Dogs and Boats and Airplanes

Dogs and Boats and Airplanes was a collaborative work for new theatre, devised by Bill Burns, Krys Verrall, myself and 100 primary school aged children from Scotch College, Mowbray Heights Primary School, St Leonards Primary School and Ravenswood Primary School. The children attended workshops 1-2 times a week for approximately 8 weeks. In these workshops we encouraged the children to tell stories about their own personal experiences with dogs, boats and airplanes. These conversations were recorded and became the basis for the final script. We also workshopped the myriad noises/sounds associated with these three concepts, developing an enormous palette for the children to choose from. The stories were then recounted live at the performance, with the choir building soundscapes that were half devised half improvised, using the palettes we had been exploring.