Drip Drop Play is a joyful and calming sensory experience that encourages children to listen, explore and play in an immersive colourful world of ice and water.

Led by silent characters Drip and Drop, the experience begins in a welcome room with lighting, song, and listening games, encouraging attentive listening and engagement. In the Ice Room, melting ice pieces create a dynamic soundscape, which children alter using found objects such as tins and cups. The final space features giant water bowls illuminated by shifting LED patterns, where musicians perform in the water, before inviting the children and their parents to experiment with sound-making. The performance fosters collaboration, creativity, and scientific inquiry, strengthening connections between children and their parents or grandparents through shared discovery.

With comments like “Man, that was satisfying” and “How is she doing that?”, the wonder and awe of child and adult participants alike is evident through feedback received throughout previous seasons

About Ad Lib Collective

Ad Lib Collective is a group of performers and composers who create unique and transformative musical and inter-disciplinary performances. Their projects focus on connecting communities to transformative artistic experiences around big issues that matter. Directed by percussionist, improviser and composer Thea Rossen, Ad Lib formed in Naarm (Melbourne) 2017 and has been based in Boorloo (Perth) since 2020.

The Collective’s projects are rooted in sound and regularly feature improvisation and cross disciplinary collaboration with artists. Regular collaborators include lighting designer Alex Spartalis from GSD Productions, clarinettist Ashley Smith, media artist Sohan Ariel Hayes, composer/violist Jared Yapp, educator Jesse Deane, composer/producer Rebecca Erin Smith, videographers at Edify Media and percussionist Hamish Upton.

Ad Lib Collective has developed and presented works at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada, Sydney Opera House NSW, Metropolis Festival for New Music in Melbourne, alongside MASARY Studios in Boston US, Castlemaine State Festival in Victoria, Four Winds Festival in Bermagui NSW, for Tone List in WA and most recently at the Holmes à Court Gallery in West Perth and the Perth Festival.

The Collective was awarded the Minderoo Foundation Arts Award in 2023 to develop a new interdisciplinary work Conditions of Growth featuring a custom-built sensor-driven LED lighting system inside musical flowerpots. Ad Lib was the recipient of New Ideas Lab funding to develop Drip Drop Play at Art Play in 2018, an immersive performance experience for children with water and ice that was recently presented for a sold out season of shows at the Sydney Opera House. The Collective recently released Flashed Glass, a cross genre collaborative album with electronic music artists Sleep D presented by PlayOn Music. Passionate about community connection through performance, the Collective’s projects often include school students and community members through stages of development and performance.

Credits

Thea Rossen – Lead Artist / Producer
Jesse Deane – Lead Artist
Tao Issaro – Musician/facilitator
Carissa Soares – Musician/Facilitator
Maddie Colvin – Musician/Facilitator
Lighting Design – Bronwyn Pringle
Stage & Tour Manager in Geraldton – Alli Mack
Stage & Tour Manager – Peter Young

Photos by Edify Media

Proudly supported by the WA Government

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