http://www.teatrgrodzki.pl/en - Maria Schejbal-Cytawa (In her words)

I've been running theatre/puppetry workshops since 1996, following my master Peter Schumann - the creator ofhttps://breadandpuppet.org/ - Bread and Puppet Theatre.

At first, I worked with young people recovering from addiction, and also with teachers, experimenting with non-verbal/visual narration and creative use of self-made puppets and ordinary objects. Then I was running workshops for disabled people of all ages and especially for deaf persons. I like to call this activity a "socially-oriented theatre".

In 2014, I launched my own training program under the title "Puppets in Action" during a one-week workshop for educators in Turkey. It consists of three main parts: teaching the participants how to make a theatrical puppet using just paper and string, experimenting with different kinds of animation - bringing puppets to life, and telling personal stories with no words - creating puppet shows.

Since the above training program proved to be successful as an attractive and engaging education & therapy method, I've been developing and testing it with different groups of artists, educators, therapists and social workers all over Europe for last years. I am currently using it in two European projects that I would like to present at this seminar: "DIVA - Diversity, Inclusion, Visibility in Arts" and "Dream Theatre - Social inclusion and new learning opportunities in drama therapy.

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Maria will begin the session by guiding us in making a paper doll's head. If you'd like to make your own, please have to hand:
- a sheet of paper
- an old newspaper
- something to tie it with - e.g string, ribbon, thick thread