How to practice the theatre of the puppets to favour the social inclusion of disadvantaged adults?
The CC – Create a puppet, Create Yourself workshop was held in Glasgow (United Kingdom) from the 5th to 8th December 2017.
Four days of training involving 21 operators who learned the techniques to create and animate puppets made of paper and strings.
The goal of the workshop was to develop, test and disseminate an innovative method based on the creative approach to adult education, through the creation of puppets and small theatrical performances that can be useful to increase self-esteem and communication skills of disadvantaged adults by supporting them in acquiring new social and civic skills.
The choice of theatre and the art of creating puppets was made on the basis of the long experience of Teatr Grodzki, who has already experience in the use of this specific artistic form in the education and therapy of people with mental and physical disabilities.
In Scotland, Teatr Grodzki presented its approach with the use of the art of puppetry and visual narration in adult education to the other partners during a training that excited the participants who made their puppets and put in scene in groups of 4 people 4 stories elaborated during the workshop.
Glasgow was also an opportunity to visit the Citizen Theatre, partner in the project and one of the UK’s leading community theatre. On Friday 8th December all the participants had the pleasure of attending the staging of the show Cinderella, currently on stage at the Citizen Theatre.
In the coming months, to achieve the set objectives, the project partners aim to:
- create a platform that will collect good practices and will be useful to share and exchange teaching experiences throughout the project;
- on the basis of training experiences further tested and confirmed during the workshops in each country, the partners will jointly develop the methodological guidelines for the use of puppet theatre in adult education and social inclusion programmes;
- draw up a summary of five different teaching processes in 8 languages and their tangible results on the basis of methodological guidelines;
- promotional events will be organized during the final phases of the project in all partner countries.
Next project meeting will take place in Palermo from the 5th to the 8th June 2018.
About Create a Puppet, Create Yourself
CC – Create a puppet, Create Yourself has a duration of 24 months and is funded by the Erasmus + Programme, KA2 Strategic partnerships in the field of adult education.
The project involves five partners:
- Coordinator: Bielskie Stowarzyszenie Artystyczne Teatr Grodzki (Poland);
- Citizen Theatre (United Kingdom);
- Know and Can (Bulgaria);
- Youth Center Babilonas (Lithuania);
- Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo “Danilo Dolci” (Italy).
For further information contact Dario Ferrante – project coordinator for the Centre for Creative Development “Danilo Dolci”, dario.ferrante@danilodolci.org.