We have been working
with story-telling as a medium of reaching out and generating
conversations for learning, as a tool for language development and for
facilitating creative self-expression.
Story-making and Theatre: We perform stories for children and adults, dramatise them and present
them in a theatrical form. We also facilitate story-making workshops that touch
all aspects – the form, the language, the visualisation and presentation. We have regular story-telling and
making workshops in the main public libraries in/of
the tricity as well as some schools.
We have used techniques like ‘Kamishibai’, an ancient Japanese
form for presenting stories and ‘Phar’ which is a Rajasthani folk art
form, for sharing stories with audiences. ‘Kamishibai’ uses story cards and in
‘Phar’ we have a long scroll of paper /canvas which rolls out revealing
pictures pertaining to the story as the story-teller acts out and sings the story...
Our ‘Shadow Puppetry Workshops’ and Story performances with shadow puppets are
very successful. And a great tool for language development.
We are also interested in peoples’ stories and have used the making of
personal story-boards for sharing and ‘remembering’ stories. Sharing personal
stories are a very important part of our ‘Community Theatre’ workshops
and performances.
Puppetry and Learning:
CEVA facilitates learning experiences for teachers and children with
puppets. With teachers we share ideas for using puppetry in language, science
and math classes and also for teaching life-skills. With children we facilitate
creative expression, craft, emotional maturity, visual spatial intelligence
through puppetry. We use shadow puppets, muppets, giant puppets and puppets
made out of waste materials.