The Project
The right time
Exploring Time in Performing Arts for Early Childhood
The Right Time – Exploring Time in Performing Arts for Early Childhood is a European Cooperation Project Large Scale supported by Creative Europe that will run from January 2026 to January 2030.
The project, coordinated by La Baracca ONLUS, involves 14 partners from 13 different European countries.
The Right Time is especially dedicated to children aged 0 to 6 along with their caregivers, including parents, teachers, and educators. The project is also addressed to performers, artists, cultural workers, and researchers working in Performing Arts for young audiences.
Despite their long history, Performing Arts for Early Childhood remains an emerging field in the global cultural landscape. The project addresses this underrepresentation by placing Early Childhood at the centre of artistic creation.
A central pillar of The Right Time is the recognition of children as full cultural citizens of today, not merely future adults.
The project is dedicated to the concept of Time as a key dimension in the relationship between Early Childhood and the Performing Arts. In the project, time is understood not only as a chronological dimension, but also as a developmental, relational, emotional, and artistic one, in particular for the Early Years.
Children aged 0-6 years perceive time in a fluid, non-linear way. Their attention expands and contracts, guided by curiosity, wonder and emotional resonance.
The project investigates the meaning of Time through four interconnected perspectives that correspond to the activities that will be carried out during the four years:
• Time to create
The first two years of the project will be dedicated to a co-creation process involving 12 partners working in pairs to create 12 new productions. The co-creation will happen during two 6-days artistic residences for each partner in each pair (once as a host, once as a guest). After the première, the new shows will be engaged in mini-tours, each hosted by a third partner, with a focus on areas and contexts with limited access to arts and culture for Early Childhood.
• Time to share
During the four years of the project, a total of 26 editions of International Festivals will be hosted by the partners. Festivals will showcase performances (including the new co-creations), seminars, training workshops, and networking events, as well as foster exchanges and meetings between artists, families and schools.
• In search of a common time
The project will be the platform for a long-term interdisciplinary research combining theatre studies, philosophy, sociology, pedagogy and cognitive development approach.
Three researchers will carry out investigations focused on Time in relation with Performing Arts for Early Childhood: how very young children perceive Time, what role Time plays on stage, what happens in the shared Time of a performance for children, artists and adult carers in the audience.
• Time travellers
Several groups of children will be directly involved in an experimental project that will follow their developmental, relational and aesthetic evolution over time. The goal is to observe how children evolve, both individually and as a group, how their engagement with artistic experiences develops over time, and how the bonds of care and closeness change.
Partners
The background for The Right Time lies in the experience and mutual trust developed within the partnership, based on strong results from past collaborations.
The partnership is composed by 14 partners from 13 European countries
LA BARACCA
coordinator
Italy
ART FRACTION FOUNDATION
Poland
ARTIKA THEATRE COMPANY
Greece
ASSITEJ CYPRUS
Cyprus
deStilte
Netherlands
HELIOS THEATER
Germany
Teatrul Ion Creangă
Romania
Kopla Bunz
Luxembourg
Théâtre de la Guimbarde
Belgium
laSala/elPetit
Spain
Theatre Madam Bach
Denmark
neimënster
Luxembourg
• Teater Tr3
Sweden
Toihaus Theater
Austria
RESEARCHERS
Pawel Galkowsky
Doctor of philosophy, culture expert, researcher of culture, project coordinator. Board member of the Small Size Network and Initiator of the Small Size Research Hub. Two-time Scholar of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in Poland (2021, 2026). Current scholarship is focused on the accessibility of international cultural institutions for families with young children, evaluating their readiness to welcome the youngest audiences. Lead researcher for the project “Children as Agents and Early Years Theatre” (2022-2024).
Katherine Morley
Associate researcher at the University of Manchester, UK and researcher in residence at Theatre Royal Bath. Her recent research focus of relative silence and relative stillness within spectatorship for TEY, was supported by AHRC and received a President’s Doctoral award. Katherine recently contributed to Mapping Research: A map on the aesthetics of performing arts for early years, 2023. She also works internationally as a creative learning consultant and has recently joined the board of ITYARN.
Michał Wendland
Philosopher, professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, since 2008 he has been working at the Faculty of Philosophy of AMU in the Department of Political Philosophy and Social Communication. He was participating in: 21st ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival 2024 (Havana, Cuba); Encuentro Internacional de Artes Escénicas para los Primeros Años: Infancia, Territorio de Paz (lectures in Mexico City, Tijuana, Xalapa); 15th Theatre Art Research Forum for Children and Youth (Subotica, Serbia). Co-author of the report Children as Agents in Early Years Theatre Practice (ASSITEJ, Building Collective Resilience).
