Workshops

Workshops and Presentations

Artistic workshops: Natural dyeing of staging silks

In the morning workshops, Janene Ping and others will guide us in dyeing staging silks with various techniques using plant dyes.

Craft workshop 1: Enlivened Storytelling with Susan Strauss

Eurythmy. Full Body Support for Speech & Puppetry Arts.

Each morning we will warm up our day by moving together in the three-dimensional spoken word known as Eurythmy. This will refresh our bodies and tune our instruments to be ready for our work. We will become awake in gesture from head to toe, aware of the three planes of movement, delighting in the imaginative strength of the sounds of language, refresh our posture, become flexible in lightness and weight, and broaden our awareness of audience.

Enlivened storytelling using nature, personal experience for imbuing traditional or biographic story.

How can we move from text to storytelling, enriched with the life force of the imagination? "Above all else," states Rudolf Steiner, "we must help children develop their imagination." Surely, this work is needed more than ever in our anxious, time-squeezed world. This workshop will join together a series of enlivening activities, creating a process by which we can become permeated by the story. These activities collaborate in the development of our imaginative hearts. They guide our confidence in telling both personal anecdote and traditional or biographic story and helps us in our understanding of what supports a well-told story. Participants should bring remembered, wonderful or dangerous, calm or dramatic childhood experiences in nature. Text choices of traditional or biographic stories will be provided. These will include: The Elk & The Troll King (Swedish) and Small Red Bird (Nigerian). If you wish to work on a traditional story or biography of your choosing, please bring it along. "Performance" of stories will occur throughout the workshop and culminate in a final sharing.

Susan Strauss is a storyteller, visiting children's author, natural history author, keynote speaker, creator of The Passionate Fact Interpretive Training Workshop (TM) on Storytelling Science, Natural History & Cultural Information, an environmental educator, natural history interpreter and Eurythmist. More ...

Craft workshop 2: Ethereal Art Inspiration ... The Light and Shadow of Steiner's Rock Spring Wonder with Janene Ping

The mystery drama of "The Soul's Probation", by Rudolf Steiner holds a gem of a fairytale in its midst. It is a story of faith, love, and hope ... and paints a picture of the essence of childhood. In this workshop we will explore these themes and images through the puppetry arts ~ working with colored light and full dimensional shadow that is complimented by a marionette performance. Participants will practice techniques of therapeutic primary light work that builds out a full spectrum of colored shadow images. Techniques for moving 5 and 7 string marionettes will be demonstrated and practiced. This workshop will center on artistic exploration of performance art, with participants performing Steiner's fairytale at the culmination of the conference - a gift as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Waldorf Education in the world!
Workshop/limit: 12 participants

Janene Ping has been a Waldorf early childhood educator since 1992. She is the creator and artistic director of the Magical Puppet Tree Theatre supporting storytelling and puppetry arts for almost as long. Founded in 1992, The Magical Puppet Tree Theatre is a not-for-profit arts initiative inspired by artists, musicians, teachers and friends of the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School community in Harlemville, New York. Janene is a faculty member at Sophia's Hearth in New Hampshire, teaches kindergarten at the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School, and she has led courses in puppetry arts for educators throughout the Northeast of the United States and in Europe.

Craft workshop 3: The Performance Art of the Multi Pocketed Themed Story Apron with Jennifer Aguirre

The multi-pocketed themed story apron is a delightful way to bring a variety of puppetry to life through story, verse and song in a lap performing method. The mystery of what is in each pocket lends itself well to an interactive quality in this performance art which brings a joyful quality to both the audience and puppeteer. The puppeteer/storyteller is like a conductor weaving the separate story pockets into a whole, whether in a simple performance for the young child or a more involved performance for a mixed age audience in an outreach community event.

In this workshop we will explore the wide variety of puppetry and visual storytelling methods suitable to this performance art and learn how to create a successful performance from beginning to end while weaving an interactive joyful quality. We will also explore the ritual significance of this puppetry art.

Please bring your ideas, questions and a story apron if you have one made along with favorite puppets and poems. Simple story aprons with pockets will be available for purchase as well as lending aprons, puppets, and poems provided so participants can create a performance to share at the end of the conference.

Jennifer Aguirre lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Sonora, California. She has been teaching and developing a grades puppetry curriculum at the Sierra Waldorf School since 1998 and bringing puppet performances to the kindergarten(s) and festival life of the school since 1993. She has been performing her 8 themed puppet pocket story aprons in a variety of community wide venues for over 20 years and enjoys teaching the puppetry arts to adults. She lives in a restored Gold Rush era home with her husband, and where they raised their two grown children.