Photo by Rebecca Rushbrook
Sidestep Kids Festival is a wonderful, free festival for kids and families on this weekend at Banner Park in Brunswick Heads. The Echo jumped around with festival director Valley Lipcer to find out more…
What is your vision for Sidestep Kids Festival?
My vision is to transform Banner Park into a wildly colourful creative playground for a weekend, where kids feel totally empowered and inspired to lead their adults in fun making.
A welcoming, inclusive and free space for our community to meet new friends and play in art.
What do you think makes a good performance for kids?
I think good performance for kids should be intelligent and aim to inspire and empower kids as well as entertain them. Kids tend to take on and adopt bits from performances that they’ve been excited or moved by – they’ll talk about it, sing the songs, role play and replay bits in all kinds of creative and unexpected ways. That’s probably a fair test of how good the performance is – how long and well it can inspire kids’ imaginations after the live experience.
What are some of the acts and activities you are really excited about at Sidestep?
All of them!! The high quality music for kids – Curly Cousins, Bunny Racket and the debut of The Gumboots. The Pitts Family Circus and The Spaghetti Circus Troupe will be great and Joel Salom’s solo show with Eric the dog plus his session with Brunswick Primary School kids telling jokes will definitely be hilarious.
Then there’s the wonderous storytelling of Jenni Cargill-Strong and Tiff Bollhorn and dance workshops with Mitch King and dance vibemeister Jade. So much! I think I’m mostly excited by what the kids will bring, what riotous magic and fun they will make happen as they engage with the all the spaces we’re setting up: Paper Caper, Cubby Land, Weave World, the Games Space and the Parlour.
Tell us a little bit more about Roundabout Theatre’s ‘The Game’?
The Game is one of Roundabout Theatre’s most recent interactive shows. It’s a giant colourful boardgame set up on the grass played by four teams chosen from the festival crowd on the day. It’s kind of a cross between ‘Snakes and Ladders’ and ‘Trouble’ with some absurd road safety themes. The Game is hosted by the infamous Roundabout Theatre characters The Lollipop Ladies and their new friends – The Grand Umpa, The Coach Captain and the kids from Brunswick Public school as side coaches. The objective of the game is to save the world (of course) one witches hat, wonky worksite and dance-off at a time. Given the public are the main players and are all un-rehearsed, the game will be a different show every playing – a live, slightly chaotic work-in-progress with clown hosts (who barely know the rules). Sounds very similar to my actual life now that I think about it!
Who has more fun at Sidestep – the kids or the adults?
There is no limit to fun and it’s quite contagious. Fun expands exponentially – the more you have, the more there is. Who has more fun? Well, the competition is on!
Sidestep Kids Festival was made possible with funding from the NSW Government
Reconnecting Regional Communities Grant and is supported by Byron Shire Council.
Sidestep Kids Festival | FREE entry | Sat 18–Sun 19 March | 10am–4pm | Banner Park, Brunswick Heads | Sidestep Kids Festival.
Facebook Event page tinyurl.com/sidestepkidsfestival
