| Energetic Wiggles capture young minds
By NANCY COOK-SENN SNS Staff Writer February 17, 2003 Aussie sensations The Wiggles have come to America and captured the enthusiasm of our youngest generation. Now they're going local with a concert set for 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 13, at Oklahoma City's Civic Center Music Hall. For those of you who haven't heard this latest entertainment explosion, The Wiggles are four cheerful young mates in bright skivvies (Aussie for T-shirt) who sing and dance to happy pop beats laced with touches of country or jazz. Young fans through age 8 have found them on Disney, and previously Fox, television and now have Wiggles' audio and video releases of "Wiggly, Wiggly World!" The wiggly world is energetic, but not quite the peripatetic frenzy one might fear from the rage of the kiddie set. "Wiggly, Wiggly World!" features lilting favorites "In The Big Red Car We Like to Ride," "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" and "I Love to Have a Dance With Dorothy" -- all celebrating the adventures of everyday life, dreams of faraway places and happy times with friends. Included in the collection are special guests from several cultures of the southern hemisphere. Christine Anu sings a song in the Miriam Mir language from the Torres Strait Islands about fun on the reef. Atsuko Arai performs a traditional Japanese song about springtime. Aboriginal balladeer Jimmy Little is train engineer and lead singer for the lovely "Morningtown Ride" lullaby (my favorite). Aussie star (I kid you not) Slim Dusty brings country flavor. And Rolf Harris sings "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" as fun exercise in Aussie terms (without the tragic motif). Also appearing on the video are Wags the dog, Henry the dancing octopus, Dorothy the (slightly annoying) dinosaur and Captain Feathersword, a bumbling but harmless pirate (tolerable in smallish doses) -- all tops with young fans. Most melodic and most irrepressibly sunny are the video's stars, The Wiggles themselves -- Anthony Field (Blue Wiggle), Murray Cook (Red Wiggle), Greg Page (Yellow Wiggle) and Jeff Fatt (Purple Wiggle). Anthony, Murray and Greg became mates while taping a music project for a class in early childhood education at Macquarie University in Sydney. They began performing as The Wiggles as they began their careers as teachers and later added Jeff from the rock group the Cockroaches. Key to their success is their enthusiasm, direct friendliness, and their understanding of what's fun for little ones -- happy times, pleasant tunes, nonsense sounds and situations and, of course, lots of wiggles. |