Whoosh!

WHOOSH! is an immersive work that puts children with disabilities at the centre of action. Kids board a stunning custom-built spaceship to co-pilot an interstellar adventure.

New recruits take up their own tech stations, taste real space food, propel through hyperdrive, crash-land, and explore a strange uncharted planet. Characters and audience work as a team to repair the ship and return to Earth. This highly tailored production is suitable for children with a broad range of access needs aged 5years+, including those with multiple and complex needs and those on the autism spectrum. 

With an impressive set and pioneering use of technology, including a new digital app to deliver pre-show materials, this is Sensorium Theatre’s most ambitious production to date. 

Almost as important as the performance itself are the preparatory materials made available through Sensorium Theatre digital app which audience members are encouraged to download prior to the show for free. This is an important tool in helping children become familiar with the story, characters, songs and storytelling methods used in the performance. 

About the Company

Sensorium Theatre, established in 2010 by co-Artistic Directors Michelle Hovane and Francis Italiano, is Australia’s only company creating work for young audiences with multiple and complex disabilities and those on the autism spectrum. 

Based in Perth, Western Australia, we create performances which delight and inspire by creating high quality hands-on theatre that invites children to touch, taste, smell, hear, feel and see stories unfold around them within a specially designed immersive sensory environment. The intentionally small audiences are onstage with the artists who continually adapt their performance to connect with individual learning abilities and communication style of each child. This way, each child becomes an active participant in the storytelling experience. 

Our first production The Jub Jub Tree toured throughout Western Australia, performing in schools right around the state. We then partnered with Performing Lines WA to create Helpmann Award-nominated production Oddysea, which has toured extensively around Australia, including to the Arts Centre Melbourne, DreamBig and Awesome festivals, and to the Sydney Opera House, who hailed the 2015 season as a landmark in accessible programming. In early 2018 we finished creating and piloted new interactive space adventure Whoosh!, before touring Oddysea to Lincoln Center Education’s Big Umbrella Festival in New York and The Artground, Singapore. In addition to performing, we facilitate workshops and professional learning for artists and venues and run sensory storytelling workshops for parents and educators. 

“The company has a wonderful rapport with their audiences and meets every individual right where they are” – Peg Schuler-Armstrong, Lincoln Center Education 

Credits

Digital App

Sensorium Theatre’s new digital app is free to download and provides audience members with pre-show preparatory materials. Take a sneak peek:

Web version

iPads/iPhones (Apple Store)

Android devices (Google Play):