Barking Gecko Theatre is thrilled to announce the company will receive funding from the federal government under the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund!
COVID-19 highlighted the urgency for us to increase engagement with children in smaller regional and remote communities across WA, find new and innovative ways to develop our productions and work to build the creative capacity of local artists.
With the announcement of these funds Barking Gecko will be able to support towns such as Mingenew, a community of approx. 450 people located in the Midwest region of WA. Although small in size, it’s mighty in spirit, banding together to support each other and provide essential services and opportunities for the community.
“We are grateful to have the opportunity to work with Barking Gecko, particularly as access to arts and cultural opportunities is significantly limited for our small regional community. Due to our location and socio-economic factors, many of our children and young people’s life experience is limited to what we can offer locally. Unfortunately, the number and quality of performing arts opportunities for children has reduced to a trickle over the last decade with touring performing arts companies visiting our region preferencing larger regional centres.”
Hellene McTaggart, Parent & Resident, Mingenew, WA
Children are at the centre of the theatre Barking Gecko makes. Across WA we have groups of young people in our Gecko Ensembles who meet weekly to workshop the same source materials our creative teams are working on. These children feed directly into our Artistic Program, acting as ‘creative consultants’ on our work as it is developing. This puts our artistic teams in direct conversation with our audience and ensures our methodologies are both ethical and authentic.
We are thrilled to be granted the opportunity to build new relationships with children and local artists in more regional locations. Thanks to today’s announcement of RISE funding Barking Gecko will deliver a series of regional residencies across eight locations with local children exploring some of life’s big questions as we develop a new production for touring in 2022 and beyond... we can't wait to get started!
