Children’s Puppet Workshop Fall 2012

The Children’s Puppet Workshop is an arts and humanities workshop for East Bayside kids held at Mayo Street Arts. MSA is a community arts center located in East Bayside Portland serving a diverse constituency of international youths.

This year MECA students will work with groups of neighborhood kids to create murals, costumes, books, and other visual pieces relating to the theme of The Sun. Kids will also study dance, music, puppet making, and creative writing. Goals are to build neighborhood relationships, improve literacy, and provide high quality arts education experiences to neighborhood youths. The project culminates in a series of community performances December 5-7th and an exhibit at MSA’s gallery on First Friday in December.

The project is made possible through a SMART grant from Maine Arts Commission. Our partners include Maine College of Art, LearningWorks, Kennedy Park Study Center, Portland Youth Dance (Vivid Motion), East Bayside Neighborhood Organization, and Portland Community Policing.

Local artists and educators include MECA students, Portland Youth Dance students, Poet Megan Grumbling, Puppeteer Libby Marcus, and Percussionist Annagret Baier. The groups will collaborate to create vignettes of puppetry, percussion, and dance inspired by the youths’ short stories and characters based on the theme of THE SUN.

Below are some of the youths’ writing pieces and characters created in the writing workshops with Megan Grumbling that will inspire the performances. Enjoy!

Nagbuay: Alice Justice

Maureen: Jennifer

Charles: Bow Wow

Gamal: Alen

Lana: Snow Princess & A Letter to the Sun

Ali: Green Lantern

Aalliyah: Miss Star

Shaun: A Letter to the Sun

Justin: A Letter to the Sun