Every once in awhile I go back to interviews my movement mentor has done, and realize what coming home feels like. Here is one I listened to the other day, and felt as she talks how much my teaching practice has been shaped by witnessing her voracious curiosity and depth of specificity: Amy Interview
I often find that my body will consistently work out and answer questions while I sleep, and in the moments where I shift from sleep to waking - the language and answers I was searching for have been downloaded, fully formed. Yesterday I was making the hand-puppet bases for my 2 @3rd grade puppet classes I begin teaching this friday while chewing on how I might frame out this residency. Listening to Amy's interview reminded me of the names for what I'm struggling with - Anytime I do this particular puppet exercise it is a sensory free-for-all, and transitioning into a more thoughtful designing space has eluded me, as far as how to get younger students to pause and explore their choices even for a moment. I considered trying different mood days, like one day we make sad puppets, and one day we make happy ones, so we can eventually make a story about transforming one into the other - letting students name what event initiates that transformation... but I worry about how reinforcing the cultural lexicon (blue = sad, red = angry etc) may eliminate the more complex manifestations of these things. Fairytales and the ancient oral traditions they were formed from were always about indoctrinating children into their future roles in a society, a handbook suited to their developmental stages and the social expectations of their environment - scottish kelpies, Folklore/fearie creatures who stole children that went too close to all of the bogs that populate the scottish countryside, were a useful scary story to teach children who were easily drowned to stay away from those areas (we use Santa Claus still, in a very similar way - leaning in to the magical reasoning of young minds to have some kind of external control over their behavior/conscience). A few weeks ago I was on a judging panel for a national high school portfolio competition for Scholastic, and one of our 5 gold medalists that we chose was chinese american - his portfolio was an exploration of being torn between these 2 cultures THROUGH the use of red - Red in China is associated with Luck, with Innocence etc, while in American/European color language, Red is danger/rage/desire - out of control emotions, bloody, violent. If we want to think and live differently, if we need to change the current functioning of society, the way we teach language will be a huge part of that (even our Social Justice language is monetary/economic based, like the concept of Equity, keeping us viewed in terms of numbers and resource deficits). How do I help skill build ways to join the collective that don't necessarily continue the traditions we have all been given?
So I woke up this morning knowing that Day 1 with my puppet babies I am going to teach/source puppet anatomy, in a very Mr Potato Head kind of way, letting them tell me what parts are important to have (eyes/nose/mouth etc) and having them think about and tell me why those parts are important, and naming what different expressions communicate, what kinds of expressions WE make when feeling different feelings - before getting to the sensory/tactile play space. The outcome may look the same, but the thinking and naming we did at least sets some possible stage for later awareness. Before we can talk about the symbolic expression of emotions that underly storytelling and cause+effect scenarios, maybe we must get clear on the language our bodies speak in - a real, palpable connection to our own experience that can be a guide for understanding what others are communicating. Babies reflexively memorize the facial expressions of their caregivers for survival, this is a core function of our developmental programming (we aren't computers - I need to replace this language as well). How can I support the groundwork Nature has already laid?
I think each session the puppets will get a little bigger, as our language and skills and trust build - and explore from hand to arm, to upper and full body, then with others assisting (like a chinese dragon puppet) how to communicate an emotion clearly - as an individual as well as rippling through the collective.
One of my favorite puppetry moments of all time:
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