It's only appropriate that Newcastle's annual cultural festival New Annual has an event that requires the audience to bring their imagination - and leave their bundle of scepticism at home.
Wonder City, created by the youngsters and professionals at Tantrum Youth Arts, a Newcastle creative arts organisation that began as 2 Til 5 Youth Theatre Co-op in 1976, is an interactive experience with young Tantrum actors leading the way to introduce "tourists" to a version of Newcastle that is created by kids.
"We knew this was a work about giving young people the freedom to take over the city and redesign it in a way that made sense to them," Tantrum Youth arts creative director Nel Kentish says.
"We are trying to reclaim the word childish, we want to behave more childishly. And adults should be more childish."
Tickets are free, but pre-registration through the New Annual website is encouraged. Audience members will meet in Civic Park and be placed in groups, and then go on a 75-minute journey through Wonder City, rotating to five locations where young performers will engage them for about 10 minutes about a particular element of life in Wonder City. At the end all groups will meet again in Wheeler Place, and vote on some suggested plans for Wonder City.
The name Wonder City simply evolved from the age-old questions "I wonder why that is the way it is? I wonder if we could do this ...?
The experience will be underpinned by modern technology. Audience members will be able to access a QR code on their mobile phone or tablet that will open a suite of explanatory videos as well as an original soundtrack (music is always playing in Wonder City). The software will be geolocated, so it's activated by your location on the Wonder City tour.
Sydney-based creative producer Claudia Chidiac is the chief designer of the software program.
Other professional creatives involved include Eryn Leggatt, who led youth in creating a physical map of Wonder City; Keltan O'Shea, who supervised the film element (mostly made by the Accelerate Ensemble at Tantrum), and Huw Jones, who composed the music tracks in consultation with Tantrum's young ensemble.
"We're just getting adults to do things for fun," Kentish says.
"It's very interactive. We will be asking audiences to do things that are slightly out of their comfort zone; there is always a scale of choice about how much people want to interact, because we know some people are all in ... some are more uncomfortable. But it's all gentle and safe."
The development of Wonder City drew on two particular previous Tantrum projects: The Shake Up in 2019, a partnership with Newcastle Museum which looked at the city's response to the 1989 Newcastle earthquake, and the troupe's long-time annual "Treasure Hunt" game-style event, in which participants rambled through the Newcastle CBD to certain locations to find clues and encounter a performance.
Kentish, who is working with early career director Barney Donaghy, says the treasure hunt experience stuck with those young people.
"A lot of our facilitators who work with young people, were those young people 10 years ago, who are now early career artists who remember how wonderful it was to create a show like that. Now, they get to be a collaborator.
"One of the elements of the [Wonder City] show: it is the day of wonder, it's also election day. And because we are the most inclusive city in the world, even tourists who don't live in Wonder City, they get the opportunity to vote.
"We don't vote for politicians or candidates, we are not people-focused. We are ideas-focused. And how new ideas get introduced into society is through a public vote."
Among the issues to consider in Wonder City: art, music, transport and the environment.
"We're hoping audiences are able to experience the world through the eyes of young people," Kentish says.
"And encourage them to think more creatively, playfully, in how to interact with these spaces in their everyday lives. And hopefully, leave a lasting impression. To remember that moment of joy."
