Mark your calendars! Australia’s Polyglot Theatre wants to challenge your notions about what art is by exploring with a ball of string. Curious? Read on…
In NYUAD Arts Center’s 2015 inaugural season, Australia’s Polyglot Theatre presented We Built This City. Families ditched their iPhones and fully invested themselves in building an imaginary city out of cardboard boxes.
Polyglot is back this November with Tangle — a giant weaving play space event using coloured elastic to create a vibrant, live interactive artwork made by children and their families.
An elastic ball is given to each participant to weave around golden poles. Before long, a dense, multi-coloured landscape is woven, and no two art spaces are ever alike.
In Tangle, children take the lead: building and contributing to an amazing and enchanting public artwork that everyone can enjoy.
“Physically, Tangle is a mass weaving extravaganza built of sheer human energy and elastic. Metaphorically, Tangle represents humanity: people clambering ABOUT making contributions to this extraordinary, messy, and beautiful shared human experience.” Sue Giles
Polyglot’s Artistic Director and Co-CEO Sue Giles explains, “It’s imperative that we view Tangle as collaborative art and not blur the lines into play. Though the kids are having fun, their shared human experience is the end product.”
Inspired by her children’s play weaving strings around kitchen chairs, Giles devised Tangle as a safe and supervised space for children to follow their own singular paths as they do when they’re given any material.
“It gets interesting when the kids’ individual paths begin crossing and the space turns into a dense tangle. Participants are sharing the space with complete strangers and contributing to the fabric of the art space,” says Giles.
Much like life, the tangle space can get complicated; amidst the joy, kids can lose their way or get wedged in the dense elastic.
Giles suggests that parents follow their children, not for their safety but, to watch and listen to the joyful interactions and complex negotiations within the tangle.
When the weave is pushed to the top of the poles, families are encouraged to lie down and view the colourful weave above them and to reflect upon their experience creating it.
Tickets are priced from 39.38 AED – 52.50 AED
8 – 11 November and 15 – 17 November
NYUAD Central Plaza. Various times.
Tangle is designed for children aged 2 to 12. Children and adults are encouraged to enter together.
To Purchase Tickets from NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Centre CLICK HERE
