One of the most memorable moments from our Festival of Small Halls adventure happened when we were driving through Bulli in NSW and JD spotted an old box on the front lawn of a house that was clearly being chucked out for council pickup day. It was full of trophies! JD jumped out of the car to grab a trophy, and in our excitement, Cara and I yelled at him to grab the whole box.
So this box of dusty trophies was hurled into the tour van and we started rifling through them. There were trophies for all sorts of things in there. Over the course of the next 10 shows we would grab a few trophies out each night and shine them up backstage and at the end of every show we would proudly present trophies to folks in the halls.
We gave trophies out for all sorts of achievements, like the best dancers, the yummiest cake bakers, the audience members who drove the farthest to get to the show and even a trophy presented to a man with the best arm tattoos. I will never forget the look on one little boy’s face when we presented him with a trophy for his dancing. He was holding onto the plastic trophy like it was pure gold!
– Claire Anne Taylor
