Doing it for the kids

It’s time to start putting young people further up the performing arts agenda, says Executive Producer Claire Summerfield.

As we in the UK embrace the autumnal colours and look towards Christmas, more often than not that means preparations for the annual festive show. The family extravaganza drawing in families from across our cities and communities is a staple of many venues across the Western globe. A moment of connection, of imagination and abstraction, an experience shared with our loved ones and those we don’t yet know. But what about at other times of the year, do our youngest audiences have this shared experience outside of the holiday season? Imagine if it was Christmas every day?

It’s widely recognised that exposure to the performing arts is important for the development of children and young people. Arts and cultural activities help children make sense of their place in the world and positively impact their cognitive, physical, emotional, spiritual and language development. It fosters their curiosity and imagination, developing critical faculties and offers opportunities to view the world from different perspectives. To develop empathy and observe society in all its multiple manifestations.

In July of this year, the UK government published a report highlighting its findings on the impact of Covid on children in early years settings. The report noted delays in babies' and children’s speech and language development, limited vocabulary or lack of confidence to speak, and even some babies struggling to respond to basic facial expressions – likely the result of reduced contact and interaction with other children and adults during lockdown periods.

The report follows others published over the last 12 months, including one in which it was noted “Children have missed out on hearing stories, singing and having conversations” (https://bit. ly/3Coj7fs). Delays in children’s speech and language development have led to them not socialising as readily as expected. Childcare providers reported that babies were particularly anxious and not used to seeing different faces. Children’s social and friendship-building skills have been affected (https://bit.ly/3CNN8qj).

I strongly believe that experiencing high-quality professional art and culture helps the very youngest in society to develop those skills that have been hampered during the pandemic and might just have the potential to help remedy these social challenges. But in order for this to happen, we need to properly invest in performance for children and young people and develop an infrastructure that encourages work to be created and shared with audiences, both in and outside our standard theatrical settings.

As part of my role as Executive Producer with Second Hand Dance and as Artistic Advisor to Sadler’s Wells, I regularly travel across Europe to festivals specialising in work for young audiences. It’s invigorating to immerse myself in innovative work that is both taking risks and challenging accepted notions of the form (when speech is not the main method of communication we draw on the other senses to tell our tales). It is also an opportunity to engage in dialogue with my global colleagues from Assitej International and other similar networks, all professionals committed to the advocacy and development of work for young audiences. Geographical specialisms emerge - Dance features strongly at Krokus Festival, Belgium - not surprisingly considering the country’s vibrant and risk-taking dance sector and El Petit Festival in Sabadell, Spain is one of the handfuls of festivities exclusively presenting work for early years audiences.

There is a wide and broadly celebrated sector of international performing arts festivals across the globe – and audiences recognise and identify with the Edinburgh International Festival or Holland Festival, but how many will many recognise the name of Edinburgh International Children’s Festival or De Betovering in The Hague?

In 1989 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was agreed. Article 31 states: “Every child has the right to participate freely in cultural life and the arts, that the State Parties will promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and provide equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity”.

Worldwide, over 25% of the population is aged under 15 (https://bit.ly/3EOA1H5) but we are not dedicating anywhere like an equal proportion of cultural resources to work made especially for those ages. Traditional funding patterns and a history of participation projects, as opposed to professional performance, have meant resources for the creation of professional cultural experiences for the very youngest in society are limited, the work is marginalised and often sits within very rigid programming (and financial) models.

The lack of resources isn’t just about money – there is a clear shortage of new talent, unsurprisingly perhaps. If as a student you don’t learn about making work for young audiences why would you consider making a career out of it? While Rose Bruford College has introduced an MA in Theatre Making for Young Audiences in recent years, currently none of our leading dance conservatories includes a module on creating work for children and/or babies within their BA programmes and potential progression routes are relatively unidentifiable.