23 February 2017

By Katy Addis: 

 Haasts Bluff School lies in the Western Desert, 250km west of Alice Springs along a rocky road that is sometimes impassable. There’s a dustbowl for an oval, where barefooted children bravely kick around plastic footballs. English lurks far down the list of spoken languages and the cultural landscape is as remote from Melbourne as Timbuktu.

This was the scene of our first show during our Australian tour and, although it was only a one hour show, we had spent a year preparing for it. Our challenge - how to best adapt our show for remote indigenous communities.

After a lot of research we landed on a formula. A musical journey that was low in dialogue and high in visual content, especially slapstick comedy.  For the first ten minutes, we barely spoke a word. It was all music, dancing, simple costumes, drama and visual humour. Dialogue was then introduced but was always underpinned by story acting, props and costumes that helped visualise the information. Although students may not have understood all the spoken words, they could still absorb the information through their other senses.

 Student participation was graded from very simple tasks to more complicated ones, to ensure that they gathered confidence as the show progressed. Although students may not understand all the spoken words, they could still absorb the information through their other senses.

How did it go? It worked a treat. When we returned to our city concerts, we pondered that what worked in remote communities might just appeal to city kids too. So we tried it out and our hypothesis was correct. City students loved the approach just as much. Thanks to the Haasts Bluff students for educating us as much as we educated them!

This is how Haasts Bluff School graded us:

10/10 – A very high quality performance which was enjoyed immensely by an audience aged from 5 to 94. Almost all were indigenous children. Participation was excellent. Very visual performance with great but simple costumes.

Post show work out for Bernie at Haasts Bluff

(Brass Bedlam offer 3 shows to Victorian schools only, this year, variously for students from Prep - Yr 9. Details here.)