A Meadow is a NeighbouRhood
Created by Play Where You live & Yarrow Collective
commissioned by Ottawa Children's Festival
The Department of Meadow Re-buildification needs you!
A Meadow is a Neighbourhood is a participatory performance that invites young people to imagine and care for native plant landscapes that they have never seen. Through poetic invitations, wild games, and getting your hands dirty, we will explore, imagine, and plant micro-meadows where future generations of pollinators can thrive.
Showings
May 3, 2025
May 9 - 13, 2025
Lansdowne Park, The Great Lawn, Ottawa
10 - 3pm (showtimes vary) - 30 mins
Recommended for Kids Ages 4 - 9, Grades K - 3
Free admission with a ticket to any Festival show.
May 31, 2025
11-3pm
Polaris School, 1805 de Gaspe Ave. Ottawa
Meadow Planting, featuring performances by Youth Collaborators
We're like connecting with community partners.
Please reach out and say hello.
cReative Team
Creators and Producers: Laurel Green, Emily Pearlman
Performer and Design Collaborator: Maryse Fernandes
Installation Design: Will Somers
Bee Dreams Composition and Sound Design: Emily Marie Seguin
Native Plant Illustrations: Sophie Fuldauer
Activators: Laurel Green, Maryse Fernandes, Emily Pearlman
Resident Gardeners: Christina Keyes - Cardinal Glen Ecological Landscaping, Tara Beauchamp - Garden ReLeaf, Eryn Harding - Echo Native Plants
Youth Collaborators: Orlaith G, Clara G, Llewyn G, Lilly H, Redding M, Oskar R
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Special Thanks: Sammie Gough, Micéal Gallagher, Lee Cookson, Polaris School and Centre, Lynn Armstrong, Carol MacLeod, Josh Pearlman, Jane Ellens, Dan Pearlman. ​
with support from:
Audience Access Guide
Designed for Meadow Builders of all ages, the Ottawa Children’s Festival performance is recommended for kids ages 4 to 9, or Grades K to 3.
This is a four part experience, that ranges in length between 15 - 30 minutes.
Participants will be asked to:
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Stand in close proximity to one another in a tent.
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Respond to questions asked in English.
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Move their bodies into shapes.
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Play Wild Games including options to run, jump, and lie on the grass.
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Navigate outdoor terrain between three performance spaces which are close together on grass and pavement.
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Listen to a soundscape while sitting still and being quiet for around 3 minutes.
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Get your hands dirty and use fine motor skills to plant seeds in clay.
When you arrive at the performance, you will be checked in by a member of our team. At that time, if you have any access requirements you’d like to discuss we can recommend possible adaptations to support your participation.
How to PARticipate
We invite you to become a (very official) certified Meadow Builder with the Department of Meadow Rebuildification.
Meet the Plants
Our star plants native to Ontario. They are excellent friends to have in your neighbourhood, and serve an important function in sustainable horticulture. The most important step to support your native pollinators is including native plants in your garden.
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act like a meadow
Wild Games allow participants to identify with plants and pollinators through embodiment, visual, and auditory cues. At the performance, we will play custom-designed games like “Ready, Set, POLLINATE!” and “Native Plant vs. Mower”. Co-created with our Youth Ensemble, these games blend facts with fun.
LISTEN to the pollinators
Using our highly technical ear magnifiers, we can hear the tunnel bees as they sleep underground. Listen to what they are dreaming about, and what a meadow means to them.
A note from Emily Marie Seguin, Bee Dreams Composition & Sound Design: What do bees dream of? I imagine they dream of an uninterrupted life - of a gentle breeze, pollen-filled flowers and warm, safe burrows. This piece is inspired from a moment in time spent with my mother. We sat under tall lilac trees. We watched the ground bees emerge from their tiny homes in the ground in search of sweet-scented flowers - the globs of pollen on their legs was glowing in the sun - like little day-time fireflies. The inspiration for this soundscape comes from that place - earthy grounding sounds and floating notes that connect the land and sky (as ground bees do). Bees are musicians. They communicate with the world through vibrations. I carry a harmonica that is tuned to the key of C, which is in the same key as the ‘buzzing’ of most bees. This harmonious coincidence inspired the use of the harmonica. Other instruments featured in this soundscape are the hand drum, rain sticks, shakers,bells, various natural elements (like birch bark, sticks and stones) and live sound capture.
build a mini meadow
Make a perfectly imperfect mini meadow, mashed together out of seeds and soil, with your own two hands.
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RESOURCES & ACTION
We acknowledge that A Meadow is a Neighbourhood is created and performed on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg peoples. We honour these caretakers past, present, and future. The loss of pollinator habitat in our region is a direct result of colonization, and we commit to learning from those who are healing the land, and seek right relations - interconnectedness, respect, and reciprocity - in an ecosystem where humans are only one part.
You can learn more about the land we are on and the many territories, languages, and treaties that it comprises at Native-Land.ca
At Lansdowne Park, we recommend a visit to the Ethnobotanical Garden, which features plants of ceremonial, medicinal or practical use to Algonquins, and the Heirloom Tree Garden.
As many members of our creative team live as uninvited visitors on this land, and we are making a performance that engages with Indigenous plants and pollinators, Play Where You Live and Yarrow Collective have made a donation to Ginawaydaganuc Village, an Indigenous-led not-for-profit dedicated to creating an eco-sensitive educational and tourist center that is rooted in cultural heritage and guided by self-sufficiency, sustainability, and community empowerment.
Resources
Native Plant Advocacy in Ontario from both Indigenous and settler-led sources:
Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library
KN Regeneration Stewards - About
Fletcher Wildlife Garden – OFNC
We continue to grow this list of resources, please contact us with your suggestions.
Meet the ARtists
Emily Pearlman - creator & producer
Company Director of Play Where You Live, an ad-hoc organization which creates live experiences that bring together people of all ages and develops their relationship to place and each other. Emily has directed site specific new work in the Ottawa River, corralled young people to make landscape theatre in conservation sites, and paired teenagers with seniors to do covert native plant rescues on housing development sites. She teaches theatre at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University.
laurel Green- creator & producer
A nationally recognized dramaturg and creative producer, Laurel designs invitations to participate and provocations for change; from world premiere plays to gameful performances, technology-enhanced installations, and secret backyard shows. She co-founded Yarrow Collective to create immersive gardening experiences that invite urban humans to play a role in building an ecosystem, shifting gardening from expert labour to a shared creative act. An artist and scholar, Laurel is currently earning her Ph.D in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University in Tkaronto/Toronto.
Maryse Fernandes - performer & Design collaborator
An Ottawa based actor and theatre creator, Maryse has performed with The Great Canadian Theatre Company, A Company of Fools, Odyssey Theatre, NAC English Theatre, and many more. Her solo piece “Happy to Be Here” debuted at the 2018 Fresh Meat Festival and was featured at the 2019 Undercurrents Festival Showcase. Both a graduate of Canterbury HS and a drop-out of The National Theatre School of Canada, Maryse now finds joy coaching young actors and being 1/3 of Ottawa's award-winning physical theatre company, Aplombusrhombus.
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Emily Marie Seguin - Bee Dreams Composition & Sound Design
Emily is an interdisciplinary artist, musician and theatre creator. They are a queer Franco-Ontarienne artist of mixed settler and Anishinabe heritage (Mattawa, ON) who was born and raised on unceded Anishinabe territory, also known as “Ottawa”. They create works inspired by the Land, with a focus on Insect and Plant beings, as well as our responsibilities and duty of care towards the Land, each other, and ourselves. They are overjoyed to contribute to this project and are grateful for the opportunity to dream with the bees! They are currently on tour for ‘G’zaagiin MaleÅ„ki Je te promets une forêt’ by Voyageurs Immobiles cie. de création. They can be reached at emilymarieseguin@gmail.com.
Will Somers - installation design
Bio to come.
the depaRtment of MEADOW RE-BUILDIFICATION
youth COLLABORATORS
A Meadow is a Neighbourhood
A Meadow is a Neighbourhood
A Meadow is a Neighbourhood
A Meadow is a Neighbourhood
We're proud to collaborate with local youth from Play Where You Live drama programming. This imaginative group, ages 6 - 14, helped in the creation of this show including making games, testing seed ball recipes, and activating the performance at community festivals.
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Clara G - Hi I’m Clara and I have previously acted as a witch in outdoor Macbeth. I think dogs are better than cats and love DnD.
Orlaith G - Hi I’m Orlaith. I’m nine years old and use she/her pronouns. I love acting and have been in six plays. I also love Luna Lovegood, magic, art, my teacher Miss Kinch, video games and singing.
Lilly H - Hi my name is Lilliana. I love bunnies and travelling but especially I love doing drama and camps. I was also in the Nightingale play at Earth Fest last year.
Oskar R - Hello my name is Oskar and I like animals and my favorite colour is blue. I also love sports and have two cats, Herry and Winston
Redding M - I am Redding and I am nine years old and in grade 3. I play the piano and have been in three plays.​
GalleRy
Photos of process and performance!