Attending the Puppet Symposium - an account in images

A visual account of the Puppet Symposium at UCC, Cork, last week

Johnny being taken out of his box
by Corina and Pascale
photo © Nik Palmer of "Noisy Oyster"

Persphone Sextou with Johnny Dwyer
Love at first sight

More photos by Nik Palmer see HERE

Other photos of the speakers at the symposium see UNIMA facebook page

Johnny, taking it all in

Corina Duyn giving her presentation at the Symposium
images from UNIMA research committee  Facebook page

Corina Duyn giving her presentation at the Symposium
images from UNIMA research committee  Facebook page

Puppet gathering at the Symposium.
images from UNIMA research committee  Facebook page

Most of the speakers and puppets at the Puppet Symposium.
images from UNIMA research committee  Facebook page

Film screening at the puppet festival

Puppets created and performed by people with disabilities

The Life Outside the Box Puppet Project was mentioned in the

'Puppetry as reinforcement or rupture of cultural perceptions of the disabled body.' 

A paper written by Laura Purcell-Gates & Emma Fisher. 

Published in 

Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. 

Published online: 26 Jun 2017.

  

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1329652 

ABSTRACT
This article proposes puppetry as a practice uniquely situated to intervene in ideological constructions of the disabled body both onstage and off. Examining our current and recent practice-based research that uses puppetry to intervene in cultural perceptions of disability, we put forth a provocation, asking readers to consider the ways in which puppetry practices can be deployed to enable performances by disabled puppeteers as well as in ways that engage with cultural constructions of disability. We suggest that puppets, as bodies that are materially constructed, can both reinforce and rupture such constructions. 

page 364 (2nd page - 2nd paragraph in the online document):

... Disability arts practices in Ireland that engage with puppetry include both theatrical and therapeutic practices. Theatrical engagements include explorations of how disability might be differently enacted in society, such as artist and writer Corina Duyn’s collaboration with fellow members of the Irish Wheelchair Association to create a puppetry community arts piece titled Life Outside the Box which premiered in 2016, with puppets created and performed by people with disabilities to explore the idea that people with disabilities can gain freedom by stepping outside of society’s ‘disability box’.1  Therapeutic practices include the development of artistic skills in people with disabilities, such as the Arts in Dis- ability workshops of Dublin-based Artastic, a street spectacle, entertainment and arts education organisation, in which adults and children with disabilities construct and puppeteer direct-manipulation puppets.2 Countering the isolation of children in hospitals, including children with disabilities, and enabling creative conversations that connect them to the wider community was the core aim of Helium Arts’ Puppet Portal Project in 2009–2010.3 
...

1. Life Outside the Box website with link to book and DVD: http://www.corinaduyn.com/site/community-arts-puppet-project/
   
2. Website with images from Artastic arts in disability workshops:http://artastic.ie/gallery/arts-in-disability-workshop-images/
   
3. Helium Arts’Puppet Portal Project website:http://www.helium.ie/programmes/programmes-archive/puppet-portal-project/ 
   
   
   
   
   Link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1329652 
   
   
   Laura Purcell-Gates & Emma Fisher (2017) Puppetry as reinforcement or rupture of cultural perceptions of the disabled body, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22:3, 363-372, DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2017.1329652
   
   
   

   RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance is a refereed journal aimed at those who are interested in applying performance practices to cultural engagement, educational innovation and social change. It provides an international forum for research into drama and theatre conducted in community, educational, developmental and therapeutic contexts. ... read more 

   
   

   
   
   
   

The Broken Puppet: A Symposium on Puppetry, Disability, and Health

Corina Duyn, facilitator of the Life Outside the Box Puppetry project 

has been invited to give a talk about her experience of making puppets 

throughout her life and during illness, 

as well as sharing the empowering aspects she encountered 

during the creation of puppets with her fellow members of the 

Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA),

 at the upcoming international symposium 

The Broken Puppet: A Symposium on Puppetry, 

Disability, and Health

1st and 2nd of August 

at UCC, Cork, Ireland 

Connolly Complex (adjacent to the Granary Theatre) on Western Road, 

directly across from the River Lee Hotel. 

Rooms ConnA and ConnS4 will be signposted on either side of the building. 

Click HERE to register/book tickets

The Life Outside the Box film will be screened 

on 1st August during the Puppet festival in Cork
on the ground floor of the Village Hall.

Johnny Dwyer is ready to travel to Cork!!

Details from eventbrite: 

"The UNIMA Research Commission in collaboration with Cork Puppetry Festival, University College Cork, and Mary Immaculate College, is delighted to announce a two-day symposium exploring the ways puppetry intersects with disability and health. Academics and practice-based researchers will present papers, provocations, and presentations of practice-based research.

“The emergence of a disability culture is difficult but tremendously liberating. Such a culture enables us to recognize the pressure to pretend to be normal for the oppressive and impossible- to -achieve hurdle which it is. Most importantly, this culture challenges our own prejudices about ourselves, as well as those of the non-disabled culture.”- Jenny Morris

“The object offers itself to the individual as an extension of his being in the surrounding universe, and augmented affirmation of his total existence.” - Roger Daniel Bensky"

image: Research practice based on "Pupa" by Emma Fisher.
Ceramic puppet made in collaboration with Sheila Stone. Photo Emma Mac.

Registration for the event, held on the 1st and 2nd of August at UCC, Cork, can be done HERE

Schedule of speakers rom the UNIMA website:

Tuesday August 1st 2017

• 12.30 Registration
• 1.15 Welcome and introduction (Cariad Astles)
• 1.35 Keynote: Dr Melissa Trimingham: Puppetry and autism

WELLBEING PANEL

• 2.25 Moira Jenkins: Puppetry as a human right: relational citizenship
• 2.50 Andrea Markovits: Puppet therapy and traumatic memory in Chile post-dictatorship
• 3.10 coffee
• 3.30 Yasuko Senda: Heart-warming Smile Puppet Association
• 3.55 Oscar Goldszmidt: Social inclusion through puppetry: a case study with cerebral palsy
• 4.20 Caroline Astell-Burt: Closeness, touching and kinaesthesia
• 4.45 Antje Wegener: Therapeutic puppetry in Germany
• 5.05 Questions and discussion

Wednesday August 2nd

• 9.00 Registration
• 9.30 Keynote: Dr Persephone Sextou: Puppetry in hospitals, clinics and healthcare settings

Disability panel

• 10.35 Emma Fisher: The Broken Puppet: puppetry and disability
• 11.00 Corina Duyn: Life outside the box: puppetry, ME and disability
• 11.25 Roberto Ferreira De Silva: puppetry with disabled participants
• 11.45 Questions and discussion

Hospitals and care settings panel

• 1.10 Riku Laakkonen: Performing objects in palliative care
• 1.35 Matt Jennings: Acts of caring: puppetry in person-centred nursing
• 2 Gibdel Wilson: Puppets talk, communities listen
• 2.25 Poupak Azimpour: Listener dolls: a case study of women recovering from cancer
• 2.45 Questions and discussion
• 3.05 coffee

Mental health panel

• 3.25 Marisa Latimer: Shadow puppetry and dramatherapy
• 3.50 Kate James-Moore: Puppetry as a creative tool: struggle, control, power
• 4.15 Joni-Rae Carrack: Objective and Subjective: puppetry and mental health
• 4.40 Aaron Jean Crombé: Self-acceptance and puppetry
• 5.05 Lesley Burton: final reflections
• 5.30 Questions and discussion

Update 18th August:

• Story of puppets in the life of arts facilitator Corina Duyn
• Images of the symposium

IWA puppets and their makers on RTE television

The puppets and their makers made it onto TV.

On the People's Angelus

See the one minute video HERE 

The next screening is on 1st Spetember, 
and every 12 weeks after that.

Article in Dungarvan Observer
2nd June 2017
To read the article, please see Page 17 in
the online version of the Dungarvan Observer 

Few Notes:

• Copy of article  by Margaret Ann Foley, who suggested we contact RTE about our project.
• As not all the participants could be mentioned in the film, RTE named project facilitator Corina Duyn, and film maker Alan O'Callaghan, and the Irish Wheelchair Association.
• The Bells were added by RTE as this is standard for inclusion in the People's Angelus.
• The music is different from the music in the original film which can be viewed HERE  for RTE copyright reasons.
• Thank you Roger Childs for including our project.
• The film will be screened again, as it will be included in a rota.

The People's Angelus

A few months ago, before the screening of the Life Outside the Box Puppetry Film in Canada and Dungarvan Cinema our IWA group was reflecting on where to show the short film next.
One of the suggestions from Margaret Ann Foley was to ask RTE (our national broadcaster) if they would like to show it on the People's Angelus ...

The one minute daily reflective Angelus broadcast on RTÉ One is one of Ireland's longest-running programmes, having been aired daily at 6.00pm since the inception of RTÉ television in 1962.

Ireland has changed enormously over that time and the nature of the broadcasts has changed with it. They are now changing again. Since October 2015 New commissioned films create a reflective space for all in the peak-time schedule… In addition to these commissioned professional films, RTÉ One has designated one slot per week, on Fridays at 6pm, as The People’s Angelus slot

More about the People's Angelus

And you know what.
I contacted RTE's Roger Childs, Senior Production Executive & Genre Head of Religious Programmes RTE. I emailed a little bit of information, and the film. I received a Very Enthusiastic response that same day.

A few months have passed, with several edits made and contracts and permission signed. And now...

THIS FRIDAY 2ND JUNE, 6 PM

OUR LIFE OUTSIDE THE BOX 

one minute version 

WILL MAKE IT ONTO 

NATIONAL TELEVISION!

So please tune in.

It will be included in a regular rota of People's Angelus submissions

every Friday, over the coming months. 

From this early start of the puppet project...

...to dancing outside the Disability Box! and onto national television

Thank you all who were involved in this project.
Members and Staff at the IWA.
Alan O'Callaghan of The Bootleg studios.
Roger Childs at RTE.
And all who supported us along the way.

* I have also been asked to talk about the project at the upcoming The Broken Puppet:  A Symposium on Puppetry, Disability, and Health. At UCC in August

What a journey!

Life Outside the Box short film

Welcome!

Welcome to the screening of Life Outside the Box, 

which is the result of an eight month puppet making project 

with members of the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) 

Dungarvan Resource Centre.

This film is being shown today 15th March 2017 

at the Picture This... film festival 

an international disability film festival in Calgary, Canada.

Please explore this Blog to get the full story.

Life Outside The Box from Corina Duyn on Vimeo.

Life screening of the film in Dungarvan and Waterford, see THIS Blog Post

Press releases of our film 'Life Outside the Box' screenings

Pressreleases published in newspapers and on Dungarvan Cinema Facebook page, Dungarvan Tourism and Dungarvan Shopping Centre (where the film was made) facebook pages... and probably in other places too. Thank you all for the support!

Dungarvan Puppets are on the move again!

By Corina Duyn

Just about a year ago a set of nine puppets made their first public appearance during a filming session at the Dungarvan Shopping Centre.

They were made by members of the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) Resource Centre, during an eight month project led by local artist and writer Corina Duyn.

Corina, also a member of the IWA, was asked in 2014 if she could facilitate puppet project. This Life Outside the Box project received funding from Create – Artist in the Community Scheme, part of the Arts Council of Ireland. The IWA staff provided practical support every step of the way.

The making of the puppets and props were a weekly adventure into learning new skills, building friendships, sharing lots of laughter, but also brought a huge sense of empowerment. Words like “I found me again”, and “I did not know I could do this”, were heard during the session.

Life Outside the Box was the chosen title to represent this diverse group of people and the merits of the project. “Although we all live with illness/disability, we still very much like to be part of society. We symbolized this by having our puppets step out of Society’s Disability Box.”

Alan O’Callaghan from The Bootleg Studios filmed this adventure at the Dungarvan Shopping Centre in January 2016. 

To the participants absolute delight this very short film will be screened on the 15^th March 2017 at the international disability film festival Picture This in Calgary, Canada.

To celebrate this achievement, local public venues have been hugely supportive to host screenings of the film between 10^th and 17^th March:

•   Dungarvan SGC Cinema. Before every movie from Friday 10^th until Thursday 16^th March.

•   Waterford Centre for Independent Living, Cheshire - John's Hill, Wednesday 15^th March at 12.15, and 12.30. 

•   Dungarvan Shopping Centre on screens in the main lobby from Monday 13^th until Friday 17^th March.

•   Some of the puppet makers will be at the Shopping Centre on Monday and Thursday. Contact Caroline Lacey for details.

•   Easons Dungarvan have kindly agreed to sell the project Book/DVD, and notebooks. All proceeds go the IWA Art group.

•   Digital screening on the Puppet’s Blog http://lifeoutsidethebox-puppetproject.blogspot.ie from the 15^th March.

During the past year, the puppets have travelled for exhibitions to Dungarvan and Waterford Library and Tramore Coastguard Arts Centre. Individually they have joined their makers on holidays and day trips to Villierstown, Tramore, Youghal, Kenmare and even Spain.

If you would like to invite the puppets and their makers to come and talk about life with disability at your school or group, please contact Caroline Lacey at IWA caroline.lacey@iwa.ie 087-2556835.

Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) is a national organization, which provides a range of services to people with disabilities and other mobility impairments in their own homes and communities.

Avondhu Newspaper 9-03-2017

Dungarvan Observer 10-03-2017