Young people will play a strong role in the Community concert in St Bedes Church on the first evening of the Festival, Friday March 30th. Braidwood Suzuki Violin Students will perform in their own right and also accompany part of Mary Appleby and the Braidwood Cantors' performance. St Bedes School children from 5th and 6th class will read the poetry of Judith Wright and Colin Thiele. A group of Braidwood Central School girls will also perform. At this stage we are keeping the content a secret, so come along and find out for yourself! Braidwood Central Student Sarah Wallace kindly designed the wonderful Medieval-look poster for this concert.
On Saturday, there will be a variety of song writing workshops for young people. Karuna Bajracharya will lead young people and teenagers in a hands-on songwriting and recording session at 1.30 at the Central School Hall. If you have children aged 1-12, there will be a session of children's music and movement creation and participation session in the same time-slot with Johnny Huckle in Ryrie Park.
Children and young people are also welcome to join in the community singing sessions each morning at 9am in the Park - and to come to the Festival concert at 7.45pm in the National Theatre where Dave Steel, Johnny Huckle, Merrilyn Simmons and Richard Steele will be performing.
WRITING ON THE WILD SIDE IN MONGA
On Tuesday and Wednesday last week at the boardwalk in Monga National Park, poet and performer Harry Laing led poetry writing workshops with Year 5 and 6 students from Braidwood Central School and St Bede's schools. Teachers Shelley Stanley, Tony Davey and Germaine Hannaford joined in.
Harry was very pleased with the quality of work produced and with the way the students engaged with their surroundings and evoked the spirit of a rainforest gulley: Pinkwoods, treeferns, moss and all. Harry's reading of his poem 'The Old Blue Worm Of Monga' had a few of the students wondering if a hundred foot long blue worm really did live in those parts. Which of course it does!
Students' poems from the workshops will be on display in St Bede's Hall during the Festival. Further activities involving schools in the Festival include a workshop at BCS with Festival guest poet Bronwyn Lea, a poetry competition, the performance by St Bede's students of poetry at the Friday night concert mentioned above and readings by BCS students at the Poets' Breakfast.
OTHER THINGS
Young people and their families might also be interested in some of the wonderful things that are happening in the streets and Ryrie Park during Two Fires. There will be Random Acts of poets reciting their poems in the streets, sessions on 'Listening and Working Together: Indigenous and non-Indigenous people' and on Indigenous landcare and health; buskers and food in Ryrie Park on Saturday evening from 4.30 - 7pm before the Festival concert, or you might simply like to sit with Uncle Max Harrison and listen. We look forward to a strong presence in the Festival of young people from the Braidwood-Bungendore area.
Contributed by Christine Watson, Festival Facilitator
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