The Letter from Dream Tale Puppets’ Founder

There is no one way to become or to be a puppeteer. In my native Poland, a puppeteer is usually an actor trained at a Theatre Academy in live acting, acting with a number of kinds of puppets and in other performing skills. In the United States, professional puppetry artists come from many walks of life, and various professional disciplines. They study or work as actors or fine art artists, writers or teachers; they come from the circus or the world of music; they study at universities, and they hone their skills apprenticing at professional theaters and learning from masters from all around the world. As much as there is no one form of puppetry art, there is no one way for this practice to relate to and with society and the environment. Every puppetry company creates not only its repertoire and other programming features but also chooses a business model and organizational structure, to define or find, create and develop its own place in society.

I had twenty years of study and professional theatrical and puppetry experience in Poland, but after arriving on Cape Cod in 2001, I had to find new ways to practice a puppetry. Dream Tale Puppets was founded in 2003 as a branch program of the Cape Cod Children’s Museum, one of my visa sponsors. Today John Wesley United Methodist Church in Falmouth provides us with studio, rehearsals and performing space. Friends, Laura Opie and Gail and Eric Stewart, give a home to our many puppets, sets, technical equipment, and materials for our next projects.

Dream Tale Puppets produces and performs puppet shows with the goal of providing high quality theatrical experiences to our audiences. We use diverse puppetry techniques, masks, and live acting. Each production generates its own creative process; each develops its own theatrical and visual language. In some projects, we begin by writing a play, often adapting fairy tales or children’s literature; in other projects, as in our present production, the script emerges during the rehearsals.

We also bring shows by puppetry artists from beyond the bridge and the state border to Falmouth, with the goal of giving Cape Cod children and families easy and frequent access to this wonderful art.

In cooperation with Cape Cod cultural organizations, we produce and conduct workshops and other educational and artistic projects for children and adults. Designing, building, and acting with puppets, creating puppet stages, and inventing stories, dialogs and characters offers a joyous opportunity to develop creative and social skills. Our projects can be adapted to a variety of educational, recreational and other needs and goals.

Dream Tale Puppets’ actors live on Cape Cod, in the Greater Boston Area, and in NYC. We tour, but Cape Cod is our home base; most of us live here, and we develop most of our new projects here. Each of our projects is a new adventure; we practice a variety of creative approaches, so Dream Tale Puppets takes many forms--and offers many ways to be involved. Each project has its own ensemble, which transforms and grows. Shows, which stay in our repertoire for years, are often open for new actors to join.

If you are interested in seeing more puppetry programs on the Cape, please join our emailing list. Please tell your friends about this event and upcoming programs. Check our website and follow us on social media. If you would like to be a part of developing puppetry on Cape Cod, please let us know. There are many ways to contribute, from ushering and holding box office duties, preparing venues, posting posters or information online to helping with editing texts or building puppets. If you are interested in learning acting, acting with puppets, or voice acting, let us know. We have actors in training program, and we will be happy to find a place for you. It is exciting to imagine what we could do together.

Thank you!
Jacek Zuzanski

Acting with Puppets: Workshops with Dream Tale Puppets

Dream Tale Puppets is launching an opportunity for people interested in joining our work. We started on a Monday evening, early in April, at the Puppet Showplace Theatre. Thank you PST for hosting the session!

Much of our first workshop was dedicated to fundamentals of acting and acting with table top puppets.  In Dream Tale Puppets we aspire to avoid manipulating puppets. We act with puppets. Deeds of an actor‑puppeteer are as important as the actions of a puppet. Both are usually present for the audience to see. The workshop introduces acting techniques we use in Dream Tale Puppets. We are aiming to create an opportunity for people interested in learning, practicing and maybe even mastering these techniques. The workshops will also be preparing for our upcoming projects.

 

Acting in theatre has its own rules for using the body, different from how we use our body in everyday life. In dance these rules are still further from rules of everyday behavior. Even bigger are differences between everyday life of the human body and life of the body of puppet and puppeteer. To perform on stage we learn new sets of techniques to use our arms and legs. This is as applicable to dancing and live acting as it is valid for acting when we partner with a puppet.

 

In Dream Tale Puppets’ newest production, “Alice in Wonderlands,” we are following our heroine Alice into absurd and puzzling worlds as she searches for her lost pet kitten and her identity. I am bringing to this project creative approaches and techniques from my earlier experiences. Margaret Moody is bringing her own bag of skills, experiences, and knowledge. We are developing material for the show during the rehearsals. To some extent in this project we explore how each of us could be a part of the creative process, who we are in this process, and how could we “write” the play together as we go. I use a variety of approaches and ways to create puppets. As Alice goes through changes she is reinvented with table top, rod, long neck “snake,” and figure puppets. Some puppets are built following a design; others are assembled out of found and recycled materials with no earlier specific design.

 

Immersing in a creative process where each member of the ensemble brings something distinctive and they together shape the work of art, as we do in “Alice,” is an approach I used often in my European projects and in work with youth and children. It is a new work mode for Dream Tale Puppets. In producing “Rumpelstilskin,” a show in the table top style of puppetry, we worked in a more traditional way. The text of the play was mostly ready when we started rehearsing. Five puppets were built following designs. In our last show, “Jack and the Beanstalk,” we use still another performing style where one performer acts with puppets, performing objects, and in mask while the other performer gives voices to the characters and narrates the story.

 

As artists we give life to voices, sounds and pictures inspired by the changing fast world around us. We respond to challenges and seek to reinvent ways art and theatre are practiced and shared to better serve the communities we are connected with.

 

We are inviting people interested in working together, in learning and figuring out what we could do next. Workshops help lay the groundwork for upcoming Dream Tale Puppets’ projects and productions. We will also be seeking ways to accommodate and utilize a variety of interests, talents, abilities and levels of possible involvement of actors and artists participating in our future programs.

 

Please send us an e-mail us at info@dreamtalepuppets.org if you are interested in joining upcoming workshops. Let us know about your theatrical or creative experience, attach a resume and relevant biographical information.

Jacek Zmyslowski and My Participation in His Projects

Several months ago Stefa Gardecka, my friend from Wroclaw who worked for many years at the Laboratory Theatre of Jerzy Grotowski, sent me an e-mail. She wrote about her intention to collect materials and to prepare a book about Jacek Zmyslowski, who was the artistic director of paratheatrical projects at the Laboratory in years 1976 -81. Stefa invited me to answer a few questions about Jacek and about my participation in projects led by him. I did. Later on I heard from Stefa, that Jenna Kumiega, a theatre scholar who wrote about the Laboratory Theatre, is working on the new edition of her book and asked if it would be possible to translate texts about Jacek, so she may include some parts of this material in her new work. Luckily, Stefa and her son Piotr Gardecki agreed to help, and the four of us translated my short writing into English. 

The text is about Jacek Zmyslowski, and it tells about my first paratheatrical experiences and how important these projects were for my thinking about theatre and growing as an artist.

Jacek Zmyslowski and My Participation in His Projects

My first meeting with Jacek was a formal conversation in preparation for The Vigil. The conversation probably took place in the room behind the office....or in the room above the performance space, I’m not sure. Jacek was kind, focused and inquiring. You could feel his profound attention. I remember he emphasised that my experience in pantomime was unimportant (by that time I had been active for a few years in amateur pantomime theatre in Bielsko, led by Tomaszewski's mime-artist Witold Daniec). Better that I forget about any techniques which I may have picked up. Jacek introduced me to the rules of participation. Actually, he said that my participation was expected.  It was essential that I was ready to be part of the action. I don't remember if he said much more about rules. Rather, he was leaving things very open, although he was also somehow warning against intellectualisation, attempts at rationalisation or “play-acting.” Unfortunately, anything I might write now would only be my imagined memory of this conversation.

The memories I have of my participation in the Vigils are similarly vague. I remember the moment of being led into the room for my first Vigil. There were already a few people there. A few were led in after me. Each of us was shown, by those leading, a place to crouch or squat down in the room.  When everyone was in, an air of expectation began to grow.  It started with gazes around, someone turned to look behind.  I didn't know how many were leading, and who was participating and who was leading, except for two of them (probably) including Jacek.  Slowly people began to move. Since I didn't know how many were leading, and I suspect the other participants didn’t know either, I didn't know when an action came from one of the leaders, or whether it was a reaction, or an initiative of a participant. At first the actions were simple: someone got up, took a few steps, and crouched down again, someone carefully turned around.  Attention pervaded the smallest of gestures, was present in glances, and reactions. In time the actions began to grow and gain complexity, becoming more energetic and dynamic. Chains of actions and reactions emerged, growing organically, pulsating, intertwining. Compositions arose, or were created, in which people took part in pairs, in small or large groups. There was rhythm, dance, spontaneity and dialogue. There appeared sequences of incredible energy and trance-like features in which people were “flying”, transgressing the limits of their known physical expression. In these moments, the action of the group and of each of the participants seemed to be directed by some sort of intrinsic inner power of its own, an internal, indescribably powerful, bright impulse of incredible wisdom, which meant that, swirling in those para-acrobatic dances and actions, letting ourselves be led by inner nature, no limbs were broken. There were sequences of activity of extraordinary lyrical power, quiet, delicate and radiating sensitivity. Moments occurred when a participant slipped into something sentimental.  Then those leading, becoming aware of falsity and pretension, usually let this fade away by itself, or helped in bringing it to an end, tactfully indicating its inappropriateness. These tactful and very rare instructions or suggestions were very discrete, and usually unnoticeable by those not directly involved.  These were the ways the project was led - creating, nourishing, supporting, and in dialogue through action. 

I am writing these words after nearly forty years. At that time I was a young man, eager for the world and any intense experience. Today, I have been through theatre school, training in a range of acting techniques, further paratheatrical experiences at the Laboratorium, work with Grot’s actors, workshops with Odin Teatret, Gardzienice, and a number of other theatre artists, as well as years of my own experience as an actor, teacher, acting coach, and a stage director.

The meeting with Jacek and his work was formative for me. These projects initiated me into the concept and praxis of authenticity of action, whether in daily or extra-daily life, particularly special, or theatrical. The practices and revelations, which Jacek and we participants gave ourselves and each other, remain important to me in my life, my theatre work, and my teaching.

I remember a moment from perhaps my first Vigil, when I was watching what was going on. As I remember it today, I think that in watching I was beginning to engage in some attempt at interpretation, and I began to see what was happening from the perspective of “what does it mean”. I had no notion of “what was going on”.  I "did not understand".  Watching my own “non-understanding” I decided, or some internal programming inside me decided, to react. After all I had agreed to participate.  At that time I was strongly programmed by habits associated with my understanding of acting processes, in other words the need to interpret, and locate what I was seeing in terms of “what does it mean” and an action, or rather “play-acting”, in response to the interpretation of what I was perceiving.  I saw “incomprehensive”, I interpreted “I don’t understand”, and something inside me deepened that interpretation and suggested seeing a “threat”. Because if I don’t understand, then what…. ?  My reaction was to yell. I remember that to this day, although I don't know to what extent that impression stamped on my memory is true.  Jacek was immediately next to me. In a moment he saw that I was “play-acting”, that my reaction was calculated, and I was distanced from it, that I was simultaneously the one who cried out and the one observing, but the cry was a response to my idea, and not to what was actually happening. He quickly brought me back to reality, indicated somehow that that was not the way. There was great warmth and concern on his part, some kind of care-giving, and also an ocean of trust. He acted extremely discretely, so that no-one else could judge me. I don't know to what extent I understood then what was happening, but it was one of those moments when a door to understanding the intentions of leaders, and the worlds into which they lead, was ajar.  Imagining, or acting out the reaction to an imagined threat was not what it was about. After a while I was ready to join the action. Jacek was giving support, and gently showing me the direction. His authority was the authority of a friend, a wise and caring brother, leading into an intensive group experience, full of discoveries of one’s own nature and the nature of deep creative and life processes, and the ways to summon up and shape such special experiences.

This was very rich, and I could mine other scenes or traces from the Vigil, but I'm not sure if that makes sense.  It's hard for me now to disengage from an analytical approach, difficult also to place a fragment of a remembered scene or action on a time-line.  At that time I was not that capable of analysis, neither was it expected of me.  I leapt into these projects with complete faith, and was initiated by the leaders in a transformative creative process, in which we were all both sculptor and sculpture, voice and song, choreographer and dance, which grew from actions and gestures that were, with great subtlety, expressively and inspiringly articulated.

I participated in the Vigils several times.  I also took part in Tree of People and the Mountain Project.

I remember several important moments from the Mountain Project, doubtless because it was a unique project, and happened only once.  I was walking in the group led by Mariusz Socha and a dark-haired Frenchman, Francois Kahn. Before departure, Francois acquainted the group with the rules.  He spoke in French, and for a moment consternation reigned, before a long-haired bearded guy in glasses began to translate.  At that time, I didn't realise that it was Grotowski.  Then we got into the van - why does it seem to me that it was a Ford?  And off we went.

While I was growing up I walked a lot through the mountains and forests, and have always felt good wandering along trails and through wilderness. There were many elements of this trek that were familiar to me.  At the beginning I thought: "what's going on?  They really think that walking in the forest is such a revelation?" The silence introduced a meditative element, and I'm sure that most of us must have been faced with the churning of the thinking machine in our minds, as well as thoughts continually and obtrusively attempting to interpret, to understand what it's all about.  This was going on now and again in my mind, but also the pleasure of moving through the forest and along pathless tracts was absorbing.  During the trek we were a group in name only.  I don't remember the leaders inspiring any group dynamics.  Rather by their actions they modelled ways of moving or activity in relation to what was around us.  I remember a moment when we were struggling through undergrowth.  We didn't walk in a line, one after another, which would have been natural and easier, but most of us, if not all, struggled through in our own way.  Verbal instructions were minimal, just a few words throughout the day.  There was pig-fat which Mariusz had got from the food store opposite the theatre, before our departure.  Eating pig-fat was an interesting experience.  I had never eaten anything like that before.  We didn't talk to each other.  That was the rule.  About half-way through the trek, one or two people had had enough, and backed out.  One of the techniques was very slow pacing along a dirt track after the leaders.  I was not willing to deal with that.  I was charged full of energy, and the leaders moved in a premeditated way, step by step, at snail's pace.  I resolved this by walking forwards and backwards at the end of the line.  Marek Musial, who was also in the group, had a similar "problem."  He solved it by crouching down, waiting for the group to go some distance, and after a while catching up with them and crouching down again.  The trek also had exceptionally beautiful moments.  The most beautiful moment for me was the first sight of the Mountain.  Suddenly, all that laborious struggle through undergrowth took on real meaning.  We came out of the forest onto the fields and saw the Mountain.  It arose, solitary, like a volcanic crater above the flat plain.  It was a masterful introduction of an archetypal and unusually powerful image.  The landscape suddenly began to speak with double the force.  From that moment on, what happened around me, was less essential. The most important thing became imagining the goal ahead of us.  The project  took on a dramatic  dimension.  The image of the Mountain was so overwhelming that you couldn't resist imagining some kind of mythical reality at its peak.  In the same way the trek itself took on mythical qualities.

We found Jacek in the Castle on the Mountain, together with dozens of others.  There were many elements in the activities there, which did not appear in the Vigils.  There was music, there were amazing songs; Jacek played the guitar; there were awesome drummers, a fire and magnificently prepared interiors.  The activities were in some way reminiscent of those in the Vigils, but richer in terms of rhythm and other elements.  There were also many more participants, and sometimes different waves of activity flared up in several places at the same time.  These were also interspersed with sleep or rest, especially when a new group was arriving, and when meals were arranged with care . I knew that Jacek was the leader, but his leadership was barely noticeable. Those leading worked very well as a team. On the Mountain, specific elements of creative experience intermingled closely with the communal living created there, with meals, rest and practical work.  This brought to life some quality absent in the Vigils, which only lasted a few hours.

Some years later, Grotowski distanced himself from the paratheatrical period of his work.  He did this in his characteristically definitive way. One occasion was in 1990 at a talk/meeting organised at the Film Studio in Wroclaw when he visited Poland for a few days.  He was critical both of himself and this period of the Laboratory Theatre's work.  He spoke of the superficiality of the projects, of how hard it was for participants to transcend the power of stereotypical notions of spontaneous behaviour.  I was lucky to participate in projects from the last phase of the paratheatrical work, which were powerfully transformative.  Jacek was the artistic director of the majority of the projects I took part in.  I was a boy just setting out on a path of artistic development and theatrical work.  Together with his team, Jacek showed me ways of intense and profound research and investigation, and a practical experience of creative processes through psycho-physical activities and group activities, which transgressed stereotypes of what is known, and transcended the limits of our own possibilities.

 

Jacek Zuzanski, December 2014 (trans. J. Kumiega, J. Zuzanski, S. Gardecka & P. Gardecki).

From the Archive of TEART Association - The Programme of Theatrical Actions

Before arriving in the US in 2001 from my native Poland, I was leading the theatrical Association TEART, where we produced and carried out a variety of theatrical projects. Below I am pasting the archival text written in 2000 which briefly summarizes the activities. Thank you to Michal Jezierski and MaryBall Opie for the translation.
There are some parallels between how TEART was developed and how 15 years later we are developing Dream Tale Puppets. In both cases a group of artists develops and creates unique theatrical projects, working at the same time on carving out its own place in society, gaining community support and recognition of the value of its work.
 

Of course, there are a lot of differences, but many creative approaches and methods that I developed with my actors and partners in Poland remain in my toolbox. Some of these methods and approaches we will be using and referring to in Dream Tale Puppets’ current production of “Alice’s Wonderlands”.

TEART ASSOCIATION - THE PROGRAMME OF THEATRICAL ACTIONS

 

The Association was created in Wrocław in February 1995.   It develops the activities of Jacek Zuzański's earlier Theatrical Actions Group. In the actions of TEART, theatre constitutes the axle around which the active participation-oriented undertakings revolve. Some projects focused on studying the techniques of acting, are closed to the audiences and serve to develop the creative potential of the participants. Other projects aim at realising actions open to the public. Always--whether it is a small, short project for few people, or a long, big project combining the work of several workshop groups as well as the actors from TEART, musicians and co-operating guest artists-- it is the meeting and what results from attentive being together and common creation that matter most.

After five years, we have noticed that three fields of activity of the artists associated with TEART have developed:

1. youth-addressed theatrical workshop projects;
2. international projects;
3. neglected court yards programmes combining workshops, visual actions and presentations addressed to children living in socially/ economically disadvantaged environments.

There are also projects that combine all of the fields of activity mentioned above

 

THEATRICAL WORKSHOPS

Theatrical workshops are addressed to people interested in getting to know and develop their creative potential, to those who are curious about the mysteries of the actor's work, and to those who through theatrical experience want to familiarise themselves with the methods of developing their own personality, both its deeply hidden nature and its outlet for self-expression. They can be valuable for everybody to whom working with people and being creative within the group are important.

The training in elementary acting skills constitutes the foundation. It consists of exercises on expression and co-ordination of movement, rhythm and music-based exercises, as well as those aimed at getting to know the elements of acrobatics and pantomime. Some parts of the classes concentrate on voice exercises and the clarity of enunciation, on work with a text and a song; others teach attention, introduce the principles of work with a partner and the means of working within a group. They allow for exercising concentration skills, shape sensitivity and imagination, teach how to awake the creative processes of internal life, how to handle the form of action and how to trust one's own nature.

Subsequent meetings combine training exercises with creative tasks. As the training progresses, work transforms into rehearsals that are completed by sessions shaping the skills needed for the realisation of projects, and is aimed at maintaining the correct dynamics of the group and creative processes.

We deal with the forms of theatre of physical expression built on excerpts from literature montaged into a collage. We work with poetry and prose, with forms based on the elements of song and music, with the convention of visual theatre, the use of masks and puppets as well as with the forms based on drama. We combine literary forms with music and fine art, narration with dialogue. We use both the methods of training the actors know from traditional education as well as those used by alternative theatres. We also benefit from our own techniques that we have worked out over the years. The workshops are carried out on a regular on-going basis or in projects of several days' or weeks' duration during which the participants and the workshop's leaders prepare theatrical realisations usually presented to the public at the finale of the project.

 

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

With the cooperation of The International Youths Meeting Centre in Wrocław and similar centres in Oświecim and Krzyżowa, as well as with the foreign partners, we have organised workshops for international groups.

Young actors, teachers, students from Belarus, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, the United States and Ukraine participated in these undertakings. Some projects were closed to the audiences and creative processes aimed at the experience of the participants, others finished with theatrical presentations to the public.

The principle of dialogue and experience is the key for this methodology. The outcome does not consist in performing the dramatic text; it consists in the result of the creative processes. Usually the work is conducted in a few international groups. Each of the leaders within these groups employs a method of training and creation that is typical of his approach.

The actions prepared within the groups constitute the material for common creation. The spectacles are created from etudes, actors' actions, improvisation, songs, dances, visual objects and puppet animations that were prepared within groups. Sometimes the workshop groups are supported by invited professional artists.

Tasks and exercises are carried out by the participants individually, in smaller or bigger teams and altogether, allowing everybody to find many ways of perceiving and experiencing oneself and others, promoting communication and creation through theatrical action.

Theatrical methods of work developing sensitivity, the ways of expressing oneself through word, sound, music, and movement as well as the subjects referring to essential spheres of values make this collective, deep experience possible.  Training in acting as well as the theatrical creative process provides many opportunities for developing self-knowledge and self-awareness as well as getting to know partners, and the breaks between the classes allow for spending time together more informally as well as developing new friendships.

Difficult tasks are carried out together, requiring accepting acceptance of mutual differences. Showing the effects of the work to the public demonstrates the ability to communicate through various theatre techniques despite cultural differences and barriers of spoken language.

NEGLECTED COURTYARDS

Since November 1996, TEART carries out the programme SPELLS at the Wroclaw neglected courtyards addressed to children living in their area.

Basically, this programme consists of cycles of actions of several days' duration, each of which aims at getting to know a given environment through creative workshops with children, small visual arts activities and presentations that lead to the final outdoor spectacle combining prepared actions. Each cycle begins with meeting the children at the courtyards, schools or day-care centres and playing with them. During these meetings, the animators talk to children about theatre and invite them to participate in workshops.

Workshops are conducted by actors, sculptors, painters, musicians. Children learn to design and build puppets; they make sets, prepare etudes, improvise, rehearse scenes and songs for the upcoming performance.

Work is conducted within two or three days in two or three groups of ten to fifteen children. On the day preceding the presentation of outdoor actions on a given courtyard or in its vicinity, there is a parade in which children participate offering handouts and invitations.

This work aims at creating courtyard celebrations animated by theatrical actions.  The tale brought to life and its language of metaphors meet with concrete reality, its dark and light aspects. Presentation of the spectacle constitutes the central event, in which the children take part along with the TEART's actors and invited artists. Visual elements of the show are also prepared by the children.

Methodology principle in "Spells" consists in treating children as partners. The meeting of a group of grownups with children and their work on a common task together is essential.

In the year 2000, we started "Our Make-Believe Lands Programme". It comprises four courtyards, takes place over a period of several weeks and includes the work of a team of actors-animators with children from courtyards.

The presupposed goal of this work will consist of the “Our Make-Believe Lands Festival,” which will be prepared by the children.

 

Wroclaw, 2000

 

 

Getting Ready for the Discussion on “Child’s Play”

The 63rd National Puppetry Festival of the Puppeteers of America at the University of Connecticut on August 10-16, 2015 offered its participants the series of critical discussions, “Critical Exchange.”  I had the  privilege to be a panelist for the discussion on the state of puppetry for children called “Child’s Play.”  Before we met, our moderator had sent us an e-mail with a few questions and the suggestion that we exchange ideas to warm up before the meeting. This inspired me to record some thoughts.

I would like to share them here.  I made some cuts and edits to the letter I sent to my co-panelist, and I asked two of my friends to give this text editorial attention.  I am grateful to Margaret Moody and MaryBall Opie.

The discussion was introduced in the program by this short paragraph:

“In the United States and many other countries around the world,  puppetry has primarilly been seen as an art form addressing children. But how does it address them? What possibilities exist for children’s puppetry that have yet to me mined?”

 

And now the sketch of my thoughts.

 

LESSER FORM

I was motivated to sign up for our discussion in large part by the  popular American view that puppet theatre for children is a lesser art form.   Children are defenseless against bad art.  They want to like what parents or teachers want them to like, and when parents or teachers take them to see a poorly made show they may enjoy and applaud it despite its inferior quality.  Nonetheless, we have  many examples of the most amazing puppetry created for children, just as we have fine art, music, literature, and theatre for children of the highest artistic standards."  There is not much sense in doing or aiming toward something lesser when working for children.  To approach the work for children with agreement on producing shows  of condescending mediocrity would be self-destructive and degrading for an artist.

 

WHAT POSSIBILITIES EXIST FOR CHILDREN’S PUPPETRY THAT HAVE YET TO BE MINED?

All possibilities, those well known and those yet to be discovered need to be mined 

PRACTICAL POSSIBILITIES IN MY NATIVE POLAND
This is so different in U.S. than in my native Poland.  In Poland, well-supported, mostly municipal, puppet theaters, most of them with their own buildings and ensembles of

20 to 70 highly skilled artists, administrators, managers and technicians serve children in schools on a daily basis and the general public on weekends. They have actor puppeteers, director puppeteers, artists designing and artists building puppets, and other separate categories of professionals such as carpenters, set builders, seamstresses and specialist in papier-mâché, so I guess the productions look a little more like those on Broadway.  In Poland,  puppeteers are actors.   When they get their jobs in the theatre they are often set for life. There is not much reason there to ask questions about practical possibilities. They are mostly there, in these well-supported institutions.  Artists can focus on exploring artistic possibilities instead of trying to figure out where, with whom, and in what kind of circumstances to do what they want to do.  Public recognition of the value of puppetry for children is strong.

 

FIGURING OUT

In the United States, a puppeteer is a very different artist than in my native Poland where I grew up, was educated, and spent 20 years of my professional career.  In the U.S.,  a puppeteer has to figure out how to be a puppeteer.  Here we are often artists, designers, builders, directors, performers, managers, administrators, marketing specialists and technicians.  We have to find or create our own place in the universe.  American reality is much more flexible, maybe much more challenging, but also more open to our new ideas.  A single prevailing national standard for practicing puppetry does not exist.  Each of us has to carve his or her place in a fast-changing reality.  We seek practical opportunities;  in parallel we explore artistic possibilities.  The practical conditions we confront  often influence theatrical language and artistic choices in our work.

 

Each of our new projects and productions brings an opportunity for searching for our place, and seeking new practical and artistic possibilities.

 

I  could only speak about puppetry as a theatrical form, but of course American puppeteers work also in settings other than theatre, among them in film and television.

 

COMMON POSSIBILITIES AND PRESENTING THEATRES

With Dream Tale Puppets, which I founded on Cape Cod 10 years ago, we, like many American puppeteers, perform for libraries, art and cultural centers, schools, after school programs, fundraisers and parties.

 

We are fortunate in Massachusetts to have Puppet Showplace in Brookline. I am inspired by my friend and performing partner Margaret Moody,  and by Liz Joyce, founder of Goat on the Boat Theater.  Margaret organizes a puppetry series each year and invites others to perform.  Goat on the Boat presents shows all year long.  Dream Tale Puppets presents other performers on the Cape during summer.  We call our summer series Cape Cod Puppet Gam. 

 

SCHOOLS AND AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS

The most natural audience of puppet theatre in Poland – schools - is not one which works well in Massachusetts.  Dream Tale Puppets performs very little in schools.

 

I do workshops and often work as a teacher using a variety of forms of puppet theatre. Often I conduct after-school or vacation projects.  Dream Tale Puppets is listed on the performers and teaching artists’ roster of Hartford Performs – an organization devoted to bringing arts to Hartford Schools.  From contact with them, I've learned that schools are more interested in artists working with children and supporting curriculum than in supporting work of the artists for art's sake.  They want artists to help teachers.  They are less interested in teachers helping artists who are  seeking to achieve artistic goals.

 

On Cape Cod,  theatrical workshops as an after-school activity organized by schools, cultural centers, and after school programs exist side by side with community theatre productions which involve children as actors and which are addressed to family audences. Community theaters sometimes use puppets in productions.   A similar project  model staffed in part by professionals and in part open to volunteers and children is used by Peter Schumann, Missoula Children’s Theatre, Sara Peattie and The Puppeteers' Cooperative and, I believe, many other puppeteers.

 

OTHER PRACTICAL POSSIBILIITES

In performing in or for schools puppet theatre meets with education. But in seeking practical possibilities we could also explore areas where theatre meets other societal realities, where we serve additional purposes and border with other areas of life.

 

Some puppeteers incorporate puppetry in social therapy and work with disadvantaged communities, inner city children and youth. I worked with inner city children and communities in Poland.

 

THEATRE AND COMMUNITY AND THEATRE AS A COMMUNITY

I view the theatre more as a group and community of artists creating the culture and more particularly theatrical culture than just shows. If such a group has its locale, a home base, this kind of theatre would be operating as a culture center with many programs addressed to various audiences and constituencies. Programs for children and families could be developed simultaneously, in parallel or alternately to programs for or with youth and more mature audiences and participants; also programs, events, celebrations for bigger community where separation between children and adults loses its meaning could be created.  Since a work of this nature would require support from many sources, such a theatre would need to be developed with strong connections in the local community and organizations with similar values and beliefs.

 

The puppet theatre center supported by its local community could serve as a venue for developing its own programs, and as a presenting organization, a hub for collaborations, explorations, education, center of work with children, youth, adults, lovers of the art and professionals. I believe that this way we could serve our communities, help each other, and strengthen our puppetry community and its place in the broader community and culture. We are saving the world with each little step of goodness, and as artists we have powers and missions very different from military units or a national education system. In developing Dream Tale Puppets, we are working with the vision of theatre as a community and center of creativity in mind.

 

DOES THE IDENTIFICATION AS “CHILDREN’S FARE” NECESSARILY LIMIT OR DIRECT THE TYPES OF SHOWS THAT CAN BE PRODUCED?

Every choice we make directs our actions.  Each age of the children may be addressed with a very different style of the shows. A few years ago, I saw the video recording of shows for very little babies up to one year old. They were masterpieces. There was very little spoken language, but amazing visual forms with a lot of dramaturgy in motion, action, shapes, and colors. There was not a trace of condescending paternalism in actors’ actions; instead they employed rich and elegant aesthetic enjoyable for babies and satisfying for adults.

 

For me, ideally a show would be addressed to any age, which means it would have to be comprised of many layers to be appealing to diverse spectators. When I work on a show, thinking about the age of the children I am creating for is not the first thing I do.  I think more about how I shape the process. Asking about “how” brings a style. Material used, field of pre-production studies and research determine this also. If I use a fairy tale or a text by a particular author who writes for children as a jumping board, as inspiration, or material for adaptation, this points to possible directions the work may take. I look for the interesting literary material, compelling fields of research, and an enjoyable and inspiring company of artists of notable talents, abilities and passion. The production process may lead toward the show addressed toward a more or less age-specific audience.

 

Usually I don’t know in advance what kind of show I will produce. I don’t limit myself. My work for children is like a dialog with the child, also with my own inner child. Do we limit ourselves when we speak with the child? Do we limit ourselves speaking with anyone? We listen to the person we talk to and with, and we try to find, or we are open for the words which will have substance for our listener. The process of finding words is to some extent automatic, or perhaps it would better to say spontaneous.   We see or imagine a person and the language emerges. We see how she reacts to our words, we re-imagine who she is and the process, and the dialog continues. This occurs through listening to our interlocutor and letting our voices emerge as we create. I wouldn’t call it limiting. I could say that my listener in some way directs my talk. The language emerges between us.

 

I shape the language of theatrical expression to be interesting and to command attention. I don’t have lessons to give. I share with my audience my own joy in digging into the material, story, stirring sources of inspiration, asking questions and shaping the pictures, actions, characters, rhythms, and language. I create the universe which is often multi-layered, with a number of characters, each with its own life, opinions and motives for actions. I create texture, colors and architecture of the environment. Elements of the production have their sources of inspiration, and they derive their forms from meetings, conversations, reading, seeing, and listening. The show comes into being molded from elements and universes, and is open to audience interpretation. Song, picture, poem and puppet show could provide experience and opportunities to associate, understand and feel, and to expand understanding and the ability to associate and to feel.

 

Jack Zipes in “Fairy Tales and Art of Subversion” writes about how fairy tales were and are still used to educate, to socialize, and to program socially desirable children’s behavior. I am far from considering myself an educator whose mission is to teach children proper manners. I consider myself rather someone who brings to children language, questions, rhythms, shapes, colors, elements of narration, characters and their stories, as well as my own and my colleagues joy in explorations and orchestration of theatrical universe.

 

I don’t care if my audience is not able to read, see, and decipher all I put into the show. The show is rich because only this kind of work could provide an opportunity to share the passion and curiosity that I have. I am saying rich, but this does not mean complicated or overloaded.  Intensive research could lead to elegant, but simple effects. A lot of stuff is thrown away just as a writer throws away words, pages, paragraphs, or chapters of an earlier draft that are not needed.   Also, the richness of theatrical language could be understood by an analogy to poetry. Poetry and children’s rhymes are also good examples of this understanding. Many children’s rhymes deal with the richness of language beyond its semantic level of literal meaning. Rhymes speak through their sonorous, musical, rhythmic, melodic, and associative levels of expression, all of which address the senses and mind.

 

WHAT KINDS OF EXCHANGES MIGHT EXIST OR BE CREATED BETWEEN CHILDREN’S SHOWS AND THOSE FOR MORE MATURE AUDIENCES, AND HOW MIGHT CROSS-FERTILIZATIONS BETWEEN THEM WORK TO ENRICH THE ART AT BOTH ENDS OR BRING THEM TOGETHER?

To bring puppetry for children and adults together we have to have time and space for togetherness, even if this would be metaphorical togetherness.

 

We may need space of shared aesthetic and methodological explorations, shared communal space where children and more mature audiences meet. This concept of shared communal space is pretty easy to grasp.  Considering that children when not in school are usually with parents or guardians, this sharing is unavoidable.  I think we can’t ignore that parents and grandparents are part of the audience. They should enjoy the show as well.

 

In my native Poland, puppet theatre serves mostly children, but many theatres also produce shows for mature audiences. I would say that children’s audiences support to some extent productions for adults. I mean that theatres are established and secure in their work thanks to their mission of serving children. Ensembles are created. They could practice and polish their mastery in working for children. This potential could and is employed in producing shows for adults.

 

When you work on how, on the language, methodology, aesthetics, your discoveries in this field for children could inspire and inform work for mature audiences. Similarly techniques used in puppet theatre for mature audiences could be used in creating performances for children.

 

We work in visual arts.  The broad scope of this art is universally appealing to adults and to children. The puppeteer as an actor could be compared to a dancer. Watching a dance, watching a circus act brings satisfaction to a child as much as to an adult. It is the beauty of the form and extraordinary skill of the performer which attract.

 

Most traditional and many contemporary puppet theaters are not interested in making the relationship between puppeteer and puppet a part of the theatrical expression. Whether an artist decides to take this aspect of puppetry into consideration or not, this relationship exists and could be and very often is of significance as a part of the expression. When we acknowledge this relationship as having expressive potential, we are acknowledging also that the puppeteer is an actor, and his body is also a vehicle of expression. This approach broadens the scope of creative explorations which could be interesting for the adult spectator and matches the natural tendency for children's affirmation of any language as long as it is possible to decipher or project meaning into it.  An aesthetically and semantically complex theatrical act could satisfy sophisticated adult spectators as much as a child for whom the theatrical act could represent the world analogous to that of make-believe play.

 

Dream Tale Puppets addresses its programs to children, but we believe in developing multiple dimensions in our work. We do workshops, and we are building relationships with other organizations. We explore where and how we could better serve the community by practicing our art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Joy of Creating with Children: Differences in the roles of teachers and teaching artists

On August 10, 2015 I participated in Professional Day of Teaching Artists & Therapists at The National Puppetry Festival at the University of Connecticut. I shared my thoughts on the differences between an artist and teacher; I spoke a little about my Polish theatrical education and experience; and I presented an example of my work with children and teachers. The presentation was accompanied by handout material that explained my thoughts in writing. Below is an unabridged version of this text.

WORKSHOP HANDOUTS 

 Professional Day of Teaching Artists & Therapists,  

National Puppetry Festival,  

University of Connecticut, August 10, 2015 

The Joy of Creating with Children: Differences in the roles of teachers and teaching artists

Jacek Zuzanski

Contact Email: info@dreamtalepuppets.org

 

DIFERENECES BETWEEN TEACHERS AND ARTISTS

 

Let me explain how I see differences between artist and teacher.

A teacher teaches. She passes on her knowledge to students.

An artist creates. She connects with the mysterious universe of inspiration and brings a new reality into being. When working with students she does this with them.

A teacher and a school initiate into social norms, they both represent order and obedience to the expectations of a society.

An artist serves as a liaison between people and their primordial, intuitive and instinctive source of vitality. She represents and revitalizes the world of self which is free of societal restrictions.

A teacher inhabits the center of society with its norms and customs.

An artist resides on the borders of society often contesting its norms.

A teacher knows. She knows facts, laws, rules, she classifies objects and categories, and has language and names to describe reality.

An artist is on a perpetual quest exploring and examining reality perceived by her senses, inner reality of the mind, and known language, and she creates language to convey and give an expression of her explorations.

Much of what I am saying here follows how mythologist Joseph Campbell writes about these matters. Also psychology of creativity has a lot to say about this and how important the arts are for the well being of an individual, sanity of a society, and development of the creative faculty of the mind.

There is also the art teacher in schools, and of course teachers use hands on and project development in teaching, but for the purpose of this presentation I would like to make a strong distinction between a teacher and artist.

TWO MODELS OF COOPERATION BETWEEN TEACHERS AND ARTISTS

 

Artists and teachers can work together. Let me delineate two models of cooperation artists and teachers working together in school.

In the first model an artist adheres to the needs defined by the school, educational system, teachers, curriculum standards, norms and culture of the school.

In second model artist is invited to the school because of originality of the culture, world, norms and standards he or she represents by his work, art and life.

In first model artist could be instructed by school authorities on procedures and may even be trained in pedagogical techniques of controlling class dynamic or discipline.

In second model artist’s experience in work with children, methodologies she or he developed or lack of such an experience is recognized and valued.

In the first model artist serves teachers in their work with children.

In the second model teachers support and help the artist in his work with children.

 

At this point you may notice that these models may be seen as complementary and that in a real situation of cooperation between artists and teachers both approaches could and should coalesce. Sure, but it would also be beneficial for all sides involved if teachers are aware of these models, and of the difference between teachers and artists.  They would better understand what conditions makes artists work most enjoyable, efficient, creative, enthusiastic and beneficial for children. Children will benefit and grow into better human beings when they learn from great teachers and work with wonderful artists. They have teachers in school everyday. When they meet artists they benefit from an experience very different from this one they have with a teacher.

WHO I AM

I am a visual artist, puppeteer, actor, and stage director. I am also a teacher, but when I work as a teacher I allow myself as much as possible to be an artist.  Most often I work with children as a director. I design and conduct the creative process and then I embody and demonstrate the application of my own creative self, and I make possible creative dialog between myself and my young actors and collaborators. I teach them acting skills and other skills needed in setting up a theatrical creative process and producing a theatrical presentation, but after they learn skills, we all launch into a creative adventure.

I am a Pole. I grew and obtained my theatrical education and experience in my native Poland, where the education of puppeteers is very different from that in the United States, and where theatrical culture--ways theatre is practiced and present in society--are also very different. In Poland two theatre academies educate actors/puppeteers and directors of puppet performances to work in over twenty very well subsidized puppet theatres, each employing from 20 to 70 artists, administrators and technicians. Actors/puppeteers intensively study acting techniques of the live theatre, theatre of mask, pantomime and a variety of puppetry techniques. All the time from the very first days in the Institute students work in teams, they learn techniques, and they learn how to cooperate, work with the director, and direct their colleagues .

I obtained my directing certificate by directing shows in Wroclaw Puppet Theatre theatre. Early, straight after my study, I started work as a theatre and acting teacher, but it was primarily by training my young actors and directing shows with them that I learned to teach. One of my teachers from the Theatre Academy, Jan Dorman, whom I also assisted in his directing work in Lublin Puppet Theatre, was particularly important and influenced the style of my directing work and work with children.  Dorman developed a unique style of theatre using patterns, forms and rules of children’s play. Actors were in full view of the audience when “playing” with puppets and visual objects which were not used to physically represent characters, but rather to signify the characters. His shows revealed the mechanics of puppet theatre and exposed the process of creating theatrical language resembling children’s fantasy play. This display of narrative and theatrical techniques created a rich tapestry of associations loaded with metaphors and a wealth of poetic pictures.

I came to United Stated from the world where puppet theatres most often operate in their own buildings and where schools regularly visit theatres. A school field trip to the theatre is celebrated and valued. Puppet theatres play an especially important role in offering programs for elementary schools and their students. Polish schools themselves offer much less theatrical activities and programs than the schools in Massachusetts that I know best. In Poland most theatrical classes and activities for children are offered by culture centers or organizations  as after school programs. At such programs children and youth have chances to work with artists. My experience as an artist working with children began in such a settings. I continued this work parallel to my work with youth and adult professional performers and artists. My methodology of working with children was shaped by this rich and diverse experience. It emerged by trying and adapting techniques and approaches I learned from my teachers and was developed when I worked with youth and adult professionals.

PRINCIPLE OF PARTNERSHIP

One principle was and reminded fundamental. No matter if I worked with adults or children, I always considered them to be, and approached them as, partners. Dialog between me as a director and teacher and them as actors was fundamental. I taught 7 year olds and I taught 50 year olds professional actors. Most of my shows were and still are explorations. I gather knowledge and experience from many sources and I bring this experience to my actors. Often teaching techniques or developing techniques of acting were and remain a part of my productions, no matter if I work with professionals or children. This is especially apparent when in a project new kind of visual elements, performing objects, or puppets are introduced, and where actors first have to find ways to act with such objects. So some kind of training is placed at the beginning of the project and when technique is developed and internalized it is implemented into the creative process of building the show.

PUPPET THATRE DIRECTOR AS A GUIDE INTO CREATIVE PROCESS

As a director I use my rational intelligence and also I trust impulses and inspirations coming from within and from the process itself. My actors, collaborators, writers, co-writers, artists, musicians, teachers, technicians are all part of the same organism that I build to work and create as one.  My job is to guide everybody be creative, reach his or her highest potential and surpass what they know about themselves while enjoying the process. I have to build clear and strong guidelines to make this happen. How to keep open my own sources of creativity and inspiration is a part of this work. Without keeping access to my own resources open, I can not lead others into a new reality beyond the borders of the known.  Over the years I have developed ways to do this, but I can only do it when I am trusted and given the freedom to use my own methods, and when my actors and my collaborators want me to lead.

When I direct I bring my techniques, methodologies, and my culture. Schools have their own cultures, regulations, dress codes, and ways to move around and to behave.  Inviting an artist to school to teach is one possible way to give children an opportunity to know something about the arts. But inviting artist to actually create with children is something very different and much more significant. When an artist creates with children, she not only teaches techniques and leads children to create, she leads a process where she and children create together. When the artist is a puppeteer, actor, acting coach, and director, the process involves many facets of creativity and provides opportunity for unique intensive experience where everybody learns by exploring and integrating multiple levels of cognitive, physical, sensory and emotional, and joyful experiences.

AFTER SCHOOL ENRICHMENT PROGRAM AT HYANNIS EAST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

 

A good example of a project where I was invited to a school to work with teachers and children as a puppeteer and director was the after school enrichment program at Hyannis East Elementary School on Cape Cod, which I conducted in 2005. The following year I directed a similar project at the same school.  After that I worked as a teacher, I directed school productions, I conducted summer or after school workshops, and I performed independently; but I haven’t had a chance to work with children in schools as a visiting artist.

 

A puppetry format in which the actor is visible for the audience, as in Jan Dorman’s style, is very good when working with children. When children play with a doll they project an imagined character onto the doll and do not care if they have an audience.  In puppet theatre they switch from using the puppet as a doll to presenting it to the audience. Artists and teachers can help with this important element of children’s puppetry experience.

 

Manipulating techniques are not easy to master, but for the purpose of creating inspiring experiences for the child there is no need to master them.   It is more important to ensure that a child is actively involved in the process, and that the puppets, as well as other aspects of the process, motivate and stimulate his/her imagination and creative experience.

 

The first Hyannis East Elementary workshop was exemplary in its use of the strategies I mentioned before, and for creating an environment where teachers supported the artist’s work with children. 

 

About 40 children and 5 teachers were involved. We worked on the production of a play, which was an adaptation of a Polish folk tale transcribed by renowned Polish writer Gustaw Morcinek. In our adaptation three families present in Morcinek’s tale grow in numbers to accommodate the number of participants of the project. The project lasted 7 afternoons from 4:30 to 6:00. I was visiting the first, third, fifth and seventh days.  In between on the second, third and fifth days, teachers worked with 4  groups following guidelines we prepared together, practicing texts, and scenes, designing and building sets and creating masks.

 

During my first visit we met in the gym, introduced children to the project, and played initial warm-up, expression and name games. Then we read the play. Next we split the group into two halves and we continued playing games. This time the games were chosen for their usability for the production. They served to develop expressiveness in physical acting, introduced patterns and rules of organizing scenes. This all was done in a big gym, split in two, one side for each group. I was moving from group to group, initiating games and exercises and watching children for their natural skills and talents. This part of the work served also as an audition, giving me and the teachers some clues for casting. Then we gathered all the children in a big circle and announced the cast, creating 5 groups for further work. Then each one of these five groups read its own part of the script.

 

We had a group of Storytellers whose task was to read narrative parts of the story. The second group was a family of the Poor Shoemaker: The Shoemaker, His Wife and Children. The third group portrayed family of Poor Shoemaker’s brother – a rich Miller: The Miller, His Wife and Children. The fourth group was cast as an allegorical figure of Poverty and her children. The fifth group was responsible for designing and creating sets for the production. One remaining character, Wise Man/ Beggar, worked interchangeably with two groups.

 

The second day teachers worked in four groups practicing lines, drawing, designing and paining masks, discussing and designing costumes, designing sets and priming cardboard.

 

The third day, work in groups was continued. I was visiting and I worked with each group, blocking actions and helping in shaping expressiveness of the actions and voices, and advising and praising designers and painters.

 

The fourth day teachers continued work in groups practicing, what we developed during previous meeting and painting scenery on prepared sheets of cardboard. Designers continued work on painting scenery and they started work on posters, invitations, and program.

 

On the fifth day I again joined the process. The actors started together, checking costumes and warming up. Then we continued rehearsing scenes in order and practiced transitions between scenes. Designers continued their work.

 

The first part of the sixth day children worked in groups practicing their parts. Then they gathered together and did a run through of the entire play.

 

The last, seventh, day I was leading the dress rehearsal. Then parents and friends were invited and children presented their work to them. The short party followed.

 

This project was exemplary for cooperation between a visiting artist and teachers. I brought an idea backed by years of experience in the theatre and creative theatrical work with adults, youth and children.  I came with enthusiasm toward the project and received wonderful support from teachers and trust and enthusiasm of children. Teachers helped on every level of the work. They helped adapt the play. They participated in designing the schedule and planning work with groups and facility usage, so transitions from room to room, activity to activity, and teacher to artist were smooth and energizing. My task was to provide my expertise in building a dynamic creative process and team to inspire, coach, introduce techniques, ignite creative energies, and lead toward the final experience.

 

This was great and I was happy to see children perform.