Community

Children’s Activities

Race Against Time!

A fun, obstacle course game with a sustainability theme.

• Run up the mountain!
• Hook out a piece of rubbish from the billabong.
• Put it in the recycling bin.
• Crawl through the wombat tunnel.
• Fetch some water from the rainwater tank and water the veggie patch!
• Run past the plum tree and pick up some fallen fruit.
• Give it to the chook in the chook house!
• Creep quietly past the sleeping crocodile….
• Rescue a frog or platypus from the housing development.
• Carry it carefully back to the billabong.
• Run back down the mountain!

Race Against Time promotes sustainability throughout the game: being water wise, recycling waste products, growing own food and caring for the environment and native wildlife.

Ghostship

Meet Mollie and Nancy, 2 shipwrecked sailors from long ago. They need your help to dig up the fragments of their ship buried under the sand. If we can rebuild it together, we may be able to leave the island that’s kept us captive for so long and sail out on the ocean once more.

Commissioned by Merringong Theatre Company, Ghostship is a lively interactive performance and fun activity where children are invited to help two delirious and desperate shipwrecked sailors find their sea legs and their way home.

A dedicated performance area required.

Most suitable for ages: 5 to 12.

Build a Monster

…or a fish, or a puppet, or whatever takes your fancy! Using bamboo and cane as our basic materials, we will build a big group sculpture with you in one day. We can take it on parade or leave it on display. What would you like to build a monster of?

Community Engagement

Your stories, your place, your history can be developed into an exhibition, an artwork, a unique event or an outdoor performance incorporating costume, choreography and a myriad of story telling techniques. Janine and Catherine have worked with communities in this way for many years.

Contact us with your ideas and see some examples of past projects below.

Southside

Catherine and Janine, (while members of Circus Solarus), collaborated with artists from Coomaditchie United Aboriginal Corporation to devise and produce site specific performances involving professional and community performers. Spirit of the Lagoon and Nest attracted hundreds of locals to Coomaditchie lagoon to enjoy an evening’s entertainment incorporating storytelling, puppets, live music, dance and fire.

Wodonga

Janine conducted a community engagement project with school students, disability support groups and aged care residents in costume making and design for Wodonga’s Carnivale Stomp street parade. While also mentoring a local emerging artist, Janine and the participants created strikingly colourful parade costumes using recycled materials.

Fashion of The Future, Singapore

Catherine created a soundtrack and directed a mock fashion show for ‘3 tribes’ of drama students in Singapore: Paper, Plastic and Metal. Janine and members of Circus Solarus created costumes to match, while also performing in the Flipside Festival production.

Get Connected

We devised and presented a series of wacky quiz shows as part of a community services expo for public housing tenants in the Illawarra region of NSW. Bad jokes, lots of prizes and a free lunch ensured a good turnout as services such as Centrelink and the Illawarra Legal Service engaged with clients in a fun and informal atmosphere.

Dareton River Snake

We ran workshops in stilt walking, junk percussion and parade design with young people from Dareton, NSW, before creating two giant snake puppets with local artists from Coomealla Aboriginal Corporation. The snakes, representing the Murray and Darling rivers that meet nearby, were paraded down the main street and towards the health centre, where music, dancing and a barbeque capped off the week.

Are U Serious?

A youth drama project focussing on real and imagined Australian inventions led to some quirky performances on the streets of Kiama, NSW. Industrial off cuts were transformed into wigs, cloaks and gadgets by this creative group of students.

Steam train

Celebrating the 150th birthday of the Malmsbury Viaduct, students from Malmsbury Primary School participated in the making of a cardboard steam train. Complete with buffet car and first class carriages, the students, staff and parents boarded the train at the school gates and rode it through town to the viaduct, where the Kyneton Municipal Band played songs of celebration.

Katoomba Amusement Company

A community cultural development residency with Wintermagic festival led to the design and construction of a mobile Edwardian-era Healing Machine. Local participants made costumes, props and performed a street theatre scenario, with characters based on the entertainers from the original Katoomba Amusements Company of the early 1900’s.

Workshops and training

We offer skills training for young people and communities in:

• Drama
• Stilt walking
• Costume design and construction
• Street theatre skills
• Festival imagery
• Creating stories for performance with communities
• Community cultural development in action

Ideal for school holiday programmes, regional residencies and professional development workshops.