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The joys and challenges of making art for babies

Everybody has a right to a cultural life, including toddlers and babes in arms. The presentation of such work can benefit parents and carers as well as the children themselves, while also inspiring the artists who make it.

20 May 2021

Richard Watts

Theatre

Touch and Go by Sally Chance Dance is an interactive art experience for children aged two to three years. Image supplied.

When Susannah Sweeney, the Creative Producer of DreamBIG Children’s Festival was first presented with the concept of live performance works for babies and toddlers, she admits to harbouring some suspicions.

‘I thought, really, why? They’re not going to remember it; it’s going to have no impact. And then I went to it. And it was extraordinary,’ she told ArtsHub.

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Richard Watts

Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts