FOOTLOOSE LOVE FOR THE 80S The QUAD in Lismore are becoming masters at transforming space and inviting community in to participate in interactive and immersive events. This Saturday sees The QUAD host The Playground Festival – an event designed to get kids away from screens and into public spaces. Marisa Snow put the program together. She spoke with The Echo. For people who haven’t heard of The Playground Festival, can you tell us what it’s all about, who’s involved and who it has been created for? This will be our second year of running Playground Festival, which is a one day event packed to the rafters with interactive fun for under 12s. The event is a co-presentation with Lismore Regional Gallery, and it’s aimed at creating a hands-on program for kids and their families, where everyone can really throw off their shoes, get down and get involved! Loads of interactive performances, events and activities will feature at the festival; a Tight Wire playground, build your own giant bower bird nest, Spaghetti Circus, music workshops, and heaps more. What do you expect to be the highlights of the festival this year, and what were the crowd favourites last year? Yes so much to do! It’s hard to pick a highlight, but I am really looking forward to seeing the beautiful giant bower nests being built. Four nests will be built over the day with landscape architects Earth Play, co-created by families and children. We are also working with local circus engineers SeedArts to present a custom-built tight wire playground, where you can watch professional tight wire walkers and try your hand at walking slack-lines and testing your dexterity on the smaller-scale interactive playground. We’ve also got cultural workshops where the children can learn traditional dances and stories, and loads of awesome music, and workshops happening throughout the day. Why a Playground Festival? I have always been interested in presenting a large-scale kids event that encourages more risk and creativity in children’s play. I was inspired by junk-yard playgrounds around the world where children have built forts and cubbies out of
recycled materials in public environments. Rather than have an event where children are passive and just sit and watch performances, we are interested in an experience where the children are part of creating the content throughout the day, get to throw off any inhibitions, and delve into their innate sense of adventure. Lismore Regional Gallery has also been delivering a similar event for many years, called the Arty Party, and this is a continuation from that earlier incarnation. Discussion around the dangers of too much screen time for kids have been receiving more attention in the media recently. Is this festival a kind of celebration and reawakening of the physical and active side of play, and of inter-personal interaction, in an attempt to counteract the all-pervasive and difficult-to-escape digital universe? Absolutely! The wisdom and creativity of children is so inspiring and I feel that opportunities for them to showcase those skills are slipping away behind the dreaded screens. Also, we live in such a risk-averse world, that children are literally forgetting how to climb a tree and throw a ball, as they don’t get exposed to those opportunities much anymore. This festival is really a chance to just play, create, run, balance, fall over and have fun doing it! Oh, and you might just meet some magical creatures along the way… This is an all weather event right? What plans have you guys got if we do get some rain on Saturday? Yes the event can happen in all weather, we have loads of cover from wet weather – and the sun. The Lismore Regional Gallery is also open for some quiet moments of artistic reflection if needed, with tours led by their kids-hero, Peggy Pop Art, throughout the day. We also have loads of workshops happening in-doors, such as the Create your own Playground, and Early-Childhood Music workshops, as well as book nooks to chill and read a book, or draw a picture. Any last messages for parents and kids coming to Playground Festival? Come with your hearts open, and your feet, head and hands ready to play! We have loads of yummy food available on the day, and there’s plenty of parking at The Quad, off Rural Street, to make it super easy to access. And it’s all FREE FREE FREE! Check out lismorequad.org.au for the full program.
Everyone loves the 80s in their own way… and many of us, who lived through the 80s, have both good and not so good memories… but who didn’t love the music? So Footloose, an iconic 80s movie, was Brunswick Picture House’s choice for their next film event. They’ve been waiting for a chance to bring out all the 80s classic hits… so the Picture House Prom was born. Tying in with the Footloose movie, they were fighting for the chance to have their own school dance… and BPH will be having their own Picture House school dance, MCd by Drew Fairley – expect some audience-generated playlists through social media. Basically this is just a great opportunity for people get out and have a dance to all their favourite songs… and relive their teenage angst. Saturday at Brunswick Picture House. Tix at the venue – brunswickpicturehouse.com
GIVING PEACE A CHANCE T h e s e c o n d a n n u a l By ro n Peace Meditation Concert is on International Peace Day, this Saturday, 7pm at Byron Theatre. It’s much more than just a concert, and it’s not a demonstration! There will be beautiful songs from troubadours Raku One O’Gaia, Julie Hayes and Kim Banffy (Kim Lesley Davidson), a sound-healing from Camila Nova, followed by a group intentional meditation for world peace, and some sacred silliness from Hanuman Dass so we don’t take ourselves too seriously! To finish, the performers will join with the audience to join voices and hearts in two songs that everybody knows. BYO kazoos for the dah, da-da-da-dah part in All You Need Is Love! Tickets at byroncentre.com.au
000 MEMOIR Byron Writers Festival invites you to a free in-conversation event with paramedic turned writer Benjamin Gilmour about his memoir The Gap, an unflinching, no-holds-barred look at what happens after the triple-zero call is made. In this riveting memoir, Gilmour recounts the call-outs one very difficult summer working as a paramedic in Sydney: some dangerous, some gruesome, some downright ridiculous. Thursday 26 Sept, 6pm at The Bookroom. Free event. Bookings to byronwritersfestival.com/whats-on.
CONTINUED P38 Ballina PLAYERS
Regional theatre at its best since 1955
Auditions
Sat 21st September Directed by Peter Harding Musical Director Karen Goodsell
Show Dates: Jan 10 - 19 2020 Youth Production ages 8 - 17 yrs Audition by appointment only Contact Mike 0402 491 036
www.ballinaplayers.com.au
www.echo.net.au/byron-echo Byron Shire Echo archives
ĕżƐĕŔćĕſ Ǩǯǽ ǩǧǨǰ The Byron Shire Echo 37