NOT ONLY LANGUAGE: LEARN IN PIAZZA And fairy tales / shadow play! What's new in the square?
A shadow puppet show to accompany a story
coming from distant China, and the decoration of his characters with the 'art of calligraphy
a wise teacher: Mao Wen.
Sunday, April 18, in fact, children and families participating in "In the square
learn " have traveled a road that connects our west with the east, to hear the reading of a traditional Chinese tale, inspired by a very old form of theater: the shadow puppetry
precisely. The partnership started with the Cinema Museum in Turin, curator of the show, allows us to enter the ancient artistic fervor of one of the largest community in the area of \u200b\u200bPorta Palazzo: the Chinese.
The tale is an approach to reading, listening and mentalization for younger students to "learn in the square." Sunday, attracted by this experience, about 10 children accompanied by their parents, have colored our project. We speak
with Sabina De Petris who care for us laboratories dedicated to fairy tales.
Sabina, in addition to being an elementary school teacher, think and also organized workshops for kids and related to the world of fairy tales. Tales
Romanian, Chinese, Arabic, Sinhalese and more.
What kind of environment you are getting a Porta Palazzo, and how you had to re-adapt the lab to place "open" par excellence, which is the square of the Republic? Bring laboratories fairy tales in the square was now a big challenge, because it is a very different context than where they usually had proposed that a school or a library. It 'an informal context in which I had to get involved because every time I did not know how many children were present and of what age, so the planned activities must also be flexible in that it must adapt to the context that every fairy tale comes to have. The moment that follows the reading of the play is dedicated to the construction of an object here, the best thing was the participation of parents, including many fathers, who willingly lent themselves to cut and paste with their children. The presence of parents was very good and also the fact that lend themselves to lend a hand, they stopped to ask for copies of drawings to take home. One last interesting thing was to keep in place the use a carpet on which everyone can sit down to listen and draw, it may seem strange to stand on a carpet square, where people usually go for the weekly market.
How do you think that listening to a Chinese fairy tale, the approach to writing based on characters and animation through the shadows of the Chinese Film Museum will educate? And most importantly, what to teach? Listening to stories in different languages, even those who do not understand, they are an excellent way to educate and get used to listening, big and small, to the linguistic and cultural diversity around us and to which all too often we do not care, in a world that is increasingly becoming global from all points of view, discover the importance of the differences is valuable and rich. The use of shadow puppetry has further engaged the audience with simple but very direct way, allowed to dive deeper into the story and narrative, to discover an art so ancient, so simple and at the same time, very effective. The children have also tried to move the shadows, to build themselves and forget that I do not think it will constitute a portion of their wealth of knowledge, from now on. Both the art of shadow puppetry that the writing of Chinese characters is also an education in patience to do the slow and beauty, all of which often we do not have more time to grow, both adults and children. I believe that, once again, the square was, in this sense, a very important vehicle of new knowledge for the children or for adults to rediscover.
Thanks Sabina!