Adventures in imagination
The Imagine Children’s Festival is where play meets creativity.
From 7 to 17 February, London’s Southbank Centre will be hosting the Imagine Children’s Festival.
The 11-day festival is packed with books, comedy, crafts, dance, music, storytelling and much more. The events and activities are aimed at young people and nearly half of them are free. There are also lots of relaxed performances, which means audiences can make noise and move around, or come and go during the shows.
Ruth Hardie from the Southbank Centre describes the festival as “magical”. She says, “Imagine is about children and families being creative together... children are encouraged to play, imagine and express themselves.”
One highlight of this year’s festival is the London launch of Starchitects: A Cosmic Adventure. This award-winning dance-circus show, by a company called Motionhouse, features awesome acrobatics with digital projections. It tells the story of a mission in space using games like hide and seek and floor is lava. The Week Junior spoke to Kevin Finnan, the head of Motionhouse who created and directed Starchitects, about making shows. He said he really enjoys being able to play around with ideas. In fact, he says, play is a really important part of creating something. “Whenever you have to invent, develop or improve something you have to play with it in your mind.” This is especially true in the theatre. “When I make a show I start playing with ideas, movement, film, music and dancers. It’s the key to making adventures,” he says. Finnan first visited a theatre when he was an adult. He still remembers how wonderful it was and he hopes young audiences will be as amazed watching Starchitects as he was on his first theatre trip.
To find out more about what’s going on, ask an adult to search for “Imagine Children’s Festival”.