UniSA helps find The Green Sheep
Transforming
Mem Fox's much-loved book Where is the Green Sheep? in to a stage show
for young children was no mean feat.
But the creative minds behind the hugely successful production say the help they received from UniSA early childhood education students and staff made a world of difference.
Windmill Performing Arts Director Cate Fowler came up with the idea of creating a show for children aged under four, two years ago.
“I realised there were a lot of very young children coming to our performances and we wanted to create a performance which would give them a wonderful first experience of theatre,” she said.
At first they analysed how this age group responded to performers in childcare centres, by teaming them with UniSA early childhood education students. UniSA’s Professor Wendy Schiller said the students worked in teams, observing and recording how the children reacted to the performers, who included a dancer, a musician and a visual artist.
This proved to be a win-win situation for everyone involved so as part of a Teaching and Learning Grant it was repeated in 2004 and included final-year students from the School of Communication, Information and New Media who recorded the sessions. The resulting edited videotapes and website have been used as teaching resources for UniSA Arts courses in Australia, Singapore and Papua New Guinea.
“There were some magic moments and so many wonderful interactions between the young children and the performers,” Prof Schiller said. “Plus it was a great experience for our early childhood students. Many of them said they were not particularly interested in the arts before, but they could now see huge potential for using the arts in early childhood education.”
The students, who were all in their final year, collated their observations, identified significant themes, and reported to Windmill as part of an assignment for assessment. Using this information, Windmill went on to workshop ideas at Halifax St Childcare Centre in November 2004, before finalising the concept for a performance of Where is The Green Sheep?
The show opened at Adelaide’s Come Out Festival earlier this year, and
finished a second sell-out season last month.
Fowler said she was indebted to the work of the UniSA students and staff,
which had helped the company to develop a wonderful show.
“The children are totally fascinated and we have had fantastic feedback from parents,” Fowler said.