| The secret to The Wiggles' success
When Macquarie University early childhood lecturer Dr Kathleen Warren first saw her former students perform, she wrote to them telling them that if their show had have been an assignment, they would have got an A+++. The Wiggles These former students were Anthony, Greg and Murray - who along with Jeff make up The Wiggles - and Warren now works with them regularly as their early childhood adviser. Warren taught the famous three when they were early childhood students at Macquarie University. She says that even then they displayed a keen interest in music and the arts, writing a number of children's songs for their university music projects. While she followed their growing success with much interest (they have now been going strong for 11 years), it wasn't until 1996 that she first saw them perform as The Wiggles, when she took her grandson to one of their shows. "After the show I went to see them and Anthony asked me if I still ran early childhood workshops, which I did," she says. "At that time they were putting together their Dorothy the Dinosaur show which features dancers and actors with no early childhood backgrounds. They asked me to run a workshop to give the performers some insight." Warren, now retired from Macquarie University, has an international reputation in teaching and researching drama for young children. Now The Wiggles' early childhood adviser, she consults on scripts, books and stories whenever they call on her Dr Kathleen Warren "Recently I worked with Anthony on the script of their Space Dancing video to make it more early childhood friendly - talking to the children and involving them in the story a bit more," she says. Incidentally, Warren plays the little old lady in the video. Asked what the secret to The Wiggles' success is, Warren says simply that what they do is developmentally appropriate. "The Wiggles always try to see things from the child's perspective. They have an understanding of children's development, due to their early childhood education backgrounds, and recognise that their main audience is aged six and under. "It seems such a simple thing but it is more than just their simplicity. They are coming from where the children are at, and are very careful about knowing where the children are at developmentally," she explains. The Wiggles phenomenon has grown to such an extent that they have recently franchised with Disney Asia and there are now four Taiwanese Wiggles, with a Japanese Wiggles soon to come. Warren went to Taiwan to run some early childhood workshops with the Taiwanese Wiggles, who will dress exactly the same as their Australian creators and sing the same songs - only translated into Mandarin. "They are very careful with the franchising to make sure that everything remains exactly the same because that's what has made them different (from other performers). Only the language will change," she says. "Children respond to music at a very young age. The Wiggles' simple, bouncy and energetic style has been a huge success with children. They have proven that very young children are a viable audience," she adds. |
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