One of the magical things about the performing arts is how it is a language that can be understood by everyone. From the very young through to the very old, music and dance play a large part in human development, communication, and enjoyment.
At this year’s DreamBIG Children’s Festival, Sally Chance will be presenting a show for young children, The Thing That Matters. Babies and very young children will love Sally Chance Dance and her ensemble of Adelaide families as they go on a growing, crawling, walking, running and dancing journey through an entire lifespan, encompassing love, family and memories to treasure. The Thing That Matters is dance-theatre presented with original live music for the youngest audiences.
Sally caught up with me to discuss The Thing That Matters as well as how important it is to introduce the creative arts to children when they are still very young.
“It is incredibly important to introduce the arts to the young. it’s what I’ve dedicated my entire professional life to, and have done for the last sixteen years. It is a critical part of early years development. I actually don’t position it in that paradigm, but I actually feel it’s happening anyway. It’s to do with children’s cultural and aesthetic lives and the idea that the youngest of children are cultural beings; they are artists. It’s a case of making carefully prepared artistic works available to the youngest of children the same way they are made available to everyone else. It’s squarely in that cultural territory.”
Sally has a very strong passion for making the arts accessible for everyone, no matter their age or ability. Prior to pioneering programs for the very young, Sally was the founding Artistic Director for Restless Dance. I asked Sally about how rewarding it must be to see young people find their place in the world and develop a love for dance and performing.
“It totally is. I think of Restless Dance as my first baby, so I’m very proud of them. The thing that motivated me in the early days of Restless, and what still motivates me till today is the idea that dance activities, whether that’s a workshop, a family lab, or a full scale performance, that the art form itself, in the hands and bodies of that particular population, can in itself be taken to different places. Dance is a deeply human activity. The way we can bring people together in a space to see or experience dance, and the dance that happens, is because of the people present, and that excites me.”
The Thing That Matters is a wonderful time for families with young children and babies to be exposed to music and movement.
“Fifteen or sixteen years ago, when I started pioneering to develop performance programs for very young children, I was asked why I was doing that, because young children wouldn’t remember. My company members and I would create works for very young children – in fact, our first piece was for children eighteen months and younger. We still love actual baby works and keep them in our repertoire. Over the years we’ve developed to include practices that embrace children three years down to about four months old. We are so grateful for the DreamBIG Festival for focusing a complete festival on the young.
“Over the years we have co-created works with families. It gives us a chance to work with families and discuss things with them so they can understand why we do things, and we then take on some of their inputs to develop even more inclusive works. We could take some greater risks with these works because the families knew we wouldn’t suddenly do anything gratuitous or put loud music on or do sudden moves that a new parent with a new child coming into a new space would be put off by. When we’ve devised new works, and The Thing That Matters is an example of this, and we are presenting to ticketed audiences, it’s almost like the children who are part of the performance and who co-created it with us become a bridge to the children coming in for the first time as audience members. There’s an expertise with the children in the show that the children in the audience witness and feel, so often they come and join in and make their presence felt. We love it when that happens. The whole thing is very participatory in that sense, but it’s not a requirement of our shows. If it’s the child’s style to sit and watch, that is totally fine.”
Sally shared with me her excitement over how well the show is selling, with only limited availability across all shows.
“It’s extremely exciting. It highlights to me that there is a strong sense of early childhood participation with the arts in our town and our state. We haven’t had much chance to travel beyond metro Adelaide as of yet, but if there is a desire to bring young children to something framed in a beautifully curated festival then that is music to my ears. It helps normalise it.”
The Thing That Matters, which is part of the DreamBIG Children’s Festival, will be at Church of the Trinity, Clarence Park on 23 – 27 May, 2023 at various times. Tickets and further information can be found at https://dreambig.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/whats-on/the-thing-that-matters .
Interviewed by Ben Stefanoff
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