Free-spirited and fun-loving children’s music star Laurie Berkner is back at The Bushnell for another sensory-friendly dance party

When Laurie Berkner first burst on the scene as a singer-songwriter for children a quarter-century ago, she stood out from the rest of the pack not just because she was human (there were a lot of cartoon-based live shows in the ‘90s) but because she was playful in a way kids could really relate to.

When she played “I’m Gonna Catch You” with her band, the song would give way to a genuine hard-fought game of tag among the musicians.

She also had a distinctive look, more like indie rocker Ani DiFranco than the clean-cut Wiggles. She’s not currently wearing a nose ring — a much-commented upon accessory of hers when she was first gaining attention in the kid-music scene — and her loose, free, alternative style no longer seems out of the ordinary. But Berkner is as popular, and accessible, as ever.

On Saturday, Berkner returns to The Bushnell — where she’s played many times over the years but not for a few years due to the COVID pandemic — for two solo acoustic shows, at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

The morning show, in the venue’s Autorina Great Hall, is a special sensory-friendly performance. Sensory-friendly shows and mostly meant for children on the autism spectrum and feature lowered sound and light levels, autism specialists on hand and a designated quiet area. The audience tends to be unseated and is allowed to talk and move around freely. The afternoon show is in The Bushnell’s 900-seat Belding Theater, but Berkner notes that despite the auditorium forma, her audiences tend to all like to stand up and dance around at their seats.

Berkner says her performance style comes from studying child development when she attended Rutgers University in her native New Jersey in the late 1980s.

“Onstage, I talk about things I like to do and try not to script things. What I like about live music is that I’m able to be myself and say or do the things that seem fun.”

Berkner acted in musicals in high school and has even written some kid-friendly musicals for the New York City Children’s Theater.

“Even though I had this fantasy of being on Broadway, having to be a character is not as fun as being myself onstage,” she says.

The first time Berkner wrote a song, she recalls, “I was living in Sierra Leone with a family as an exchange student. Writing a song felt so huge, so profound.”

In her college years, she joined several different rock bands, including The Cassandras (with Patrick McGuinn, the son of The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn) and an all-female cover band called Lois Lane. “I had a boyfriend who played guitar, and he encouraged me.”

As a music fan in the ‘90s, “I was listening to a lot of Beck, Liz Phair and David Byrne,” Berkner says. “I was also really into Ali Farka Touré and other guitar-focused musicians from Mali, and also Hawaiian slack key guitar.” She’d grown up immersed in Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and The Rolling Stones.

About a year after she graduated college in 1991, she took a job as a music specialist in a school on New York City’s Upper East Side. “Then I started writing for kids. It was a very different process.”

She found that music was a way to focus the kids.

“I didn’t understand classroom management at first,” she says. “Twenty-five 3-year-olds would come into an all-purpose room with nothing in it. I would be playing piano, and the kids would just run around the room. I thought ‘How do I control this?’ So I switched to guitar.” The ability to twist, turn and even run with the instrument still serves her well today. “I had played clarinet, violin and piano growing up, but I have a real relationship with the guitar. I can do a lot of movement while I’m playing. In any case, “I never felt as comfortable playing an instrument as I did singing.”

One big change along the way is that Berkner became a mother. Her daughter is now in her late teens. “I came to this from working with kids. Having a child, I was concerned it would affect my songwriting. I’d always written from a child’s point of view, and I was worried I’d start sounding like a parent.”

She needn’t worry. Berkner’s latest album, 2021′s “Let’s Go!,” contains such kids-eye-view ditties as “What Am I Gonna Be (for Halloween),” “Time to Eat,” “It’s Hard to Be 3″ and “Take a Look at My Face,” though it does also contain songs about cold weather and the need to wash one’s hands.

Berkner spent the COVID shutdown performing daily shows on Facebook Live from her living room. This led to monthly virtual birthday concerts for kids who’d been born that month, as well as ticketed livestreams. “I would decorate the room differently for each show, with pictures of animals or whatever.”

For the last couple of years, Berkner has almost exclusively done outdoor summer shows, so a theater tour is a big return to form for her. “My audience was the last to get vaccinated. It didn’t seem like a safe choice to tell them to come to see me live.”

She’s clearly missed the personal interaction, and the playfulness, of playing live.

“When I put out that energy, it gets picked up by the audience, and when I see that, it sends the energy back to me.”

Laurie Berkner plays twice Saturday at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford: an 11 a.m. sensory-friendly show in the Autorino Great Hall ($33.50) and 3 p.m. in the Belding Theater ($33-$88). bushnell.org/shows-concerts/laurie-berkner-1.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.