Forbidden Play
Something about Darren O’Donnell’s first performance piece in collaboration with children, Haircuts by Children, didn’t quite sit right with me. We were being asked to trust children, which seemed interestingly radical at the time, but we were being asked to trust them in virtue of them having been trained to act according to adult rules. In a way it was empowering, but what if we could trust children to play by their own rules?
Fashion Disaster
Cutting hair is one of those things children seem inexorably drawn to try, yet inevitably get in trouble for. The premise for this event was to make space for children to do something slightly dangerous and usually forbidden. In partnership with drag performer Mimianah, I conceived of a way for 9-year-olds to give haircuts without first being trained in salons, and where failure to follow adult rules would be celebrated. They would wear wigs.
Supplied only with the wigs, scissors and clips to keep their own hair safely tied up inside the wig cap, six 9-year-olds were let loose to give and receive haircuts. Without any prompting, they all respected the wishes of the recipient of the haircut, and tried to give them a cut they would like. Of course they didn’t all succeed, but the stakes were low, so failure was laughed off. Some of them opted for edgy, asymmetrical, short looks, while others wanted their hair to look pretty. Nobody lost an eye. No bandages were needed. The kids were alright. After their haircuts were done, the participants modeled their looks in front of a selfie wall, then practiced doing spectacular falls on a red carpet / slip ‘n slide. Parents were sent a gossip magazine style layout of fashion mishaps.
Food Fight
The next experiment with forbidden play focused on giving kids the freedom to make a terrible, terrible mess. The event started with 2 hours of throwing darts at a balloon wall with unlimited turns. Apparently kids will line up to do this for as long as the balloons last, then beg for more. Once again, no blood was lost. Then a couple of tables full of cream pies were set up, and they were invited to form teams and throw pies at each other. It lasted under 20 seconds, but the screaming was epic and they succeeded in making a terrible mess.
Murder Room Mural
When I asked some kids what they’d most like to do that they’re not allowed to do, the most popular request was graffiti. Graffiti is tricky, because in most cases it would be illegal or might have to be removed at the whim of neighbours, but if done indoors where it could become a more permanent installation, it would be toxic. I wanted the tantalizing pull of danger without it actually leading to arrests or trips to the hospital.
With collaborators Julian Pivato and Adrian Berry, we concocted a plan to mix acrylic inks in spray bottles to make non-toxic spray paint, and designed a series of exercises to open up slightly older kids (11-12) to making art on a large scale. The event started with designing graffiti tags on paper with markers, then progressed to drawing on hats. For the main event, the participants donned hazmat suits, plastic booties, shower caps and nitrile gloves, then were let loose on a couple of walls with a selection of spray bottles of ink, plus a box of acrylic pants and brushes. The rest of the room was covered in sheets of plastic. The only rule was “don’t spray anyone in the face” and it was broken.
The most popular hat design featured a knife dripping with blood and prone, bloody stick figures. Whether it was a recent viewing of The Shining or the fact that the plastic-covered room and PPE getups resembled a scene from Dexter, the direction the kids took the mural leaned distinctly toward a murder room theme (though one kid painted cute outfits on the dead bodies). While this event did have a bloody end, it was just paint.
