All of a sudden, a loud noise from a nearby construction started roaring ‘ VROOM…VROOM…’ A bird begins to shriek like an alarm and warn each other there is danger before flying away in a flurry. I felt a sense of anxiety and urgency.

My On Country Visit experience reminds me Murray Schafer’s “Listen”, he discusses the importance of being attuned to the sounds of our environment. The contest between the peaceful bird sounds and the disruptive construction sounds mirrored Schafer’s idea about how different sounds can alter our emotional response. This experience in active listening helped me to better realize the tension between nature’s harmony and the disturbances of modern life, a key ideas in Schafer’s work.

The sound of wind and thunder represents the unpleasant construction noise, which suddenly destroys the tranquility, my shadow dance shifts dramatically as the wind and thunder come, I used a scarf to represent the wind, and my movements become very intense to show the chaos and fear the birds may have experienced.

Picture 4 shows a few broken woods in my yard, caused by the several windy days. When I looked at it, the broken wood made me feel out of place, quite disturbing the peaceful environment just like the construction noise disturbed the birds. This prompted me to think about the chaos that human activities can introduce into natural settings. This sense of disruption led me to decide to use wind and thunder sounds in my shadow dance to represent the chaos caused by the construction noise and use a scarf movement to visually symbolize the winds and thunder that disrupted the natural harmony.

In picture 3, after the birds had flown away, only my shadow remained on the ground. As I looked at my shadow, I began to wonder about my presence in this environment and what it might mean for the birds. This thinking inspired me to use shadow to embody a bird – thinking, moving, and dancing like a bird.

Through this process, I developed my creative work: Shadow Play - “Birds, Wind, and Thunder”.

My creative work is deeply connected to the ideas presented in Ruth Wilson’s article, “Children, Creative Play, and the Natural Environment.” Wilson suggests the importance of nature environment and nature play in fostering creativity in children, nature environments can provide rich and unstructured spaces where children can engage in unlimited imaginative play and meaningful experiences. In my shadow dance, I embraced these concepts by using my backyard as the setting for an imaginative exploration experience of light, sound, movement, and drama.

Inspired by Schaffer’s emphasis on listening, and Wilson’s work on natures, I have changed my view of teaching music, movement and dramatic art in Early Childhood age. I plan to bring children to the natural environment and encourage children to listen carefully to the sounds in their surroundings. I would like to fostering an awareness of both natural and artificial sounds, and help children to understand the impact of noise on their environment and emotional state, guiding children to managing disruptions and finding peaceful within their natural surroundings. I will also encourage children to use outdoor environment as spaces for imaginative expression, helping them connect with natural elements like light, shadow, winds… to express their creativity. For example: Outdoor animals shadow dance, where children can use their bodies and natural elements to acting and storing telling.

Daniel Bianchi. (2015, November 3). Listen (escucha)  Murray Schafer [Video file]. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q1rpNNnCUc