A Cats Tale/Tail 𓃠

Hi, welcome to Civic Term! If you’re wondering what that is, then I’ll explain. It is a three-week-long term in which students have the choice to continue working at GCE and take one of the many different classes or they simply leave for three weeks to take an internship elsewhere. I decided to take a class at GCE. The class that I took is called A Show of Hands. In this class, we study various types of puppetry such as hand, sock, rod, object, etc.

Growing up, I was never too fond of puppets since they are related to clowns - HATE THOSE - but surprisingly, it is harmless for the most part, it all depends on the puppeteer’s act and how they’re feeling.

Almost every week, we watched different kinds of puppet shows just to get a feel for what our project would be. We even had guests such as Claire Saxe from Rough House Theater and Sarah Fornace from Manuel Cinema explain to us the importance of the connection between the puppeteer and the puppet itself. For example, the same movements you make while breathing are the same movements that need to be transferred into your puppet.

At this point, you've probably guessed that the Action Project for this class was to create our very own puppet show. I decided to base my puppet show on a dream that I had not too long ago. It’s about being lonely and helping out along the lines of rod/shadow puppetry. I’m not sure if my video truly conveys that, but that is my intended message of the show as a whole.

In the first scene, the music in the child’s video is soft and casual and allows her to pay attention to nature and what’s around her. But the city scene with the adult has loud bustling, hustling music with horns beeping, trains and cars speeding. This is a comparison of how in a calm country setting people are more connected to nature and less likely to ignore things are around them. Meanwhile, city folks tend who are often distracted or wrapped up in the chaos of the city and so they ignore when things are people or pets are in need.

In conclusion, I really hope people feel the need to be more kind, not only to other people but to mankind as well, especially during times like these. Everybody and everything needs some love in their life. As you can see, in the “dream version” of this event, I actually helped the mouse get some shelter, and I didn’t care if people were watching. But in the “real-life version” of my dream, I was worried about other people and what they would think.

Moral of the story: be kind no matter what you come across and what it looks like.