The sum is greater than the parts—that’s the magic of EnviroSongsters. Just ask the Songsters.
“We’re kindred spirits. When we get together and share and bounce ideas around, there’s a kind of synergy,” says Remy Rodden of himself and Peter Lenton, two solo children’s performers who started playing together years ago as EnviroSongsters, a family performance supergroup that also plays in school classrooms.
It’s a niche the pair fell into in sort of the same way they ended up writing songs together after years of running into each other on the festival circuit.
“We both have a very strong passion for trying to share environmental literacy in youth,” says Lenton. “We’re always trying to find ways to use music as a universal language to reach students.”
Kids have different learning styles, he says. Through their work with EnviroSongsters (and Rodden’s experience as a teacher in Beaver Creek), Lenton says they’ve seen how music can change the learning experience for kids.
“You can go into a room where kids are not picking up science or social studies through western traditional processes, but when you write a song with the kids and know the curriculum, you can guide the brainstorming to help them craft lyrics tied to what they’re doing in the [class]room.”
On June 8, Lenton and Rodden are bringing that brand of music out of the classroom and up to the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) as part of the Midnight Sun Moppets Children’s Festival.
EnviroSongsters is one of many perfomances and activities on the bill at the annual event, which includes art-making workshops with Leslie Leong, whose workshop will focus on making a flock of swans to fly in the parade that takes place at noon, and Rhoda Merkel, who will teach participants to make beaded paintings.
Parks Canada will have an activity table and the Yukon Literacy Bus also will be present. There will be tie-dying, sunflower planting and the ever-popular construction (and eventual destruction) of a cardboard castle. Klonbite Food Truck will sell snacks for anyone who’s hungry.
The event also features returning festival favourite, Vancouver-based carnival band, Tiny Islands.
“This is my third time coming up,” says band member, Tim Sars. “It’s always a riot.”
Tiny Islands will perform at 10:30 a.m. in the theatre at YAC, then spend the rest of the day roaming the grounds, playing and interacting with attendees.
Usually, Sars says, the band is a trio, with drums and a tuba, and Sars on a megaphone, calling attention to the performance and initiating little dance parties everywhere the band goes. This year though, there will be a fourth member—Sars’ brother.
“He’s a trumpet player and actor and his acting skills have made our kids shows really, really fun,” says Sars, who teaches music enrichment in B.C. and who, like Rodden and Lenton, says his work in the classroom and on the stage influence each other. “He’s very physical and he’s into taking risks. He really elevates the show.”
Attendees of the Tiny Islands theatre show can expect an interactive experience, where the band regularly breaks the fourth wall and dances with audience members.
This year’s festival runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Yukon Arts Centre. Everything is free with the exception of theatre performances, which are $5 each. EnviroSongsters play in the theatre at 1:30 p.m.
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