Kids Tell Voice Lab What They Really Think!

Voice Lab made it’s Fringe Festival debut in 2018 as part of the XS kids program.
This season saw Voice Lab asking the children of Melbourne questions about rules, power dynamics and adult/parent-child relationships. Voice Lab asked kids questions such as what rules they would make for their household, what would happen if kids were in charge of Australia, how they break the rules, and what they would do if they swapped places with their adult. And the responses were at times amazing and insightful and complex and beautiful.
One child remarked that the world would be awesome if it was run by kids, because there would be heaps more fun and playing, but that no-one would brush their teeth and when anyone opened their mouth to smile, others would go “eeeeew!”.
This season allowed us a great opportunity to push the boundaries of Voice Lab’s live conversational style of questioning, with the operator going further off-script and down the random tangents the kids presented. This resulted in some fantastically surreal and genuinely moving moments for Voice Lab and the participants. One such session culminated in a child fulfilling Voice Lab’s wish of seeing the ocean, by carefully describing what the ocean was and how it looked and sounded to a completely captivated Voice Lab.
We also had the pleasure of welcoming a group of delegates from around the world, and a group of theatre students from Singapore who get a sneak peak behind the scenes of Voice Lab’s inner workings. Top secret stuff!

• Lachlan MacLeod
  Art Play Birrarung marr