How to Use Puppets in English Lessons in Schools

Francis E. Saunders

Description

This vintage book is a comprehensive guide to the use of puppets and marionettes in schools, with suggestions for suitable plays, directions for rehearsals, tips on writing plays, and much more. Using puppets can be an entertaining and effective tool for educating children of all ages, and this guide contains everything an educator or parent might need to know on the subject. Contents include: “The Drama”, “Plays and Stories Suitable for Puppetry”, “Young Children”, “Older Pupils”, “Writing Plays”, “Producing the Show”, “Allocating the Jobs”, “Rehearsals”, “Young Children”, “Older Children”, “Impromptu Performances”, “Young Children and Self-expression”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on puppets and marionettes.

Sujets

• Loisirs
• Artisanat
• Magic
• Games
• Activities

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 07 septembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473355026
• Langue: English

Extrait

How to Use Puppets in English Lessons in Schools
by
Francis E. Saunders
Copyright 2011 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Contents
Introduction to Puppets and Marionettes
ENGLISH
Introduction to Puppets and Marionettes
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure, animated or manipulated by a puppeteer. They are used in puppetry ; a very ancient form of theatre. There are a staggering variety of puppets, and they can be made of a wide range of materials, dependent on their form and intended use.
Puppetry was first practised in Ancient Greece and the oldest written records of puppetry can be found in the works of Herodotus and Xenophon, dating from the fifth century BC. The Greek word translated as puppet is ( nevrospastos ), which literally means drawn by strings, string-pulling , from ? ( nevron ), meaning either sinew or string and ( spa? ), meaning draw or pull. Aristotle (384-322 BC) discussed puppets in his work On the Motion of Animals . He stated that the movements of animals may be compared with those of automatic puppets, which are set going on the occasion of a tiny movement; the levers are released, and strike the twisted strings against one another.
Puppetry by its nature is a flexible and inventive medium, and many puppet companies work with combinations of puppet forms, and incorporate real objects into their performances. They might, for example, incorporate performing objects such as torn paper for snow, or a sign board with words as narrative devices within a production. Some key types of puppet are the black light puppet ; a form puppetry where the mannequins are operated on a stage, lit only with ultraviolet lighting. The hand puppet (better known as the glove puppet) is controlled by one hand which occupies the interior of the puppet. The Punch and Judy puppets are familiar examples of this type. Larger varieties of hand puppets place the puppeteer s hand in just the puppet s head, and the body then hangs over the entire arm. Perhaps one of the most interesting, and ethereal types of puppet is the shadow puppet ; a cut-out figure, held between a source of light and a translucent screen. Shadow puppets can form solid silhouettes or be decorated with various amounts of cut-out details, even with coloured light introduced to provide yet another dimension. Javanese shadow puppets known as Wayang Kulit are a classic example of this.
Marionettes are one of the oldest forms of performance puppetry, the term meaning little Mary in French. Both Archimedes and Plato s work refers directly to Marionettes, and the Iliad and the Odyssey were first presented using these mannequins. Our present day puppetry probably extends back to these plays, performed to the common people of the fifth century BC. Marionettes, or string puppets , are suspended and controlled by a number of strings, plus sometimes a central rod attached to a control bar held from above by the puppeteer. Basic strings for operation are usually attached to the head, back, hands (to control the arms) and just above the knee (to control the legs). This form of puppetry is complex and sophisticated to operate, requiring greater manipulative control than a finger, glove or rod puppet. In modern times, marionettes are sometimes referred to as puppets , but the term marionettes is more precise, distinguishing them from other forms of puppetry, such as finger, glove, rod and shadow puppetry.
In the eighteenth century, operas were specifically composed for marionettes, Gluck, Haydn, de Falla and Respighi all composed adult operas for marionettes. Today in Salzburg in Austria, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre still continues the tradition of presenting full length opera using marionettes in their own purpose built theatre. In the UK, the renaissance of Marionettes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was driven by W. H. Whanslaw and Waldo Lanchester, two of the co-founders of the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild . The only purpose-built UK marionette theatre, founded by Eric Bramall and continued by Chris Somerville, is The Harlequin Puppet Theatre (built 1958) in Rhos on Sea, North Wales. There are many other theatres across the country however, that occasionally perform with marionettes. With the rise of television and film, marionettes found a rise in popularity especially in children s programming. The Disney produced story of Pinocchio was released in 1940 is solely focused on the adventures of a marionette. In the following decade, Bil Baird and Cora Eisenberg presented a great number of