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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 12:00

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 OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts