Interactive children’s theatre takes centrestage

Paper Window is a multidisciplinary performance, aimed at kids, that transports both the performer and the audience through an imaginary world. It is created out of the real-time actions of the performer, the drawings of a painter and the participation of the audience. 

“The story emerges from a white wall, almost like a sketchbook coming to life. The audience is then drawn towards intriguing stories and interactive moments as the bare white wall becomes an infinite canvas, bound only by the imaginations of everyone present,” says Cheol-Sung Lee, the director of CCOTBBAT, an acclaimed visual theatre company based in Korea. 

The company integrates fine arts and theatre for young audiences and organises educational exhibitions. The production neatly balances the digital and analogue world, play and drawing, storytelling and media art and mixes humour, technology and artistry together. It is presented by InKo Centre in association with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korea Arts Management Services, premiered at the Museum Theatre, Egmore. 

Kids are a highly perspective audience. Also, a really difficult one — they get fidgety, raucous and bored all too easily. And that’s where the challenge lies, admits Lee. “When you’re doing theatre for children, the challenge is to create something as a child would perceive it and not an adult. Only then can we conceptualise without prejudice or preconceived notions, endearing characteristics that kids possess. While you can play with metaphors for adults, when it comes to production aimed at kids, you need to keep it as direct as possible,” says Lee. 

Exposure to arts has proven to open up kids’ minds in powerful ways while also developing cognitive skills and clear perspective on complex issues. Lee says theatre is perhaps the most effective medium for the same. “A child’s mind is like a white paper and when we fill it with images, characters and situations, they learn to create a world of their own. Theatre is so important for them because it liberates them and also urges them to feel things on earth more beautifully, sensitively, deeply,” adds Lee.