Threshold @ Kyneton Primary School
On Friday all the Year 6 students worked with artists Marita Davies, Sylvie Meltzer and Zoë Barry in the GP room to explore some of life’s big questions through poetry and music.
students were invited to find their own space, sit quietly and reflect on three big questions:
What is the meaning of life?
Why are we here?
If you could change one thing, what would it be?
Each student wrote their responses on post-it notes and placed them on the wall. In three groups, they read through each other’s answers and prepared a short performance.
Zoë accompanied each group on her cello as they shared their words. The maturity and curiosity was full of honesty and insight. Their answers can be seen in the series of photos below.
We learn so much from working with these students who are at the edge of their Primary School journeys.
We encourage you to revisit these questions around the dinner table with the whole family!
Audio collage with Zoë Barry and Marita Davies
This Tuesday musician, composer and theatre maker Zoë Barry led workshops with students in Years 3 to 6, ably supported by Marita Davies. Each session combined sound, movement, and memory to help students explore change, empathy, and their connection to the seasons and to place.
3/4SM – Spring Whisperings
Students began by tuning into the quietest sounds around them, tracing lines in the air, and writing the names of people they know or wish to know better. Together, they reflected on what it means to experience Spring in Kyneton, describing sights, smells, and feelings. These words were layered into a looping soundscape, titled Spring Whisperings, to be used later in their shadow puppetry work.
“I feel heightened in my heart, mellow, fun to play, amazeballs, I really like that it made us stop talking for a bit” - Student 3/4 SM
6SL – Around the World
This class explored the emotional landscapes of change. Students created sound loops imagining what a friend might be feeling while going through something big. As a gentle storm passed outside, they added soft loops and light spinner gestures to build a moving group performance.
5MB – Autumn Loop
This group reflected on Autumn in Kyneton: the crunch of leaves, changing light, cooler mornings. They created a shared Autumn soundscape, mixing whispered words and soft percussion into a collective audio collage.
5DC – Walking on the Moon
This session took students out of this world. Imagining they were on the moon, they explored how bodies move in zero gravity, and what Kyneton might look like from space. They created a dreamy soundscape using marimba rolls, slow movement, and soft spoken phrases about home, memory and change.
“I liked moving like we were on the moon, I liked looking at Kyneton through the telescope, I liked all the different voices in the thing.” – Student, 5DC
Each workshop helped students slow down, tune into their surroundings and one another, and use sound and imagination to reflect on change. Zoë said, “The students were brave and curious – they listened closely and were open to new ways of expressing themselves. It was a joy to work with them.”
July 22
Stories through Shadow with Youbi Lee and Sylvie Meltzer
Artists Youbi Lee and Sylvie Meltzer returned to work with Years 3 to 6, continuing their creative journey through place, change and imagination. This time the focus was on storytelling through shadow.
With the help of good old overhead projectors, students crafted one minute shadow stories inspired by life in Kyneton. They drew from the streets they walk, the changes they see and the places that matter most. They learned how to shape a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, layering movement, image and light.
The overhead projectors continue to be a hit. Students are finding clever new ways to bring shadows to life, telling stories that are expressive, heartfelt and uniquely theirs.
The creativity is growing and so are the stories.
Activities to do together at home!
We encourage you to ask your children about playing with shadow with Youbi and making maps out of mandarin peels with Marita! The artists have put together some invitations so that you can try these things again at home!
This week some of the students were lucky enough to create simple shadow puppets with Visual Artist, Youbi Lee. As well as playing with positive and negative space, they explored perspective and created simple scenes between their characters.
The students also worked with local writer Marita Davies to reframe local landmarks into fantastical worlds.
Keep your eyes out for suspicious activity at the Mysterious Town Hall, only the brave would visit the Ghostly Park and the Haunted Basketball court on a full moon, and steer well clear of the Stench of the Swimming pool.
Be warned.
With these creative kids, stories are lurking everywhere!
July 1
Shadow Puppets with Youbi Lee & Mapping with Marita
The artists’ process
Testing, Testing
In between sessions with students, the artists are gathering, drawing on the words and ideas that the students have shared, and building new explorations and playful invitations. Being a teaching artist means listening closely, staying curious, and following the threads that children offer. The work is unfolding gently, shaped by the stories, questions, and quiet moments we’ve shared so far.
We all try out each other's workshop plans, offering feedback, refining ideas, and making sure each experience is fit for purpose and full of possibility
More about Threshold at KPS
In terms 2 and 3 this year local theatre makers will be visiting KPS to explore life cycles, change and transformation.
We will play and create stories together with students in the older year levels. We will draw from the ideas of the community as we work with Miss Polly and other teachers to build the school production for term 3.
On Tuesday, 1 April we came in to spend a bit of time with all the students in Grades 3, 4, 5 and 6.
We were eager to meet all of the excellent students we will work with this year.
We asked them questions like:
What does change feel like?
What does life cycle mean to you?
These questions led to all kinds of thoughts including how potatoes change into potato chips, and trees change into tables!
At the end of the day, each student was sent home with a chatterbox template with questions they can ask their loved ones (pets included). You might have spotted one of these in your house already! We hope that it prompts some playful and profound conversations in your home. Students in younger years might like to try this too- it can be downloaded below.
We can’t wait to see you all next term! Have fun with your chatterboxes!
Learn more about the artists who are working with the students and experience Threshold’s audio work for families
We couldn’t think of a better way to introduce ourselves than through our work.
KPS families are welcome to register for our audio-theatre experience for FREE these holidays. Just jump on the link below - and take your family for a trip to Kiribati on ‘The Flying Canoe’ by Marita Davies. Marita is a parent at KPS and so happy to share this work with you.
We invite KPS families to experience The Flying Canoe for free!
The Flying Canoe is an interactive audio experience that will transport audiences to the islands of Kiribati, and immerse them in Pacific culture.
Featuring an oceanic soundscape that includes traditional Kiribati songs, 'The Flying Canoe' drops audiences into a world of myths, legends and embodied adventure!
Created with KPS artist (and parent!) Marita Davies, it’s the perfect activity to do together this Winter!
Who are the Creative Team visiting KPS?
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Marita Davies
Marita is a proud Kiribati & Australian woman, a Marakei and Tabiteuea North descendant, who is passionate about supporting the stories and cultural knowledge of Pasifika.
Through creative essays, blog posts and articles Marita has explored themes of Kiribati culture, gender equality, racism, education and climate change.
Marita has written a children's book for children called 'Teaote and the Wall' and her audio theatre adventure for families 'The Flying Canoe' is produced by Threshold and launched as a digital and theatrical production at DreamBIG Festival Adelaide in May 2023.
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Zoë Barry
Zoë is an award winning cellist, composer, theatre maker and educator. Her practice is devised and collaborative, drawing on composition, sound design, writing, performing and directing. Her work explores liminal spaces, the politics of slowness, repetition, noticing, the void, disturbance and amplifying quiet voices.
Zoë is the recipient of the 2021 Telstra ARIA Music Teacher Of The Year Award for her work with Harmony in Strings at Sacred Heart Primary.
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Sylvie Meltzer
Sylvie Meltzer (she/her) is a workshop and teaching artist dedicated to storytelling. She has spent the past twenty years working with children and adults of all ages to create performances, exhibitions and workshops that foster relevant and meaningful conversations to be taken out into everyday life.
Her experience has led her from the spectacle of thousands of students dancing to the intimate spaces of group devised performances in homes, halls, sheds, tents and under the stars.
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Sarah Lockwood
Sarah is a theatre maker, performer, producer and civil celebrant interested in ritual and performance. Previously Sarah was the Creative Producer of Drop Bear Theatre, creating immersive theatre work for families. Their performance installation ‘Rain: for babies and their carers’ was created at Artplay, and has toured for the last 6 years including to Hong Kong International Arts Carnival and Lincoln Center NYC.
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Youbi Lee
Youbi is a visual artist who works in many different forms, printmaking, installation, video, puppetry, performance, and community engagement. She learnt these skills at Chugye University of Arts, Korea, from which she graduated as the dux of the university.
Since moving to Victoria, she has been initiating and facilitating collaborative arts projects with many different communities.
Working as a multimedia artist and project coordinator, Youbi continues to refine an arts practice that engages and draws commonality between people and places.
Who are Threshold?
This Creative Learning Partnership is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
You can read more about this initiative HERE