The TYA and Youth Arts community in Australia is still vulnerable to recurring lockdowns,  reminding us all of the precarious state of play not only here but in the rest of the world.   We’re lucky in so many ways, with much of the country able to continue without restrictions.

Whenever we see works in this time, there is a wonderful energy with audiences overjoyed to be back in front of art. The invention and persistence from artists has meant exciting new projects and new practitioners to welcome into the sector. 

The international performing arts market APAM was hosted at the DreamBIG festival this year, shining a welcome spotlight on performance work created for with and by children and young people.  https://www.dreambigfestival.com.au/

We welcome new members and returned members of the National ASSITEJ Advisory Group, made up of artists and organisations around the country, to work on activity and advocacy for the sector. The NAAG for 2021/2022 will be announced very soon and serves a vital purpose in connecting our members. TNA worked with film maker Amelia Ducker and 55 artists and companies around Australia to create a 15 minute video that illustrated the performance work made for and with children and young people. It was shared at the World Congress and is now available to our members. We thank the Australian Council for the Arts for the funding for this project. You can see the film here: https://www.tna.org.au/what-we-do/assitej-australia/assitej-video/

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We have realised again the value of our international friends and presenting partners, needing to re-invent with remote collaborations, ways of engaging children at a distance, performance that can happen in lounge rooms and neighbourhood streets, audio works, interactive drawings and other inspiring offerings. Connection and support across distance can be one of the gifts of the virus that we take on into the future. 

Actions and Collaborations

Our ASSITEJ Advisory group has begun for 2021 and we’re talking about the contexts of work in different regions of the country, the challenges they and their peers are facing and ongoing discussions about touring within Australia and beyond. We look forward to what we hope will be a national gathering in Adelaide in May. 

A new video presentation of ASSITEJ Australia members and the work we create across many forms is being created to share at the World Congress in March 2021. It is a collaboration between artist Amelia Ducker and many companies and independent artists across Australia. We can’t wait to share this with everyone in March.

The hyper-local focus across Australia is resulting in more awareness of home-grown talent and the role that festivals can play in supporting proper development and the creation of new work.  Perth Festival is a shining light with three Theatre for Young Audiences and Youth Arts companies performing and advisory and inclusive mechanisms in place. https://www.perthfestival.com.au/connect/for-young-people/youth-advisory-council/

Our practitioners in Australia continue to be involved in coffee sessions, on IPAY Kindling panels and showcases, showcasing innovative online forms and performing remotely across the world.

Connection, empathy and support are still the most important factors in our ASSITEJ community and with strength and courage we send hope across the seas to you all.

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It has been a year of innovation and possibility along with devastating impact for Theatre for Young Audiences and Youth Arts – on freelance artists in particular, on arts in education, on tertiary pathways for young professionals in the arts. Along with immediate health risks and impacts on lives, families and communities, there is also a real impact on the health and growth of our sector. The children and young people we work with and for will continue to be impacted for years to come. We need to be prepared.

We have questioned more during this time – the systems we work in, the relationships we have with presenters, with ‘the market’, with society. We’ve examined inequality and the place of the freelance artist in the wider arts sector, and the artist in wider society. Our sector has been focusing on how to reach our audiences and also asking who our audiences are? How do we relate to children and families in these times? Where do we see the gaps?

Webinars, international conversations, roundtables, online showcases, online or hybrid festivals continue, an attempt at keeping artists practising and audiences engaged. The online and hybrid approach marks a change for audiences and for our reach generally, enabling greater access for some and making the gaps even more visible for others, including artists who may not be well paid for online work.

In Australia, we prepare to change, adapt and reshape as it seems likely that most international travel will not be possible for at least the next six months. We are changing the way we create and present work in the short term, and note it may have a long-term impact on the shape of our work.  Many festivals and venues are looking locally which is potentially good news for Australian artists.

We continue to take actions for even more difficult times ahead within the ASSITEJ sector and within society.

Theatre Network Australia  – ASSITEJ made a comprehensive submission to the Federal Government Arts Inquiry, focusing on the positive impact the Arts has on health, mental health, well-being, education and social and personal resilience for young people. You can read the full submission here.

Through our lobbying efforts and advocacy, including sharing the ASSITEJ Manifesto, we are calling for support to be given to the access to arts for all young people and pathways for young people to expression, from early years through to adulthood, in order to provide a scaffold for creativity and imagination in our future. Read it here if you haven’t read it in full!

Unfortunately, Australian delegates will not be attending the World Congress 2021 in Tokyo due to restrictions currently in place. In response, ASSITEJ Australia is creating a nation-wide sector video to share with our international community instead. This will be the first time we have celebrated the breadth of work and approaches in Australia to share with our peers and colleagues across the globe. Australian work is known to widely tour the world, and constitutes a large percentage of our cultural export, however, much of the innovative and experimental work that is created is rarely seen. This video will be a document of our collegiate and connected Theatre for Young Audiences and Youth Arts community. We can’t wait to share it with you in 2021.

Along with preparations in advocacy, collectivism and projects now, more than ever, we all need something to look forward to as well. In May 2021, the international children’s festival in Adelaide, DreamBig, will work with Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) to focus on Theatre for Young Audiences and Youth Arts internationally.  There will be an ASSITEJ gathering at this festival.

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The excellent team at Diversity Arts Australia have compiled the Creative Equity Toolkit. Companies, artists and citizens alike can rely on them to be incisive, direct and infinitely helpful in addressing systemic racism, cultural consultations, policies and evaluation and monitoring.

We are excited to share this and hope it helps us all move in the right direction away from exclusion, division and unfairness within our artmaking with for and by young people.

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What an extraordinary time for us all. In Australia, we find ourselves divided in many ways: some obvious and new with the pandemic – others like racism too familiar and very deeply ingrained across the whole of our society.

In the midst of this pandemic we find lines drawn harshly between states and territories as different jurisdictions respond. Many new cases have presented across Melbourne in Victoria and we are now re-entering six weeks of restricted movements when we’re only permitted to leave the house for essential reasons. However, across the rest of Australia, many have begun to go back out into suburbs, towns and cities. Some of us are occupied with how to stay safe at home, and simultaneously there are many who are considering safety of re-opening theatres and re-starting activities. 

There is upheaval and change everywhere we look. We hold hope, along with many that we can learn and act in a difficult time to ensure a fairer future for all generations of people across Australia.

We are working through this moment in time to make a case to increase investment and commitment to the vital sector of performance for young audiences and youth arts – necessary for the recovery, resilience and imaginative future for young people in Australia. 

International panels and interconnectedness across the seas

Over the past few months Sue Giles, Australian member of the Executive Committee of ASSITEJ International, has sat on multiple virtual panels, discussing the impacts of the pandemic, virtual presentation and online engagement. I-Entertainment (India) and The Little Art (Pakistan) ran a three-day forum, including speakers from around the world. Catch up here. https://www.facebook.com/assitej.pakistan/videos/387047148901045/

TYA USA ran a webinar on virtual presentation and engagement with Australian artists Gemma Pepper, Luke Kerridge, Sue Giles and Andy Packer, which you can watch here. https://www.gotostage.com/channel/d7e5d8df02ac46eda7cd96a2466e9d8b/recording/6af4bf062ed24e6c88862e1090570c11/watch?source=CHANNEL

Sue attended a forum created by Kirtana Kumar titled Because the World is YOU with speakers as follows:

• Lakshmi K (Hasiru Dala, Bangalore) – Creating online theatre pedagogies to serve the under-served
• Shaili Sathyu (Gillo repertory, Mumbai) – 4 silos of children’s theatre in India
• Julia Dina Hesse (Uni of Weisbaden) – Sustainability and children’s theatre
• Kenjiro Otani (ASSITEJ, International) – Space, Time and Ideas
• Ramanjit Kaur (Creative Arts, Kolkata) – Rethinking Theatre Exercises for the digital space

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/xO9uNbLt3DxIR9bO5GDnfKFmLpnvX6a8hnUY-PUJnk0v9X8yi8pSJv-gT7g9C8et
Password: 3M!a3*J@ 

And finally, Sue spoke to Ellie Griffiths during the on-line version of Edinburgh International Children’s Festival. Watch it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meqUSAN-U40
First ASSITEJ Advisory Pool Announced

We are delighted that we have assembled a fabulous group of people from across Australia for the first ASSITEJ Advisory Group. This group will assist our National Centre (Theatre Network Australia), and Sue Giles, to understand better what’s happening across the vast country in Theatre for Young Audiences and Youth Arts.

There are representatives from seven states and territories, companies, festivals and independents from both Theatre for Young Audiences and Youth Arts. We look forward to the intelligence, advocacy and connectivity that will come from establishing this Advisory Group. We have no doubt their input will strengthen the sector for us all within Australia and represent us better internationally.

ASSITEJ International “Regional Coffee Sessions”  

Our regional coffee sessions were an incredible chance to listen to our members, to meet people for the first time and to engage with artists’ real needs and concerns. We look to this regional conversation as a way to build the possibility for stronger collaborative projects within Australia and across our region.

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Artists are starting robust conversations about their readiness to create works to shape our future community and society’s relationship to culture and the arts. The ‘liveness’ of performance will be an essential contribution to the reconstruction of social patterns and cultural cohesion. While many artists and companies are making and streaming works in different ways online (can’t hold back that creative spirit), this feels to most like a placeholder, not a new platform for artistic expression. New strategies are needed to make performance and experiences for children and young people possible in this very different and constantly evolving landscape. Artists must be supported so they can survive this time with the ability to remain creative and connected. Meanwhile, we still celebrate creativity and possibility, in every offer. 

We know we are going to be there when the crisis is over. We will make works that not only bring our audiences and participants back to hope and fun and meaning, but works that acknowledge and illuminate the differences that will inevitably be part of a new world. We are equipped for change and uncertainty; already our reflections, concepts and our sense of the future, have shifted and morphed because of what we are going through.   

Areas of positive actions and initiatives that can inspire colleagues in other countries. 

• CRISIS CASH FOR ARTISTS FUND 1000 x 1000: CALLING FOR CHAMPION COMPANIES!
  A consortium of companies in the performing arts sector, led by Theatre Network Australia in partnership with Creative Partnerships Australia, are currently working on a fundraising campaign to provide equity bursaries to independent artists who have been adversely affected by COVID-19 and who do not have a financial safety net. Become a Champion Company or Donate Now if you are in a position to do so. Also, feel free to let artists in need know to request support here. 
• SOLIDARITY ACROSS THE THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES AND YOUTH ARTS SECTOR
  The sector has banded together after the news of the Australia Council’s Four-Year Funding Outcomes. The announcement that only 95 companies would be funded, and 49 offered transitional year-long funding has been difficult for many. The TYA and YA sector is particularly hurt as only one new company, Western Edge Youth Arts, has been funded and yet Polyglot Theatre, Shopfront Youth Arts, Australian Theatre for Young People, St Martins Youth Arts Centre and Barking Gecko have been defunded. Stay tuned for ways to keep connected to the sector and advocate for better outcomes as we move through these tough times.
• YOUTH ARTS ZOOM
  In March there was a gathering of over 40 organisations and programmes that work with children and young people around Australia, resulting in the development of a survey to collect data around the impact of COVID-19 on our work and our young people.

New and creative ways of connecting to young audiences during this time. 

• A beautiful collection of activities for kids collated on Facebook by Claudia Chidiac which truly celebrates Australian art and artists:  Homebound: Art Acts and Acts of Art for Kids and their Grown-Ups
• Some educational activities for the home with Patch Theatre Company.  
• Ignite Your Imagination with the Arts Centre Melbourne with their resources and top picks for kids and families.
• Mooghalin are hosting artists weekly in their Moogah-live platform check it out here with all the family.
• Windmill at Home will keep you up to date with Grug’s latest adventures, workouts and give you a virtual (animated) tour of the set of Girl Asleep. 
• Contribute to a global digital scrapbook with kids with Barking Gecko Theatre and ThinkArts on their project Isolate> Create> Connect.
• Stay connected and keep recycling with home-bound joy thanks to Polyglot Theatre at home.
• Laughter is the best medicine on The Listies Work For Peanuts on ABC iView and their LOLtastic tour of the Melbourne Museum.
• Teachers and students can access ATYP shows On Demand! Find shows for young audiences and 14+ here.

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“ThinkArts, Kolkata has been working on creating engagements for children that bring out their creativity during these uncertain times. We’ve recently wrapped up a project and are set to launch another soon, in collaboration with Barking Gecko Theatre, Australia!

Get Creative started on March 19, 2020, as an initiative to encourage children to keep up their artistic spirits amidst the coronavirus lockdown and encourage children to spend some time away from the screen. Every morning, three prompts were uploaded on the website, one for each age group (6 to 9, 9 to 12, and 12+). These prompts were lines from children’s books or notable artworks, all taken from the collection in The ThinkArts Corner. Children then created their own artwork or wrote a piece in response. Get Creative received nearly 300 responses over the course of the month, all of which were uploaded on the ThinkArts Instagram and Facebook pages.

Responses came in from across the country, from Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai, and Bangalore. It was received positively by the children as well as their parents. Prakhar was one of the regulars in Get Creative, and his mum, Smriti, sent a lovely message one day, saying, “I am so enjoying looking at the topics every day with my son! Makes me spend quality time with him! Thank you team THINKARTS!”

Get Creative wrapped up successfully and its month-long run ended with a special treat. The prompt for April 19 could be chosen by the children themselves. There were more than 20 entries with prompts from a variety of sources – from Satyajit Ray’s Sonar Kella to J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter. It was a fitting end to Get Creative as an attempt to keep children engaged creatively during these dire times and help fill their lives with a little colour.”

The Get Creative Facebook album: https://www.facebook.com/thinkartskolkata/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2619533298293028

 //

“Barking Gecko Theatre, Australia in collaboration with ThinkArts in India has created a new digital initiative Isolate > Create > Connectto highlight the similarities and differences that children are experiencing right now across the globe. This will become a lasting record of how life in isolation during COVID-19 was experienced by young people.

Through a weekly video delivered by teaching artists from BGT and ThinkArts online, children aged 5 to 17 are set a creative task inviting them to create a small artwork capturing their perspective on the world right now. Once their creation is complete and uploaded, a digital scrapbook of children’s creative responses will be created to reflect this unprecedented time in history.

At a time where children don’t have access to the connection we crave, this project is designed to keep children connected to their creativity and encourage them to find expression through whatever tools they have at their disposal in their homes.

The 10-week program starts on Wednesday 29 April and children are welcome to join in at any time until its conclusion in the last week of June.”

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‘But Kate, why make something about the future? The coral’s dying, the trees are dying, the animals are dying and we are going to die very shortly. End of story!’ Marco, aged 10. 

In my 35 years of making theatre work with children, I’ve been buoyed up by their enthusiasm, their openness and their optimism. We have often made works about their imagined futures. The worlds they create are weird and wonderful, full of possibility and hope. But in the last five years, I’ve noticed a marked dystopic timbre to not only the content of these artworks, but in the children’s dispositions. They’re worried about the future. 

They know about climate change and they know the adults around them are also anxious about it. They hear about (and sometimes experience first-hand) increased bushfires and floods and they are, very understandably, scared. And the older kids are frustrated and angry with governments who seem to be denying it and/or doing nothing about it. It’s been inspiring to witness young people taking matters into their own hands, namely the Strike4Climate marches, initiated by two Year 9 students here in Victoria. There’s a swell of positivity – these young people are feeling like they are being seen, heard and most importantly listened to by many adults. Unfortunately though the adults in power are making it clear they are not listening, protesting instead that children shouldn’t be activists and need to be in school rather than the streets. So the positivity and hope for a better future is in danger of being quelled. 

How do we keep the hope and optimism alive? How do we ensure that young people’s voices are being heard and valued, in their classrooms and in their communities? 

A number of teachers I have worked with have voiced a fear of discussing the realities of the future with their students. This is understandable, particularly with younger children; there are issues of mental health at stake. Renowned educator and environmentalist, David Sobel recommends ‘no tragedies before Grade 4’ (Sobel 1996), and I’m with him there. But for Year 5/6s, they are more developmentally ready to cope with some challenging realities. And very savvy themselves… they can tell if we’re skirting around an issue. It’s much better to acknowledge that global warming is certainly happening and we are at a precarious place in the history of Planet Earth. 

Bronwyn Hayward, a leading thinker in the field in the area of children and ecological citizenship gives us a rather daunting list of skills and qualities that young people will need to create a sustainable future: critical thinking skills, the ability to reason, reflect and communicate clearly; resources to enable mobilization across time and place, and restraint to live within material limits, as well as the virtues of empathy and tolerance, co-operation and moral reasoning, determination and courage. (Hayward 2012) 

This is where art making, specifically theatre, is very helpful –  many of these skills and qualities are developed through the highly collaborative act of making theatre.

Many things are unknown – we have to accommodate this sometimes very uncomfortable feeling of not knowing and maintain our openness and flexibility. These states of being: openness to change, uncertainty and resilience, are central to drama games, central to the creation of theatre, central to life itself. Through the process of exploring character and different viewpoints, drama develops empathy and critical awareness. And we as teachers need to be modelling openness and flexibility: by really listening, by acting on the kids’ suggestions, by doing what we say we will do and by having a genuine creative conversation. All the time aiming not to survive, but to thrive.

In instigating and investigating the authentic collaboration involved in creating theatre together, artists and teachers are modelling what the future can be. In walking the talk and making big changes in our own environmental and civic behaviour, young people can see that we are committed in our own actions as well. Child psychologists Gill Valentine and Roger Hart suggest strongly that children deal much more effectively with difficult and sometimes sad issues concerning the environment when supported by adults and older peers (Valentine 2004; Hart 1997). And having these highly engaging creative opportunities in schools ensures that young people have the avenues to speak their truth – the content may be confronting and difficult for teachers and parents, but the kids’ passion and determination are truly inspiring. 

Exploring local actions, and making changes for sustainability at that level, works really well with kids. Looking at changing waste disposal at the school, having edible gardens and extending out to work with partners and community to look after waterways and parks that are close to the school are also excellent projects that give the kids a sense that adults also want to instigate change. Schools that engage with their local communities become much more profound sites of learning, exploring and developing the connection of community to democracy. And involving art making as a tool of inquiry and expression of understanding and change within these local actions works a treat! 

Having the possibility of making local changes gives all of us hope. Thinking globally and acting locally still rings true. 

In a recent project in Melbourne’s north, I worked with a team of artists, school students and local council over a number of weeks to imagine the best possible use for some local unused land. The children were deeply engaged in the task and collaborated in a way I have never experienced before. They had brilliant, highly pro-environmental ideas for the space, and presented these creative, practical and achievable plans as a participatory arts event with the local community. Local council, which viewed this kid-led process as an authentic consultancy, is (as I write) putting the ideas into hard landscaping in the space. The part of the event that was the most popular with the kids and adults was the theatrical enactment of animal culture in this little pocket of suburbia. This drama was deeply affecting and witty at the same time; comments from audience members afterwards focused on the kids’ passion for the animals’ wellbeing and the clarity of their message. 

For me, their engagement, passion and courage was uplifting. It fuels me to continue to find ways to listen to and support their brilliant ideas. All power to them. The future is theirs.

References and further reading

• Valentine G 2004, Public Space and the culture of childhood, Aldershot , Ashgate, p 105
• Hart R 1997, Children’s participation : The theory and practice of involving young citizens in community development and environment care , London, Earthscan, p 65
• Hayward, B 2012, Children, citizenship and environment : nurturing a democratic imagination in a changing world, London : Routledge, 2012.
• Sobel D 1996, Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education, Orion, Barrington MA

Biography

Kate Kantor has worked for over thirty years as a director, teacher, maker and actor in performance, film and installation work, both nationally and internationally. Her practice is strongly collaborative, and is situated in a wide variety of contexts and communities. Kate has a keen interest in young people’s agency around social and environmental issues. She has a Diploma of Education and Master’s degree in Arts Education and has worked for many years as a lecturer in performance and arts education at Victoria University. Much of Kate’s work has been around children and their relationship to the natural world, particularly through her role as the Artistic Director of The Return of the Kingfisher Festival at CERES for many years, and more recently as Director of Kids’ Collaborations at Polyglot Theatre. Kate is now doing a PhD at University of Melbourne focused on young people’s hopeful, creative and contributive strategies around environmental issues.

Connect with Kate on LinkedIn

Published 6 February 2020

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In October 2017 over 100 delegates in Youth Arts and TYA met in Adelaide to discuss the ‘future proofing’ of our sector. What is it that gives us value and how do we articulate this for our on-going strength? Report here: http://carclew.com.au/Program/national-youth-arts-summit

Quarterly newsletter for the sector – TYA and Youth Arts

In November 2017 Helen Hristofski from Barking Gecko and Fraser Corfield from ATYP collated information from across the Youth Arts and TYA sector to provide a What’s On to all members. http://www.tna.org.au/category/ypaa/

Australian Theatre Forum and TYA

The ATF is a national gathering of theatre practitioners, presenters, artists and funding bodies. It was held in Adelaide in October 2017.  TYA sector was present throughout the planning and in conversations and reporting throughout the three days of discussion and keynotes.  http://www.tna.org.au/atf-2017/

Australia Council research on young people and the Arts summary: http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/workspace/uploads/files/youth-arts-research-5791aa72793a6.pdf

Australian TYA Festival dates:

Awesome Arts – Perth: every year in October.  http://www.awesomearts.com/awesome-festival/

DreamBig Festival – Adelaide: every two years in May. http://www.dreambigfestival.com.au/about/

Out of the Box Festival for early years – Brisbane: every two years in June. https://www.outoftheboxfestival.com.au/ 

http://www.tna.org.au/about/ypaa-and-assitej-australia/

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From October 15 2015 we have become an online resource, with our communications hosted through peak body Theatre Network Victoria as part of their Australia –wide newsletter.

We are changing our current model of paid membership, to a free membership of interested people – an alliance of those passionate about the arts for, with and by young people in Australia and beyond with  no membership fees attached to this alliance.

We will maintain the YPAA website as a resource and historical archive, updating with articles on the home page when possible and maintaining the Facebook page with links to each on the TNV website.  We will focus on news that affects our sector and, through our connection with TNV, connect in real terms with the bigger picture of the arts in Australia.

ASSITEJ is the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People and YPAA has been the Australian centre of ASSITEJ for 40 years. The opportunities through this international association are many, with over 90 countries as members, bringing people together around performance in a huge array of projects and artforms; information about festivals around the world; up to date trends in theatre; global movements;  and policies and advocacy at the core.  It is vital that we remain part of this international association as Australia’s voice has been an essential part of the ASSITEJ history and has a lot to offer in the current climate.  http://www.assitej-international.org

We have opened the YPAA doors to all practitioners passionate about TYA.  The more people we have in this alliance, the stronger the collective voice is able to be, so we encourage you to be part of YPAA in this way.

Because we have wound down the existing incorporated association, there will no longer be a Board of YPAA.  The only official position after this shift will be the international representative position of ASSITEJ Executive Committee member, currently held by Sue Giles.

We hope that YPAA can become a broader, diverse, inclusive and multi-voiced place for people to seek information and connection. We hope that the networks and connections that have formed during the Free the Arts campaign and before remain strong.  We hope that this change will serve our sector in the best way with the possibility of greater capacity in the future.

Other news: report from Alex Desebrock from the ASSITEJ Germany International Directors Seminar

https://misstipsyteacup.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/notes-on-assitej-directors-seminar-sharing-reflection/

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