"Everything we consume and create comes from ingredients found in the earth," choreographer Sacha Copland says of the inspiration behind her latest work for young audiences. "We may transform what we find, but everything begins in the dirt - and yet we're taught pretty quickly that dirt is yucky.
"Kids see the magical side of dirt and so we can have some fun with showing them that, for instance, a wood-and-metal cello essentially comes from the soil."
Dirt & Other Delicious Ingredients, commissioned for the National Arts Festival in Wellington earlier this year, is one of two works that Copland's Java Dance Company is bringing to the Tauranga Arts Festival in October. The other, The Wine Project, is for adults but is also based on the idea of the magical transformation of natural ingredients.
"Kids have massive imaginations so we want to tap into that," Copland says. "This is the fifth show I've made for younger audiences and I've learned that clarity is important. They want to know the rules but also want to see the characters being wild within those rules.
"It's easy to make dance really dry so we incorporate live music and quite a bit of slapstick - we juggle with capsicums, rice flies around the stage and our violinist and cellist get into a duel."
