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Puppet Portal Hospital C Day 9 | Puppet Portal Project Hospital C
2009-06-18
Puppet Portal Hospital C Day 9
Today we experimented with Hopsital A on co-producing a puppet show. This took a little planning between both artists beforehand and then we tested it in our workshops. I introduced the idea to my workshop participants and they choose to set their part of the story at the North Pole. We linked up on-line with participants from the other hospital, did introductions, told them our choice, advised them on theirs (South Pole;penguins, seals etc) and then negotiated at what time our stories would be set - Morning or Evening.
We had the advantage of having puppets prepared quickly that morning and the day before that were chosen to participate in the story. This afforded us time to develop a solid storyline as a group - finally getting the time to storyboard hooray! The preliminary brainstorm was paced by handing Moonwalker (travelling puppet from previous day) back and forth - only the person that held him spoke so everyone got a turn.
Following this, we made props to suit the story and a landscape for our theatre. Thanks to the storyboard, I could facilitate continuous discussion on the story and we managed a wonderful rehearsal before it was time to watch the performance by the participants in the other hospital. Unfortunately, when they finished performing they had to go for lunch. Anyway, one of our remaining pair felt the rehearsal had been enough for him and left to rest for a while. Thankfully, we recorded it and in the afternoon we added titles. To re-energise during the day, one little boy played I Spy and Simon Says with his puppet and those of three adults in the classroom at the time.
We also enticed more staff members to have their photo taken for our `Staff Puppet` Project. The same little boy worked on creating a puppet based on one of the nurses. When one nurse commented `Don`t make me Fat` (all nurses think they are fat apparently despite being gorgeous) he said he`d make her as a big fat strawberry.
Both this comment and the experience of playing games demonstrated a definite relish in this child to have some control over the puppets of adults. This has occurred at several other times in the project and I feel it reflects a healthy interest in children to facilitate/direct the experience of others - especially those who normally have so much influence on their own lives and comfort.
One interesting feature of our workshop was the return of a participant who had attended two weeks previous during his stay at hospital. He had been readmitted the night before as a pre-cautionary measure with complaints of severe headache. He turned up at the classroom door at 9.05am and got stuck straight in to a Space Dog and Fire Rocket. During the morning his scans all returned as normal and he was sent home - both his parents and nurses wondered afterwards if the `cause` was the puppet workshop on Wednesday mornings!!
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