So, although I am not always here to plug puppet happenings, a fellow New Orleans puppeteer, Brady, pointed me in the direction of some work that he has recently completed with a Young Audiences summer camp. Here is some of my conversation with him:
LP: Tell me a little about this camp and your program.
B: Young Audiences focuses on exposing students to the arts, which have been removed, in part, from the school system. Professional artists work with the students on whatever their expertise is, everything from African drumming to puppetry to rap. This camp, in particular, was four weeks long, and was particularly challenging because once a week they went on a field trip, so in total, we saw them for about thirteen class sessions.
LP: Wow! And had any of them had any previous puppetry experience?
B: No, not really. A few had seen a puppet show at school or at church, and of course, Sesame Street. But no, not really.
LP: So you are not always at the same school...
B: Nope. Almost every time I teach a course or camp, I go to another school. They try to rotate the teachers, so that the students get exposed to as many genres as possible. That also lets me work with all ages from 4-17.
LP: So, tell me about your classes specifically.
B: At this particular camp, I taught six classes a day to about 165 students aged 4 to 14. We start with introductions and class expectations, move on to warm-ups, team and partnering exercises, and then on to puppet history. Eventually, we design puppets and at this camp, we chose to focus our final presentation - which was a series of music videos - on the oil spill. I try to stay relevant and address issues that they are concerned or interested in through puppetry.
LP: What types of puppets did you all build?
B: We built Fandango-style paper bag puppets, sock puppets, shadow puppets, marionettes and puppets made out of recycled materials.
LP: That sounds like a lot!
B: Yeah, it was. Then we filmed short music videos that they had learned and pre-recorded. It was a little rougher than it might have been if we had had a longer session, but I am really proud of what they accomplished.
LP: How does this class differ than one of your longer courses?
B: Oh - a lot. I teach puppet manipulation more intensively, I bring in monitors so that they are able to see themselves as they work, everything is more intensive and there is time for so much more...But I do want to say that these kids worked incredibly hard to overcome their thirteen day learning curve.
LP: What are their biggest oil spill concerns?
B: How long it is going to last - the spilling and the ramifications - the animals, the fisherman, the availability of seafood, whether people will still visit New Orleans. I think that they might be getting tired of being "the underdog." Their biggest concern with their puppet film, though, is how many hits they are going to get!
If you would like to see their work, it is available on YouTube in sections: 1 and 2, since it is a little bit longer than ten minutes. But it's worth every minute to see our next generation of puppeteer/activists.
LP: Tell me a little about this camp and your program.
B: Young Audiences focuses on exposing students to the arts, which have been removed, in part, from the school system. Professional artists work with the students on whatever their expertise is, everything from African drumming to puppetry to rap. This camp, in particular, was four weeks long, and was particularly challenging because once a week they went on a field trip, so in total, we saw them for about thirteen class sessions.
LP: Wow! And had any of them had any previous puppetry experience?
B: No, not really. A few had seen a puppet show at school or at church, and of course, Sesame Street. But no, not really.
LP: So you are not always at the same school...
B: Nope. Almost every time I teach a course or camp, I go to another school. They try to rotate the teachers, so that the students get exposed to as many genres as possible. That also lets me work with all ages from 4-17.
LP: So, tell me about your classes specifically.
B: At this particular camp, I taught six classes a day to about 165 students aged 4 to 14. We start with introductions and class expectations, move on to warm-ups, team and partnering exercises, and then on to puppet history. Eventually, we design puppets and at this camp, we chose to focus our final presentation - which was a series of music videos - on the oil spill. I try to stay relevant and address issues that they are concerned or interested in through puppetry.
LP: What types of puppets did you all build?
B: We built Fandango-style paper bag puppets, sock puppets, shadow puppets, marionettes and puppets made out of recycled materials.
LP: That sounds like a lot!
B: Yeah, it was. Then we filmed short music videos that they had learned and pre-recorded. It was a little rougher than it might have been if we had had a longer session, but I am really proud of what they accomplished.
LP: How does this class differ than one of your longer courses?
B: Oh - a lot. I teach puppet manipulation more intensively, I bring in monitors so that they are able to see themselves as they work, everything is more intensive and there is time for so much more...But I do want to say that these kids worked incredibly hard to overcome their thirteen day learning curve.
LP: What are their biggest oil spill concerns?
B: How long it is going to last - the spilling and the ramifications - the animals, the fisherman, the availability of seafood, whether people will still visit New Orleans. I think that they might be getting tired of being "the underdog." Their biggest concern with their puppet film, though, is how many hits they are going to get!
If you would like to see their work, it is available on YouTube in sections: 1 and 2, since it is a little bit longer than ten minutes. But it's worth every minute to see our next generation of puppeteer/activists.
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