ABSTRACT
Playworlds were introduced by the authors in Chapter 5. The playworld that we will discuss in this chapter, The Princess and the Basement Troll in the Shark’s Ocean, fits under the broad description of playworlds, in that it is a combination of adult forms of creative imagination (art, science, etc.), requiring extensive experience, with children’s forms of creative imagination (play), which require the embodiment of ideas and emotions in the material world. It also fits within the subcategory of the type of playworld that Lindqvist designed, in that it is children and adults bringing to life a piece of children’s literature through scripted and improvisational acting, costume and set design, and multimodal rehearsal and reflection. The playworld of the Princess and the Basement Troll in the Shark’s Ocean developed within the context of a research project that took place in three Reggio Emilia-inspired Swedish early childhood settings over the course of two years, with a focus on one group (classroom) of 3-year-old children. Lindqvist (1995) praised Reggio Emilia pedagogy while criticizing it for its lack of emphasis on play and narrative aesthetics, and it is this critique that inspired the studies of this research project.
