susannah Sweeney.

The 2017 program is again divided into two categories, the schools program where teachers and children can participate through their school and the general public program for families.

There will be more than 270 school shows and 126 general public shows. That includes 20 South Australian premieres, four Australian premieres and 9 world premiere events. To find out more, check out the DreamBIG website.

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