“A Concert for Little Hearts and Big Dreams”
An Interactive Performance for Babies & Children
Is it possible to see music? Perhaps so, thanks to the soap bubbles and the play of light they create as they float freely through the air.
During pregnancy, the baby hears the sounds of the world. And inside Mom’s belly and during the first months of life, the baby hears many sounds and lots of music.
Then, as it grows and develops, it develops its other senses: touch, smell, and sight.
This performance aims to offer newborn babies an experience: to combine the sound of music with images that are as close and relevant to their world as possible.
Soap bubbles, so ethereal, made of water, light, colorful, and floating, represent an exceptional point of connection between the intrauterine world and the outside world.
A performance of music and choreography with soap bubbles, highly symbolic, marking the transition of development from the world of the undefined to the world of reality.
For older children (ages 2 and up), the opportunity to witness the play: a clown experimenting with tools and musical instruments with a child’s innocence, transformation, improvisation, and wonder.
The performance “Concert for Little Hearts and Big Dreams” draws from the experience of “Ouverture des Saponettes,” a theatrical production that has been touring the world for 20 years.
It is a simplified and reimagined adaptation, specially designed for the needs of young children.
Michele Cafaggi’s twenty years of experience as a “Clown Doctor” for the Theodora Onlus Foundation in the pediatric wards of Italian hospitals undoubtedly contributed significantly to its realization.
His work with the Theodora Foundation allowed Michele to delve deeper into the world of newborns and early childhood in general through direct experiences and continuing education seminars with psychologists, doctors, educators, and experts with extensive experience in the field.
The performance premiered in September 2014 in Japan at the request of the “Kodomo Bunka Community” association in Fukuoka as part of a research and development project for performances and workshops dedicated to early childhood.
In response to this request, Studio TA-DAA! produced two performances: “Concert for Little Hearts and Big Dreams” by and with Michele Cafaggi, and a Live Painting by artist Izumi Fujiwara.
DURATION: 35/40 minutes
TECHNIQUES USED: clowning, pantomime, soap bubbles.
The performance is wordless.
AUDIENCE: Children aged 0–3 and parents
LIMITED AUDIENCE: Maximum of 30 families (between 70 and 90 people, depending on the size of the hall or stage)
PERFORMANCES IN SCHOOLS: Preschools
The audience is arranged in a semicircle, seated on the floor around the set, which consists of a black carpet with a diameter of 5 meters. They can sit around the carpet at a 300-degree angle. Anyone who feels uncomfortable sitting on the floor can, of course, pull up a chair and sit in the third row.
We try to minimize obstacles, so apart from the set, the stage is kept as open as possible so that the children can move freely.
For this reason, we prefer to present the performance in venues where it is possible to light from above, to avoid cables and floor lamps.