DreamBIG Children’s Festival 2023 – Our World.
DreamBig Children’s Festival is returning bigger and brighter than ever in 2023, inspiring kids to explore ‘Our World’ through music, dance, storytelling, puppetry, interactive play, the famous silent disco, and quirky luminescent creatures. DreamBIG 2023 will also feature the BIGGEST BIG Family Weekend yet to celebrate Adelaide Festival Centre’s 50th year.
DreamBIG 2023, the world’s longest-running children’s festival, will return to Adelaide Festival Centre from 17-27 May 2023. The family program focuses on the theme ‘Our World,’ and features more than 50 shows, activities, and exhibitions for audiences from babies to teenagers across 10 days.
Audiences can expect giant life-like dinosaurs, interactive light installations, thought-provoking theatre and more from the family program which includes eight world premieres, one Australian premiere and seven Adelaide premieres.
DreamBIG Opening Event
The DreamBIG Opening Event at Adelaide Festival Centre’s Festival Theatre on 17 May 2023 will feature 1200 students from 15 schools converging on Adelaide Festival Centre to sing “My Island Home.” In a DreamBIG first, the event will be live-streamed into classrooms around the state and the choir will be led in a mass dance event by youth dance ensemble, Dusty Feet Mob.
BIG Family Weekend
To celebrate Adelaide Festival Centre’s 50th year the 2023 festival will feature The BIGGEST BIG Family Weekend yet from 20-21 May 2023 across Adelaide Festival Centre and Festival Plaza, including free events for children of all ages, performances, exhibitions, workshops, installations, markets, food trucks by Fork in the Road, and the Big Family Weekend Gala – a variety hour celebrating some of SA’s best young performers.
READ MORE ABOUT THE BIG FAMILY WEEKEND HERE
Possum Magic
Two of Mem Fox’s classic Australian stories will come to life on stage with Monkey Baa’s award-winning adaptation of Possum Magic featuring live action, magic, puppetry and animation.
Saturday 27 May 2023 | 10.30am | Ages 3 to 8
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Photo credit: Atmosphere Photography
Erth’s Prehistoric World
See the prehistoric creatures of your imagination come to life on stage with this enchanting show from world-renowned Erth Visual and Physical.
Take an enchanting journey to the bottom of the ocean to discover ancient bio-luminescent creatures and marine reptiles, then back to dry land to witness the breathtaking dinosaurs that once ruled this earth.
For 30 years, Erth has been as an innovator of physical and visual theatre, and a creator of brave, unbridled work for children. It is internationally renowned for theatrical magic and for pushing the limits of design, content, and experience.
Erth’s Prehistoric World is a fusion of the highly successful Dinosaur Zoo and Prehistoric Aquarium. See the creatures of your imagination come to life on stage in this enthralling new show.
Saturday 20 & Sunday 21 May 2023 | 10.30am & 1pm | Ages 5 to 12
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Claire Della and the Moon
A tender and beautiful production with puppetry, music, striking visuals and poetic storytelling. Join Claire and space dog Laika in the perfect show for these trying times. Using puppetry, music and poetic storytelling, Claire Della and the Moon offers young audiences a metaphoric vocabulary to positively manage their own mental health.
Saturday 20 May 2023 | 2pm & 5pm | Ages 9 +
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge
There was once a small boy called Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and his house was next door to an old people’s home.
He knew all the people who lived there, but his favourite person of all was Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper. When Wilfrid finds out that Nancy has lost her memory, he sets out to find out what a memory is…
This delightful production, based on the poignant picture book by Mem Fox and Julie Vivas, adapted and directed by Sandra Eldridge, will weave together captivating storytelling with mesmerising music in an immersive and intimate performance. Featuring a new score by award-winning composer Paul Stanhope performed by a string quartet from the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge is the perfect introduction to live classical music, guaranteed to enchant audiences both young and old.
Saturday 20 & Sunday 21 May 2023 | 10.45 am & 12.15pm | Ages 3 to 8
BOOK TICKETS HERE
The Thing That Matters – a dance performance for 0 – 3 year olds presented to live music, and A Song For Your Child, where families can create a lullaby for their child that will last a lifetime.
Here and There – brings together six stories, from six different and diverse artists via an extraordinary performance that is live streamed between Australia, Malaysia, India, and Singapore.
ARCO – A unique collaboration between two neurodiverse men and WA Theatre Company, award-winning ARCO is a heartfelt show about living with autism, and the struggles of a young man trying to make connections with the world around him.
Guthrak – Older children can look forward to Guthrak, a unique interactive theatrical experience inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, as well as Ruby Award-winning theatre company AJZ productions’ I AM, an immersive theatre experience that explores the ultimate question – “What is my one true purpose?”
Photo credit: Patchworked by Sam Robert
Fluffy is interactive wonderland of 200kg of swirling, fluttering recycled paper that is part narrative, part make-your-own adventure!
Found Objects – Five exceptional dance and physical theatre artists present an epic outdoor dance theatre work using everyday objects.
Wild Dog – Six Dog Night – An immersive and interactive workshop led by senior Kaurna Elders sharing stories about one of Australia’s most misunderstood cultural symbols – the dingo.
Write Now Festival 0 A new one day event for aspiring writers in secondary school, giving young people the chance to discover career pathways as a working writer.
Sea of Light – children paint their way across the high-seas wonderland with a magical UV torch and see their art light up with every brushstroke in this immersive installation by South Australia’s Patch Theatre.
Sea of Light – Clare Crawley
Sea of Light – Clare Crawley
We Come From Far Far Away – award winning storytelling from Norway that takes place in a Yurt sharing a gripping story of refugee boys escaping from their country to another.
Follow the DreamBIG Children’s Festival Facebook page for updates.
ABOUT DreamBIG Children’s Festival
Formerly known as Come Out Festival which began in 1974, DreamBIG has two programs – one for schools and another for families/general public. It is held every two years and is proudly presented by Adelaide Festival Centre.
Adelaide Festival Centre CEO & Artistic Director Douglas Gautier AM:
“We welcome children and their families to Our World, a place of celebration, joy, and wonder.
“The world’s first children’s festival has been delighting young South Australians for generations and we can’t wait to celebrate Adelaide Festival Centre’s 50th Anniversary with our youngest audiences over a fun-filled 10 days.”
DreamBIG’s Co-Creative Producers Susannah Sweeney and Georgi Paech:
“We hope that participating in DreamBIG will encourage young people to become creative, compassionate, and thoughtful citizens by inspiring them to look at and learn from the world around them – from the prehistoric to the future, from Afghanistan to Ireland, from the natural world to the imagined.”
International shows include North Ireland’s Removed, a funny, moving, and critically acclaimed story of a young man’s experiences in a state authority system, and Norway’s We Come from Far, Far Away, an epic story of people, places, survival and friendship, following two boys from Aleppo.
For more information and all enquiries please visit the DreamBIG website.
What: DreamBIG 2023 –‘Our World’
When: 17 – 27 May 2023
Where: Adelaide Festival Centre
Who: All Ages
At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.
Image Source: supplied
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