And now… – Puppetry Training Course
The Multi-Active Art Group – Fabrica Athens and Mostar Friedensprojekt completed the first Puppetry Training Course for Youth Professionals.
The Youth Workers exchange took place in Berlin and Athens, with intensive workshops and the presentation of a puppet show at the Fabrica Theater Stage.
Eggert Hardten, founder of Mostar Friedensprojekt and an experienced Youth Worker, shares his experience in the program.
And now… Puppet Theater!
It all started, in September 2019 in a meeting with Silvana (stage and puppet maker, program trainer) and Elettra (translator, program coordinator) in the garden of the Fabrica Artspace in Athens. We are talking about puppetry, puppetry, fairy tales, youth exchanges. At one point, Silvana picks up some rubbish from the ground and a bottle and creates a doll out of nowhere. Unbelievable, it immediately interests us!
And now με let’s go quickly to February 2020
The team of Fabrica Athens, with 6 Greek Youth Workers and artists is visiting our Organization, Mostar Friedensprojekt (and how the Friedensprojekt is pronounced) in Berlin. We started with a walk – a tour of sites associated with fairy tales, which ended at the Neukölln Puppet Museum.
Then we started building our workshop at the Theaterhaus in Wallstrasse. Every day we worked together, telling stories to each other, doing exercises and creating dolls. The little dolls somehow, magically, emerge from our hands, although none of us except Silvana has experience in this. We create them from bottles, toilet and kitchen paper, paper tape, fabric and a LOT of silicone!
We visited the School of Contemporary Puppetry of the Ernst Busch Academy, where we attended three performances by aspiring puppet-puppetry students. We have learned that “less is more”, which seems to be the motto of our time. Accuracy counts, innovation can be found even in a tall projector or in a really slow motion.
And now… back to our puppets!
After six working days, they live and experiment with us, but also with each other. Here is Shahmaran the creature with the double characteristics and the awesome mother of Hecabe. With them is Pirimpimpim the narrator and the spirit of the forest the Grandmother. Then there are the badger and the raccoon, a migratory wolf and June the goose. There is also the theatrically sad Princess and the little Prince of Saint-Exupery, Argie and the famous joker Backpack.
It is amazing how the visits evoked extremely different ideas for each participant’s dolls. We have dolls made of fabric and wood, dolls that are played with the fingers, those that have half body, hand, rigid and a puppet. They all have their own character, which is already worryingly “violating” the character of their puppet players.
While Elettra walks around with her doll, Pirimpimpim, and dreams of the script, the rest of us, in the last hours before the completion of our first exchange, work hard around the silicone pistol. And then a morning performance at the Charlottenburg Theater with the play “Peter and the Wolf” reminds us of our audience, that is, the children and the child within us.
And now… Six days later on the stage, Fabrica Theater Stage.
There we are with our dolls and with the script ready for the first reading. Elettra managed to do the miracle and incorporated all the characters into one project, which takes us to a distant land and the nearby forest of animals.
We start with a dry reading on the black stage of the theater. Then the scene emerges. Large slabs of daow, knives, paints and where the castle stands. But other needs arise: three cardboard trees need to hide five people, so we learn to “disappear” behind our puppet, while we are fully exposed to the public – we feel embarrassed. Will it be believed?
To find out, we will visit the Puppet Theater in Patissia, where Takis and Mina Sarri present their puppet shows from 1978. Together with their daughter, they give us a private performance of Pinocchio in a modern interpretation of the same of Takis. The spectacle is wonderful and again, we become children too. Some of us are crying. Then the puppet hosts discuss in detail with us about our dolls. One of them – the raccoon – even causes jealousy in the professional puppeteer. Another – Backpack the jester – a whole doll from a single bottle, with a backpack – leaves them somewhat puzzled. How to direct it? The Backpack puppet player is not surprised at all. Puppet players enjoy the double-faced princess from rolls of paper. They dedicate time and thought to each of our creations, help with good advice and in a way convey their magical touch. In the end, our wolf cooperates with the wolf of Takis, in a battle of good and evil. They give us the three basic rules.
Never move for no reason, find nice moves to express the doll’s life even when it is just standing.
Move, stop, speak separately. Pause.
Become the shadow of your doll.
In the workshop of Stathis Markopoulos we understood the opening that a doll can create and how people have always wanted and tried to give soul to objects. This was complemented by our visit to the MaryBu puppet museum, where we made a beautiful journey through the eyes of the puppeteer and her friend, Michael Meschke. A journey worth doing for everyone.
And now… the show
Fabrica Athens has an undefeated professional tactic. The poster was designed before the exchange, the date of the show was set early and it was spread on the internet. But again… it starts at 11 a.m.! Sunday morning – who will come to such a show? Six days later we stand nervously between the scenes, waiting for our audience. Then the room fills up, we are sold out. Let the show begin… Photos…
Puppetry as a method of non-formal learning was the goal of our exchange. We learned how to make the most of the sea of great, living traditions of puppetry in Germany and Greece. This made us feel respected and humbled. We saw students with many years of experience and met puppet players with decades of experience. But their joy in their art was the same. On the other hand, we on our part did the whole way: from the idea, to its realization with our hands, the scenery, the choreography, the work and our dolls to seize the moment and really come to life. The seriousness and concentration of the participants was great, as well as the creativity and craftsmanship treatment for the soul. We put life into things and our dolls gave us back their love. A very emotional process that we want to share.
And now Youth the Youth Exchanges…
