Reflections from the
The Creative Spirit Within Puppetry Arts
A Collaborative Conference at Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School and Farm
July 31st - August 3rd 2025
Read My first travel to WAPASA's Puppetry Conference by Suvi-Maaria here!
I felt so blessed to have experienced this year’s Creative Spirit Within Puppetry Arts Conference. As an early childhood teacher it has been my intention to bring magic and imagination, to both nurture and inspire, but I myself was nurtured and inspired by the wonderfully creative group of people in attendance from all around the globe. It is amazing how meeting someone can quickly feel like reuniting with an old friend when you come together to share in such a delightful experience and create with focused attention. Thank you to Cindy Sydow, who guided us through an illuminating experience of shadow puppetry. Thank you to Jennifer Aguirre who shared her Mountain Story Apron. Thank you to Mindy Upton who shared her Root Children circle, with the help of others. Many thanks to Janene Ping, for the natural plant dyeing workshop, who helped us to make a rainbow (before, during and after the rain). Thank you to Nancy Mellon who modeled uprightness. Thank you to all the hands and hearts who helped make the event so special! I look forward to sharing all that I have learned with my colleagues.
Until we meet again, I will speak your names and send you many blessings :)
Warmly, Trisha
~
Dear Janene, dear WASAPA workers,
Thank you all so much for creating an inspiring workshop for puppeteers!
Here are some of my reflections:
I began with the Plant Dying Workshop. Everything was extremely well prepared, as if some fairies had been very busy. (I guess they had some help from Janene Ping.) From three basic colors a whole rainbow appeared, but also tertiary tones to provide some earthyness as well.
To me the process of indigo is the most astounding. A yellowish green with purple scum arising reminds rather of "Bubble, bubble ,toil and trouble". But after the cloth has been dipped into this strange concoction, as it comes in contact with the air, it turns all shades of blue from light clouds to deep midnight. It makes one wish we all could transform so magically! The weather-gods got quite enthusiastically involved, adding lots of water onto our activity, so we had to postpone the final process to the next day.
I had hoped to write down some pearls of wisdom from Michael Lipson, but he made us explore what is sacred creation. Starting with the question "Why is it so hard to be loved?" As so often experience and the courage to be vulnerable proved more important than information...
I was intrigued how Jennifer's mountain puppet show resurrected John Muir. Both the natural scientific world and the imaginative flowing seamlessly together. Finger games and little songs emerged from so many pockets getting the audience to participate.
Sorry if I can't tell about everything that inspired me.
On Friday morning we shared our names, which as we had learned the night before sounded back to us twice in affirmation. It was heartwarming to hear each others intentions from all over the continent and beyond. Later on in the evening we got a wonderful taste of different puppet shows, some of them still in progress, like the Four Elements, or The Most Beautiful Song from Finland. The Three Sisters with indigenous songs and rhythmic clapping. The song about gifts from the sea awakened our senses. Brian's dog stole the hearts of many before the evening even began. The gifts were too many to mention them all.
Saturday morning's theme about attention struck home particularly strongly. There is a great economy for our and the children's attention, as if it were a commodity! Nancy Mellon wove many of the images from the nights before together in a meaningful way: Looking for the (most beautiful) song which comes from the heart, the three sisters reflecting our own three fold being.
My workshop of choice with Cindy Sydow was richly rewarded with new inspirations and practical advice. (We tried to bring delight not just something cute.)
This is getting rather long and I didn't even stay until the end. Please feel free to edit this! However, I still want to add some comments for the future:
One suggestion for the future arose out of a conversation I had with Richard Neal (painter, living in Camphill Village Copake). He has taken up the comment by Rudolf Steiner about threefoldness as already existing in so many realms of life. He found out that in regards to painting it is Color, Form and Light. ( Think of Rothko, Picasso, Rembrandt) With music he noted Melody-Harmony and Rhythm. So one could go on trying to find essential elements in all the arts. What would be the three essential elements in puppetry? I don't want it to be answered quickly, but rather to be taken up as homework and see if we could come to some kind of archetypal threefoldness. Perhaps it could be a fruitful working together.
Thank you for a very rich experience!
Else Wolf
~
What a wonderful opportunity to meet together to apply the skills of puppet-making and storytelling Left and right eyes twinkled as we painted, shaped, and needle-crafted story structures, words and presences to raise and uphold the goodness, truth and beauty of today's children. Surrounded by burgeoning summer biodynamic gardens and fields, .puppets, puppet productions and creative joy rooted more deeply and blossomed more colorfully in the nurturing spaces of the Ping Household garden, and in the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School. During our plenum gathering and workshops. together with squashes, beans and ripening corn, vibrant creative intention and artistic ingenuity met to effectively transform a wide range of challenges in today's schools and households. How will you help this initiative to grow!
Nancy Mellon
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I wanted to say thank you for your generosity and encouragement for me to attend the conference. I loved the challenge of so many new things. I learned so much about myself and appreciated the chance to connect with so many people. I truly feel a part of something big.
Thanks again for the dye workshop and all your creative advice. I love my apron so much and can’t wait to wear it in the classroom.
Warmly,
Cassie Sutter
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Thank you again for a wonderful conference experience!
Sitting around circular tables on small chairs in the Hawthorne Valley kindergarten offered a lovely setting for the work we set out to do.
In my small workshop group, Step-by-step, we proceeded to learn how to create hand puppets with first graders. With years of experience, our presenter Jennifer Aguirre led us through, stitch by stitch, the making of the Root children.
So many hints that could help make the process successful, in sharing this art with young hands and young hearts.
First graders.
In the break time we milled around, looking into each of the other two classrooms. Everyone had been busy during the workshop time with felting and sewing and cutting and constructing. It was beautiful to see all the creative work in each person’s exploration of a new Puppetry ideal.
It was very touching and very magical to be part of sharing the beauty of what we had done together over the three days with puppet shows, and shadow-light puppetry. It was a true culmination of all of our interest, enthusiasm and busy hands at work.
Many of us, perhaps all of us, felt the call to take courage or just some confidence to step forward and offer what we have to the children to welcome them towards our ever-changing world with the beauty of storytelling and Puppetry.
Maggie
~
In our shadow puppet workshop we created a stage scene collage made out of tissue and kite paper in great varieties of colors. The picture related to each of our own stories was created by carefully tearing or cutting out forms and pasting them on a sheet of white paper. A cardboard screen held it all together. A light from behind gently illuminated the scenery while the acting figures were moved slowly around by the story teller. The colors and shapes blended freely into one another creating a gentle softly dreamy soul mood. I would like to bring this Shadow Puppet Play to our senior members in the 'Rudolph Steiner Fellowship Foundation'. They could choose their own favorite story or nursery rhyme and I would create the pictures for them. I believe that their hearts and souls will be warmed by this simple yet beautiful artistic creation.
I felt so blessed to spend this weekend with such a large group of puppeteers coming together from many different places of this world in order to share their love and mission to reach out to as many souls as possible. It brought to mind the role of Felicia, from Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas, which I played in 2014. Here is an excerpt from that play:
Felicia:
....” But I was glad when I was told of Strader's plan, and heard Thomasius
too intends to show how spirit can enter into matter, sense-perceived. I saw in spirit all my fairy princes,
my fire souls too, dance merrily on thousands of puppet-stages, shaped with artistry.
And so, with inner happiness, I left them to find their way to many, many children.”
Rudolph Steiner's 'Mystery Drama' The Souls Awakening'. Scene 3.
Bella Freuman
~
I am back home in Honolulu after a whirlwind adventure to New York a few weeks ago, where I visited the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School to participate in the WAPASA conference. I am filled with many fond memories and am so grateful for the support I received, especially from Janene, throughout the preparations for my workshop: creating colored shadow puppets with a portable stage.
From my vantage point, the social experience stands out most vividly. As a workshop leader, I was able to share some of my own insights of working with colored shadow puppet theater, yet our class was filled with talented participants who brought their own inspiring ideas as well! It was wonderful to see the initiative and creative process unfold so enthusiastically throughout our short time together. Some participants began with elements from my example but soon moved into their own unique creative expressions. The result was an array of storytelling that was truly magical. Even though I was leading a workshop, I found myself in constant learning mode. This was deeply rewarding. I was particularly impressed by the courage it took each participant to perform for others a story or verse..... that had barely been conceived! Each offering was received by the others with an abundance of gratitude! I returned home with my heart and soul full of hope, especially for our heart forces; the wellspring of our imaginative life!
I am confident that participants will carry essential elements of this workshop into their future work for the benefit of their communities. We never know what the future will bring, but I can certainly say that I look forward to meeting again someday soon, hopefully to take this "delightful" art form to the next level!
Warmly,
Cindy Sydow
~
On Saturday evening of the conference, I came prepared to play atmospheric ocean sounds on the harp as conference friends explored the light theater stage in Janene's studio. Sheets of special screen material were framed and draped with silks. Janene explained that the screen can be influenced by light and colors reflecting on either side, front or behind, to create different effects.
At first Janene welcomed guests to play behind the screen with different pre-prepared cut out and laminated figures, ocean animals, boats, swimmers, on sticks that could be held against the screen from behind with different lighting. The colors were vibrant and glorious and the figures suddenly became characters facing challenges and adventures at sea. I sat out front watching and playing the harp inspired by the characters and the qualities of color that created their soul environment.
One of the effects of the lights was that the primary colors multiplied the number of reflected items, so one hand could look like two or four hands. Images moved in mysterious ways and the viewer was free to interpret images in ways that freed what was living within. At one point, to me, it appeared then that there was a being, on the screen itself, in broad strokes of paler blue that if it had a name, it would be Tolerance. The figure appeared to watch over the screen with complete equanimity. It was only the light reflecting on the screen itself, yet once I perceived the figure, it remained there, a soft blue that calmed the sorrows of my soul.
Janene suggested another group come in and try playing behind the screen. There was another gesture of hands in many colors. This gesture was entirely different, a dance of hands lifting upward. Joy. Healing hands, rejoicing hands.
Echoes of the conference discussions resurfaced… One of the first things Nancy Mellon had offered during the conference was the importance of gesture. Another time she asked boldly, "Can we even mention the name of the great teacher Rudolf Steiner?" She reminded us not to simply call on the ancestors, but to call on the ancestors who wish for the good of humanity. Finally her hands offered an uplifted final gesture to end our time together.
The WAPASA Conference lit a vibrant fire of inspiration within me, and I sensed this also streaking around the earth like a meteor shower!
Thank you everyone, for so many things… May we meet again soon.
Marianne P.
