TeachingGreek mythologywithshadow puppetry
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 Zeus falls in love with Danae who is locked in a bronze tower |
Shadow puppetry is a great, hands-on tool for teaching Greek mythology. Showing the audience only shadows, children can let Kronos eat his offspring, open Zeus' head for Athena's birth, and turn Daphne into a laurel tree. And because the puppets are made of paper, Medusa's head can be sled without bloodshed. With the help of an overhead projector children can do even more spectacular tricks: they can have Persephone grow colorful flowers, let Icarus fall in a very real sea, and even ride Pegasus themselves. You can put up a performance in a matter of hours, or spend weeks on something on a larger scale. Shadow puppetry is flexible, great fun, and it will never break your budget. On this site some information and ideas. |
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Puppets, light and screen |
Timing and division of labor |
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Puppets, light and screen
With traditional shadow puppetry the audience sits in front of a screen, while puppeteers behind it move their puppets between a light source and the screen. What kind of light and screen to use depends on what you want to do. You can find information about puppets, light and screens at my site about teaching with shadow puppetry, which includes guidelines, tips, and references to further resources. |
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Individual or team projects on desk top screens If you like the children to work on their own or in small groups it is possible to use desktop screens and puppets (see my site about desktop shadow puppetry). Children could present their favorite gods or godesses, heroes or mythic creature to their classmates, or do so in teams, possibly with a skit about couples from Greek mythology (Theseus and the Minotaur, Orpheus and Euridice, Apollo and Artemis etc.). Alternatively, small groups of children may act out simple myths with few characters. The text may be provided in advance and written by the group itself after research. In this case, one of the children should act as the narrator. |
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Group or class projects with a larger screen The use of a larger screen and an overhead projector enhances the possibilities for group or class projects, possibly resulting in performances for parents or other classes. "Pandora's Box," a five minute performance that can be viewed at the right, was put together by a class of twelve 4th and 5th graders at a local Unitarian Universalist congregation in the context of the curriculum "Why Do Bad Things Happen." The performance took six teaching hours to prepare, during which the students made puppets and masks, and decided on the evils stored the box, which they drew on transparencies. The text was written and narrated by teachers. The preparation hours included practice time.
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Performance of "Pandora's Box" by 4th/5th graders |
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Choosing your myth(s) When choosing which myth(s) to perform with your class you have to be practical. Are there enough roles to distribute or split? Can the story be visualized well, and are you able to use any "special effects"? Where does the theme fit in the curriculum? Do you want it to be a class project only, or are you working with other teachers of the same grade? If your school has the luxury of an art or music teacher, are there any possibilities for cooperation? How much time do you want to spend on the project? If you want to keep it small and work with desktop screens or one big screen in the classroom, you can choose to have groups act out parts of a larger myth, such as the twelve labors of Herakles (Hercules). Alternatively, you can work on a group of myths around a certain theme. The Greek mythology for students series by Schlesinger Media (a set of 10 dvs which you may be able to borrow through your library) gives an excellent introduction into Greek mythology, and contains animations of some of the most famous myths, most of them grouped around certain themes.
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| Storyboarding and writing a script | ||
| Poseidon sends a sea monster to ravage Ethiopia. Scene from the Andromeda myth, using direct projection and transparent film on a rolling rack (instructions for the rack in World of Shadows) (4th grade) | If you are working on one project it is important to have the whole class involved in the storyboarding, when you divide the story up in individual scenes, with not more than four characters in each (the maximum of children fitting behind the screen). The scene shown on the left was part of a performance of two parallel 4th grade classes, who each performed one of the myths of Perseus and the head of Medusa. Instead of of using one screen we alternated scenes on two, which much increased the pace of the performance. When deciding which scenes to include in the story it is important for the children to understand how myths started as an oral tradition, in which stories were embellished and changed when they were passed on, resulting in many different traditions. Just like all poets, writers and artists who have used stories from Greek mythology for their own artistic interpretations, the children are free to decide which elements of a myth they want to include, emphasize, adapt, or leave out. |
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| The class that acted out the story of Andromeda, for instance, chose to let Perseus rescue Andromeda and fly back home on the back of Pegasus, the winged horse that was born from Medusa's dead body. In none of the written sources in antiquity, however, this actually happens, and the image of Perseus riding Pegasus has only been used in art, centuries later. The children were aware of this, but were in favor of using Pegasus nonetheless, because it worked out better narratively and visually. | ||
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Timing and division of labor Whichever story is chosen for a performance, there are always characters of more or less importance, and a longwinding story that provides enough scenes and characters for everybody may easily loose its thread. There are various ways around this problem, and with a bit of improvising it should be possible to make everybody feel they are involved and contributing to the performance. |
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It is always possible to split up main characters in the story, as long as they are recognisable, for instance by always having the same attribute (you can let the children do image research on http://www.theoi.com. Beware of the giggles because of male nudity on Greek vases!). Sometimes puppets should be held by two people, particularly when they are large, and when humidity makes the paper floppier. Additionally, you can work in different sizes (below). It may be wise to start your unit with an introduction during which all children make a puppet that they can take home. After this, they often know themselves if they would like to be a puppeteer, or prefer to play another part in the performance, for instance by drawing backgrounds sceneries on transparencies, be a narrator, or be part of the overhead projector group (popular!) or the sound and music crew. |
 Wisdom may be required (mouse over) |
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| The 4th grade classes who performed the two Perseus myths mentioned above were divided into four groups: puppeteers (making and holding puppets and props), visual artists (making and projecting background scenes on the overhead projector), writers and narrators (narrating scenes they had written individually or as a group), and musicians. The latter group worked with the music teacher and composed and performed the music that accompanied the scenes. | |||
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 click on the image for downloads |
A note about size Children often have difficulty sketching out the puppets in a large enough format with appropriately sized limbs (which should have enough space around the pivoting points). It helps to let them use examples or mannequins, which some children may like to trace and adapt. It is easy to go wild about all the possible body parts that could be made to move. Children should realize, however, that they can only move one part at the time (unless there are two puppeteers holding one puppet). Which part of the body should be moveable depends on the role of the puppet. Perseus, for instance, needs to be able to use his arm to slay Medusa (his head needs to turn around too to avoid petrification) while Pandora has to bend over to open the box. |
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| You are welcome to download the above image and print it out. Enlarged to 150% on 14"x11" (A3) size paper, puppets this size are big enough to be seen by a larger audience. Make sure the children understand that the body parts are overlapping, and should not be cut off. It will cripple their puppet! | |||
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Going bigger: direct projection and masks If you want to have some variety in size, to have the effect of "zooming in" or to emphasize the difference between gods and mortals, there are two ways of doing so. One way is by using masks, as is done in both of the video examples above. The masks should be big enough to prevent the child's head blocking the eye hole. A moving jaw can let the puppets talk. Another way is to put puppets directly on the overhead projector. Moving a puppet from projector to screen (keeping it in the light beam) may cause the effect of transformation or descending to earth. With careful coordination it will even be possible to let puppets on screen and projector interact, for instance during moments when gods and mortals meet. |
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Performance ideas If you provide a basic screen (see instructions) the children will easily come up with ideas about decorations. The two lamp poles supporting the screen that is shown to the left, were decorated as temple pillars made of a white paper. The screen was connected to a second screen by a long piece of paper, behind which the children were hiding when not working behind either screen. In addition to the narrators you may consider adding a chorus (speaking or singing) that comments on the events in the story, just like in real Greek theater. Everything is possible! Have fun!
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How to do your own shadow puppetry show |
List of supplies Shadow puppetry workshops |