Seashore, Sally Chance Dance ·
State Theatre Centre of WA, 27 September 2022 ·

The first thing that struck us on entering the Middar Room, at the State Theatre Centre of WA, for Seashore was a delicious sense of calm. This is no easy feat in a room full of babies and toddlers, but Sally Chance’s warm welcome and the performers’ gentle demeanour put everyone at ease.  

A bright pink wavy line indicated the ‘shore’, behind which the audience sat, as a simple, melodic ode to the sea unfolded on stage. Chance and her team use a mixture of dance, song, guitar, ukulele, and percussion to mimic the sound and shape of the ocean and of the experience children can have on the sand. Additional props including thongs and, at the end, real sand, brought a tangible sense of the beach into the auditorium.  

The structure of the performance was clear, but the usual boundaries of the audience were blurred. Seashore is unique in its recruitment of volunteer carers with children who, dressed in ocean tones, initially sit among the audience before later immersing themselves in the action. Audience members were also invited to participate but I was struck by how many of the youngest children were content to sit, enjoying the closeness of their parent/guardian and visibly relaxing to the soothing echoes of the seashore.  

Closeness is certainly a key to this production’s appeal. So much of a child’s life is regulated, even relegated, to adult requirements and experience. Here was an environment in which they were not being told ‘no’, but rather assured that the space was theirs to embody for 40 minutes. This resulted in an intimacy with fellow audience members that was exhilarating in its novelty.  

My nine-month-old, clapping and waving her arms at the events on stage, found herself being hugged and nuzzled by an 18-month-old friend who appeared at our side. I noticed other similar connections being made, as if the temporary world of the seashore had melted down our usual inhibitions. As Chance herself has commented, very young children “are hard-wired to seek out connection with the adults around them and with each other”, and this truism played out here.  

The seashore, as suggested by Rabindranath Tagore’s poem on which the piece is based, presents the concept of the shore as a “liminal world between land and sea, beauty and risk and (childhood) play and (adult) work”. When stepping across the shoreline, children at this performance were able to explore and articulate their own concepts of limitation, space, and boundary, not to mention (for older children) what the sea represents in their imaginations.  

The show is certainly most suitable for children aged up to three: my six-year-old, who came along for the ride, was happy watching her sister’s enjoyment, but the performance itself did not hold her attention throughout.  

Nevertheless, this is a space where different ages co-mingle peacefully, bringing a sense of belonging for extroverts and introverts alike. The busy life of parents with very young children benefits from these 40 minutes of mindfulness, which send you back out into the urban ocean feeling unexpectedly refreshed.   

Seashore is at the State Theatre Centre of WA until 1 October 2022 

Pictured top: The young audience is invited to join the performance in ‘Seashore’.