Happy Campers A creative development experience for babies and their carers

  • Workshops
  • Kids & Families
  • Centre for Creativity
  • Run time: 45 minutes Subject to change

Music made by babies

Happy Campers is a gentle musical space where your baby’s movements create live, improvised music. Designed for pre-crawling babies and their carers, this unique experience invites you to play, connect, and make your very first music together.

Happy Campers is an interactive sound installation that transforms babies’ movements into music, creating a playful, sensory experience for our tiniest audiences and their grown-ups. Guided by artist-researchers Matt Kelly and Andrew Callaghan, babies and their caregivers will step into a soft, welcoming pod where emergent music technology turns every wriggle, stretch, or bounce into live, improvised sound, offering a rare opportunity for kids to become both performer and composer. 

We’re inviting just one family at a time to participate in a 45-minute play-testing workshop, with plenty of time built in for settling and getting comfortable. We will create some music for 20 minutes, followed by a relaxed Q&A session with the artists. 

This project is an experiment and we don’t know yet what sounds and music will be the final result. This work-in-progress experience is a unique opportunity to be part of the early development of a brand-new work for pre-crawling babies—one we hope will be welcoming, beautiful, and a gentle first step toward a lifelong love of the arts. If you like, we will record a video with music you can receive a copy of later. 

What to expect during the session:

On arrival, you will be welcomed by a member of staff, who will ensure you and your baby are comfortable, and show you to a parenting room should you need it. You will then join the artists in the Centre, who will explain how the project works and ask you to sign a consent form. 

When ready, you and your baby will enter a small tent with a play mat at the centre. Motion tracking software connected to a camera inside the tent will convert your baby’s movements into data. Music software will interpret this data and produce real-time music. You and your baby will hear the musical performance for 20 minutes. 

During the performance, we will watch the video feed, change the software settings to adjust the real-time musical responses, and write notes on ways to improve the music-making. If you consent, we will also record the video and the music; we will later send you copies if you wish. After the workshop, you will be invited to a non-compulsory feedback discussion where we will ask you questions. Your answers will not be connected to any records of your name. You can also ask us questions. 

Presented by Sydney Opera House

Event details

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Attending this event

Plan your visit

Address

Sydney Opera House
Bennelong Point
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia

Getting to the venue

The Opera House is a 7-10 minute walk from Circular Quay, and is easily accessible by car, train, ferry, lightrail, bus, bike and on foot.

Location and access

Centre for Creativity

The Centre for Creativity is located at the end of the Western Foyers, next to the Drama Theatre. Best accessed through the Western Foyers entry.

All Sydney Opera House foyers are accessible, with lifts to the main and western foyers. The public lift to all foyers is accessible from the corridor near the escalators on the Lower Concourse and also in the Western Foyer via the corridor on the Ground Level (at the top of the escalators).

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