DreamBIG Children's Festival Starts Today

Around 1700 excited South Australian school children from 23 schools will parade across the Adelaide Riverbank Footbridge today to kick start the 2017 DreamBIG Children's Festival, which runs until 27 May with a huge selection of performances, workshops, exhibitions, activities and much more for kids of all ages.

Opening festivities begin at 11am with an official welcome to the crowd by Christies Beach High School students Holly Frith and Emily Ferry before all students sing the original song, 'Dream Big', written by local musician Robyn Habel to celebrate DreamBIG Children's Festival's re-naming from Come Out Children's Festival.

The theme of this year's festival is Feed the Mind and this is reflected through the images on 15 huge parachutes that have been decorated by students from 15 regional schools, and will form a colourful canopy which the children will parade under as they walk across the bridge. The parachutes will be held up by 80 retiring South Australian teachers.

The Big Family Weekend is a cornerstone event of DreamBIG Children's Festival. Saturday and Sunday (May 20-21) will see Adelaide Festival Centre and various inner-city locations along North Terrace transformed into a child's wonderland of adventure and discovery.

This year it takes the shape of art trails of creativity at many iconic venues and public spaces such as the State Library, Art Gallery of SA, South Australian Museum, Mercury Cinema, Migration Museum, Ayers House Museum, Freemason's Hall, Carclew and Tandanya. On offer are performances, workshops, activities, food, and exhibitions. A free map will be available at all venues detailing various age appropriate arts trails (ages 0-4, 5-8, 9-11, 12+, and all ages). The map is also downloadable at www.dreambigfestival.com.au.

The Big Family Weekend will see trees on North Terrace wrapped in coloured fabric creating the "DreamBIG forest". There will be Dig a Dino outside the museum (where kids can dig up dinosaur bones in a ball pit), mud play activities, Silent Disco walking tours, outdoor circus workshops, tours of Government House (Sunday only), roving entertainment and much more! Two stages (Elder Hall stage and King William Rd stage) will have free entertainment all day from 11am-3pm. Highlights include drumming from Heathfield High School Renegades, classical Indian dance with Shruthi Adelaide, ballet with Les Petits Danseurs, swing with Swing Out Adelaide, Bollywood from Fusion Beats, and hip hop from the Indigenous Hip Hop Project.

The festival's creative producer Susannah Sweeney says, "After a wonderful 2015 festival, our dreams for the next continuing chapter of DreamBIG Children's Festival are soon to be underway. We can't wait to see how schools and families experience the funny, creative, inspirational and challenging program we've put together which showcases the undeniable role the arts plays in creating empathetic, curious and confident kids.'

Full details for the program can be found on our website dreambigfestival.com.au

Get social with us at #DreamBIGfest @DreamBIGfest or facebook.com/DreamBIGChildrensFestival

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