What a wonderful first couple of days at the retreat! We have been working on our shadow puppet shows with Judith O’Hare of You and Me Puppets which we cannot wait to see. The amazing collaboration and creativity that is coming out of our retreaters is amazing!
On Monday we moved with Deirdre Moore who traveled from CA to MA to work and play with us this week. She is amazing! We learned a lot about dance elements: locomotion, axial movements, energy, space and, best of all we DID it. We moved!
Today, was my turn to take the presenter’s stage and we learned about listening to music actively. We experienced first hand how powerful music can be and how the same song can touch us all so differently. As the retreaters shared their written responses to one of the pieces we listened to (Vivaldi’s Siciliano), tears started to flow from the beautiful monologues people created: the touching words of a grandmother to her grandchildren, the peaceful words of a daughter to her dying mother, the beautiful reflections of love and marriage.
It has been such an enjoyable retreat so far, and we are all looking forward to another day of creativity and fun. Yes, fun! Fun professional development that is just for us – the educators who want to inspire our children!
Wondering if this might also be of interest, an Art Teacher in Baltimore, Maryland is creating curriculum for Conflict Resolution Through Puppetry: http://www.hatchfund.org/project/conflict_resolution_through_puppetry/about/updates
Learning how to draw a simple animal and then deconstruct it into moving parts was enjoyable to learn with Judith. Her experience and vast collection of images helped us all feel comfortable with construction, use of negative space for visual impact, and the use of color gels for color projection. Since we left on Wednesday, I am still thinking how useful this will be with some of my students to allow them the ability of focused themed driven self expression and performance.