The DreamBIG Children’s Festival returns this year, running between 7 – 17 May. One of the many stunning shows programmed this year is Fancy Long Legs.
Fancy Long Legs is a brand-new glittery and vibrant musical adventure for children, based on the picture book by international tinsel and craft icon, Rachel Burke.
Rachel Burke is a practicing multidisciplinary artist, designer, and author based in Brisbane, Australia. Known for her vibrant, tactile wearable artworks and iconic tinsel creations, her work is inspired by a love for native craft materials and transforming the mundane into the magical. Rachel has exhibited her work in many gallery spaces across Australia, including The Museum of Brisbane, Saint Cloche Gallery and The Australian Centre of the Moving Image. She has also published five books: Fancy Long Legs (2024), Craft Roach (2023), Pla Pla: Gather, Make, Play. (2023), Be Dazzling (2018), and Daphne & Daisy (2017).
Rachel spoke to Glam Adelaide in the lead up to DreamBIG about the creation of Fancy Long Legs and where she draws her inspiration from when creating her wearable artworks and iconic tinsel creations.
“I am very inspired by my own personal experiences and transforming the mundane into something magical. I get a lot of inspiration from my environment, I guess. I love bargain stores, I love thrift stores, and I’m constantly collecting tiny little objects and things that might have garish colours, little cheap trinkets and things that really light me up. I’ve been lucky enough to travel a lot and I’m very inspired by Japan and Korea, and on my travels there, I’m always jotting down colours. They have such a love for collection and nostalgia that I’m just so inspired by, and this kind of child-like collecting, and I try to capture that essence in my work. It’s quite an ephemeral thing to try and capture, but I guess that’s where my love for these colours come from, which are sometimes quite tacky, but I think there’s something beautiful there.”
Rachel’s book Fancy Long Legs was written in 2024. It is the story of Fancy, a spider who loves to create but struggles to stay focused on her creative task of web-building. With the support of her spiderling friends, Fancy goes on a beautiful journey of self-discovery to find her own style and make something no one else can.
Rachel shared with us where the idea for the book came from.
“Like my clothing designs, I am very inspired by my environment. I have a home studio that’s a little bit messy and I just happen to have two instances where I had these encounters with real-life bugs. The first was Craft Roach which was a cockroach that was in my studio and had a love heart gem stuck to its leg, and that inspired my first kids picture book. Then this next incident involved a little craft cart that I had and I went to clean underneath and there was a cobweb with all this incredible like confetti and sequins and things strewn into the web and immediately when I saw it I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, fancy long legs!’ I loved that little wordplay, but then I loved working back from that little trigger point to imagine who this spider might be, who made a web that was really different. That inspired me to be thinking about a character that maybe lived with other spiders and who was struggling to express herself and the journey she might have gone on to actually create a web that was super unique to her. So again just being as far as inspired by the world around me I really am drawn to stories that feel easy to tell because they’re kind of grounded in something true.”
Adapting a book to stage would be no easy feat, so we asked Rachel how this came about with Naomi Price, who assisted in the process.
“In a past life I used to be a musical theatre performer. I studied musical theatre and I did a lot of shows back in the day. I have this loose connection to the theatre world and I had come to meet Naomi Price along my journey. I was so lucky enough to actually create some costumes for her for various shows that she was doing. She started the conversation with me around books and I ended up talking to her about Fancy Long Legs. From there, it kind of just happened. It was a very organic thing where she really connected with the sentiment of the story. Accessibility is something she’s really passionate about as well and we kind of just set about making it happen. I loved the idea of being able to have my story told through this lens as well, given I have that kind of foundational love and also because my clothing is so theatrical. It’s absolutely been a dream to be able to extend that to the world of costuming and it just all made so much sense to bring it to life in that way.
“So after working with Naomi to adapt it for stage, the Brisbane Festival got involved and suddenly it was all happening. It was quite a fast process but it’s been an absolute dream. I actually couldn’t believe it was happening when we were in the development process.”
This uplifting story takes a sparkly and relatable look at neurodivergence, offering a playful and glitter-covered adventure of acceptance, staying true to yourself and finding friends who love you and celebrate your differences.
“I’m just so excited for audiences to experience the magic of the show. I’m hoping they walk away feeling Inspired, warm and cozy and feeling like they can be their true selves. Just being them is special and that’s what I really want them to walk away feeling.”
Fancy Long Legs
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
17 May, 2025 at 12.00pm and 3.00pm
Runtime: 50 minutes
Age Suitability: Ages 5 – 8
https://www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/whats-on/fancy-long-legs
Photo credit: Jade Ellis
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