Puppet project’s helping hand

By Dion Teasdale
STUDENTS at Worawa Aboriginal College in Healesville have completed a two-week arts project with a difference.
Thirty-five students from the school, aged between 12 and 15, participated in a workshop program with acclaimed Melbourne based puppet performance company the Snuff Puppets.
During the workshop program students worked alongside a team of four Snuff Puppet artists, including a theatre director, a puppet designer, a puppet builder and a music director.
Snuff Puppets artistic director Andy Freer said the project engaged the students to work with the artists to create an original performance piece involving giant, handmade puppets.
“We started out by asking the students what sort of puppets they wanted to make and what sort of performance they wanted to put on and the ideas come from there,” he said.
“The students designed the puppets and shared their stories and the performance evolved through the collaborative process.”
Mr Freer said the students devised a 15-minute performance piece at the end of the two-week workshop, which they performed to family and friends on the grounds of the college.
“The performance explored the theme of caring for our country and it addressed environmental issues and featured large animal puppets,” he said.
The students wrote, played and recorded their own soundtrack, a combination of hip-hop and didgeridoo music, to accompany the performance.
“The students embraced the creative process and I think they gained a lot from seeing it through and being part of the final product,” Mr Freer said.
“For the Snuff Puppet artists it was a very rewarding and worthwhile collaboration.” Mr Freer said the Snuff Puppets were exploring the possibility of restaging the student performance as part of a festival or parade some time in the future.