What happens when you work with a new puppet?

It has been a week where I have thought a lot about the process of manipulating a puppet. Trying to take photographs of puppets looking for new homes, made me realise that the personality of each puppet is tricky to capture in a photograph aimed at attracting a new puppeteer. I wanted to hold each puppet in a way that expressed the essence of its character. I hoped it would make the right new owner feel touched in some way and then compelled to take the new friend home.

Of course, what I didn't think about is that the special relationship between the puppet and puppeteer is personal and unique to that union. I once saw a famous puppet being manipulated by someone other than his creator. You could see the new puppeteer's skill and knowledge of the character, but something special was missing. He hadn't made and developed the character himself, or didn't properly relate to him and it looked like a poor look-alike agency act. I think that same magic was missing from my photos. I was trying to push my interpretation onto something that would be better as a blank canvass, new and ready for someone else to pick up and create between the two of them - puppet and puppeteer.

When I introduce my puppets during a workshop, I make it clear that certain puppets are just for me to handle. These are defined character puppets and it would ruin the whole feel of the work if their magic was broken by another's hand. However, the puppets that are given out are totally up to each puppeteer to discover. We spend time looking into the puppet's faces, time moving our hands to find the best form of manipulation, time to ask our puppet what it likes to eat, what makes a good friend and what it likes about us? I see the relationship build quickly as the puppet becomes a friend and someone to express parts of the puppeteer that relate to the subject at hand. I love that moment when the puppet is cheeky, or naughty, or sensitive and funny as I see a part of the puppeteer expressed in such a safe way.

I am about to retake the photos for our website with more neutral puppet poses. I hope that a future puppeteer will see the potential and start the magical process of creating a bond as soon as the puppet arrives on their doorstep.

Mediating monsters

We are feeling excited about a slightly new way of using our monster puppets. Just a small movement of your hand, makes these little chaps pull the best faces and children are responding to the range of expressions with amusement and interest. We have found that having a conversation between two monsters, with an adult mediator holding the questioning together, creates the perfect, safe environment to tackle conflict and anxieties. A solution, or action can be found for the monster that may be helpful for the participants too. In fact, we have tried this with a class of 30 students, each with their own monster and the results were fascinating. We are making more monsters to try another session with the inclusion of a large monster to oversee the session. Now that will be fun.

Teenagers need to play too.

The Hands-On Company believe that play is for all ages.We use a combination of role play, hot seating, monologue creation and improvisation to bring 'pshee' to life in secondary education and have found time and again how useful these techniques are to lower inhibitions and allow our groups to learn while having fun. We can concentrate on one subject, or highlight the importance of informed choice-making across the pshee curriculum. Within the teams that work with this age group, we employ two young presenters who are fully trained in social education. They are often young actors, or gap-year presenters looking for a career in teaching, social work or acting. Their confidence and light-hearted approach to the workshop content usually rubs off on the group within the first few minutes, making the teacher facilitator's task of imparting relevant information so much easier. The atmosphere is non judgmental and the expectation is respect for all while having fun.

Teenagers are usually going through the process of moving most of their play from a physical urge to a more cerebral movement and while the change is ongoing, embarrassment, fear of negative peer response and a desire to be grown-up can limit involvement in a more hands-on approach, especially with drama and puppetry. We have found that the more hairy, large and comical looking our puppets are, the more teenagers can relate to them. When we made specific teenager puppets, they were not as  lovable as our more outlandish creations. It seems that by moving the puppet part away from real characters in realistic scenarios, the groups feel they can have a go in a playful manner. On the flip side to this, we have found that if we show the groups, more realistic drama with our role play presenters expressing situations in real life scenarios and acting with sincerity, the young people in the groups, are happy to become involved with giving advice and considering consequences to actions. Sometimes they want to observe us, sometimes to observe a handful of their peers working with us, they may want to answer a question or ask one themselves. A combination of silly puppets, activities involving beer googles, plastic willies and condoms, mixed with hard hitting drama and information group activities works a treat to involve each member of a group. We are allowed to play in a way that suits the individual's mood on that day, while considering informed choice making at the same time. A win-win for all.

Happy Christmas.

Sometimes special occasions give us an opportunity to spread the love. Pushing aside expectation, responsibility and lack of time to do everything, spend some time playing with those you care for in whatever way suits you. The true magic of these times is in making connections and what better way to do so than through play. I hope it's a special time for you.

Similar pattern, but different expressions! The joy of handmade.

A wishing dragon is perfect for uplifting someone's day. Put your hand is Doris's mouth and pull out a wish!

Time To Say Goodbye

Acting skills and performance for people with special needs offers valuable new learning for all, confidence building and an opportunity to be part of something quite special. We have been working with two groups in this way this year and we are so pleased with the new friends we have made and the success of both performances. At the heart of this work was making sure each group member felt valued and respected, that we had plenty of fun and that we used the group's ideas to put a performance together. Treating each person as a professional actor added to the high quality of work produced. It helped us all to be clear with what was pretend and what was real.

The level of commitment and focus from group members was much higher than our project organisers anticipated and I think that is at the heart of this type of interaction. If your expectations are high in regards to what a particular group can achieve, they are usually met. I remember training to be a teacher and being given this great advice - 'before you even walk into the classroom, imagine the students will behave impeccably and you will easily teacher them what they need to learn.' This high expectation works in so many ways, as long as you add some flexibility, light-hearted humour and realism to the occasion!

Drama and puppetry skills made this all-inclusive course great fun to be part of, with the addition of creating props and choosing music for a performance to share with others. We were asked to explore the sensitive subjects of death and growing old, but even with these topics we had plenty of laughter. By creating a safe place to talk openly with respect, we could all express our feelings within set guidelines of what was appropriate within the group. We could use acting and puppetry to express these feelings while protecting the participants. I will never forget this work and hope to continue with another project similar to this in the future.