Waderbirds
When I first heard the story of the Eastern Curlew. I was standing on the edge of a bay with a bird-lover.
He told me how the large slender bird only a short distance away, with the mottled brown feathers camouflaged against the mudflats, migrated
from one side of the world to the other each year to have its babies. After breeding and nesting in the Siberian grasslands, the adult birds
migrate south again within a month or so, leaving their chicks there in the tundra. When they are less than eight weeks old, the chicks make
the 13,000 km migration across the world to parts of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand all on their own.
I was filled with wonder.
That day beside the bay this thought dropped from the sky - follow that bird!
The idea for WADERBIRDS dropped into my head when
I was directing an outdoor community theatre event on the foreshore
of Western Port Bay, southern Australia, in 1989.
This production was
called THE SEAGRASS STORY and was the first time I was introduced to
the Eastern Curlew and the many other migratory birds who make yearly
visits to the bay.
When I first heard how far the Eastern Curlew travels each year - from one side of the world to the other…and back – I had the urge to follow these birds, stopping over at wetlands along the way where they feed and rest on their enormous migration to Siberia. I imagined a team of theatre artists creating outdoor events with each community to tell the story of this magnificent migration.
That’s what happened. In 1990 Kate Clere, a community theatre director, Nell White a project manager and myself an artistic director, began work researching, planning, making contacts and raising funds for an international theatre tour. We invited visual artist Tim Newth, choreographer Beth Shelton, composer Greg Sneddon and ornithologists, including Dr Clive Minton, to join us. In 1993 we made the journey.
In each location – Auckland Aotearoa/New Zealand, Melbourne southern Australia, Broome north west Australia, and Kushiro northern Japan – we were joined by artists, arts managers and bird lovers. Together we created four memorable theatre performances, with hundreds of people participating and thousands watching.
That was only the beginning!
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE EASTERN CURLEW
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