We are All Pollinators, what we Buy we Grow!

What we are up to…

Big Mother Touring Company presents It’s All a Beautiful Noise (IAABN) an evening of music and storytelling; a global music-driven 3D animated experience that celebrates our pollinators – the littlest angels on the planet – in inspirational and playful ways. Devised by Emmy Winner and three-time Grammy nominated recording artist Toni Childs to engage audiences before, during and after the show with a lot high-tech audience engagement. Be sure and check out Toni’s blogs in the blog section to get a deeper understanding of the production, the creative team, the installations and travels over the years of development.

Our theme: We are all pollinators! What we buy we grow!

In fact, we are corporate farmers!

If we don’t buy it, manufacturers will make what we will buy

and together we can change the world!

Three components make up this unique multimedia experience, giving four months of engagement for all ages that inspire playful interaction before, during, and after our show comes to town.

Before    Starting in Australia at the end of 2023, 30 – 8.5 meter ‘Bee Friendly’ installations go up in regional towns and cities. ‘Bee Friendly’ is a massive recycled paper bee you can walk inside, and an estimated 9500 silkworms weave the skin of the bee.

Three months before It’s All a Beautiful Noise comes to town Toni’s team will install her ‘Bee Friendly’ installation, and launch three months of bee centric activities. Inspired by Sun Valley Center for the Arts’ ‘ BEES – A BIG IDEA PROJECT’ in 2018, Bee Friendly is a way to begin a community-wide conversation about steps we can take to support pollinator species. It features: lectures, documentaries, plantings with seed- papermaking workshops, cooking classes and backyard beekeeping workshop, etc. Included is curated Art and Photography Competitions. The focus – how pollinators are expressed for contemporary and indigenous artists working across the disciplines. (Take a look at Sun Valley Center for the Arts Big Idea Project Calendar)

During    Upon entering the theatre, audience members are given a copy of the album in the form of a downloadable droptag / APP, and a simple black and white paper mask: a frog, dragonfly, bee, butterfly, ladybug, or bird. Each mask has an addressable LED light that Toni controls from the stage.  At the end of the show audience members are invited to a treasure hunt online by linking to the QR Code or URL listed on the underside of their mask. On the way out audience members are greeted by local beekeepers, giving Beekeepers the opportunity to be celebrated and share their ideas about what is important to them.

After    At the end of the online-treasure-hunt each audience member will be asked to send their mask to a physical location; where all the masks in Australia are assembled into one giant installation – making a big beautiful noise for our pollinators and giving audience members an opportunity to participate in a national community art project. This show will tour the US, Canada and European Countries.

Toni writes, “I feel driven to pollinate play, innovation, fine art, spectacle, self care and care for our littlest angels to not just cities, but regional areas which can be left out of the loop. We need to invest in each other. We all need to be included in the conversation!”

Whilst this immersive musical experience is playful and visually awe inspiring, Toni introduces us to two very special human beings: one from our past and one from a thousand years into the future who give us pause and asks us to remember who we are and what we are capable of doing together!

Rachel Carson in 1962 wrote a seminal book called, Silent Spring. Toni wanted to give Rachel Carson the opportunity to speak to us from 1962 in her own words in a digitally enhanced way. We realise, not many people know who Rachel Carson is and the important part she’s played in alerting us to the potential dangers of synthetic chemicals if we did not tread lightly and responsibly upon the earth. What Rachel had to say then, brings historical significance to what pollinators and all of us are facing today. Be sure and watch American Experience Rachel Carson on YouTube to learn more. https://youtu.be/Lv7gavowt78

Toni’s future self came to her in a dream when she was 21. Toni shares her dream and brings her future-self alive; a beautiful being from a thousand years into the future who gives us an account of how our loving respect for the littlest pollinators unite our planet, and is key to making our way through this critical time on our planet.

Awe is perceptual vastness; a feeling of reverential respect.

The ‘Awe’ experience in nature or fine artistic endeavours takes us on a journey. It entices us into a mini revolution, an internal revolt that opens us. It evolves our perceptions, our beliefs and the way we relate to the world around us, without asking for permission.

It is an experience that turns on a light inside us when we least expect it!

Toni’s Dream…

“I want to inspire children and adults living in regional towns and cities to create ‘Bee Friendly’ homes, farms and communities to protect our littlest angels; the pollinators, critical to our food supply: Honey Bees, Native Bees, Butterflies, Frogs, Birds, Ladybugs, Bats and Dragonflies.”

Toni reports, “Watching how bee populations around the world have been disappearing, and learning that their immune systems are compromised by chemicals and lack of foraging, I was inspired to create a groundswell of support for our pollinators, and the local beekeepers who are the real rockstars on the planet and protect the bee. I believe it is important for us to ask beekeepers: 

What does a bee friendly household look like?

What does a bee friendly farm look like?

What does a bee friendly town, city or community look like?

What are simple things our community can do to make it Bee Friendly?