The students were rehearsing for a Southern Stars 2015 performance segment, which will take place later this month at the Wollongong Entertainment Centre.

Four hundred and sixteen children, carefully arranged in their own spots, were aligned to recreate a painting made especially for Southern Stars by Indigenous artist Troy Lenihan.

‘‘Every child has been plotted and they will have a specific place to stand when they come on to the arena stage,’’ said Southern Stars 2015 Beyond The Frame executive producer and segment choreographer Ian Millard.

‘‘I’ve been Googling and YouTubing and to my knowledge  I don’t think this has ever been done before on the planet, so it will be quite exciting if we can pull it off.

‘‘Mr Lenihan uses concentric circles of dots to express his view of the land and we are also going to express these concentric circles with the children, in clockwise and anti-clockwise movements, so not only are we reproducing the painting we are actually going to make it come to life.’’

The Southern Stars Mass Choir, Koori dance ensemble and Southern Stars Performing Company Dancers make the dot formation while singing Gathu Mawula written by artists Gurrumul and Blue King Brown.

The song is about connections to the land, the soul and to family.

Mr Lenihan’s art depicts the Illawarra landscape from the coastline to the escarpment.

‘‘There are Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in this segment and it shows their connections to each other and to their homeland,’’ Mr Millard said.

The show will be performed  at the WIN Entertainment Centre on Friday, August 28 (10am and 7pm) and Saturday August 29 (2pm and 7pm). Tickets are available from Ticketmaster.