Directed by Michael and Marjorie Forde, a solo show performed 1998 – 1999.
Playpen was commissioned by The Out of The Box Festival, directed by Michael and Marjorie Forde and produced by Performing Lines. It toured to Sydney, Adelaide, and Toronto.
Description:
“Playpen” is a performance for 3 – 8-year-olds and families. In this show, Linsey is an 18-month-old baby in a giant Playpen. During the show, we enter the imaginary and magical musical world of “The Baby”. This musical world exists entirely within the confines of the Playpen. It is a world where everything has a musical possibility. Inflatable toys become bagpipes, dummies become reed instruments, baby bottles become panpipes, rattles become maracas and even the bars of the playpen are triggered to create digital sounds.
The show is a mix of music from found objects and high-tech digital technology. Using digital sampling technology the audience is able to see and hear the music being constructed layer by layer. In this way, the process of making music is demystified (the composition of the music is experienced as well as the performance). The use of digital technology acknowledges that this is now a part and parcel of our lives, but this is b
“Playpen” is also about creativity within imposed limits (the playpen). You can often use limits to provide a lateral diving platform for ideas, and so use those limits to spark new ways of doing things. But limits can also often be self-imposed and stifle creativity. This show is very much about the first of these possibilities “creativity within limits”.
So “Playpen” is about: Music, Imagination and magic, Creativity and limits.
Primarily the show is ultimately a musical work. It is about the Joy and Wonder of making music. It is designed to inspire and encourage children’s innate musical curiosity and experimentation and most of all to be FUN!!
