Speakers
Description
The present action-research study endeavors to shed light on the positive impact of applied puppetry in elderly settings. For this purpose, an applied puppetry program was conducted in an elderly day care center in Greece for three months. The ongoing qualitative research results indicate the influence of the program on revealing and empowering the elderly and their individual and collective memories. It is evident that during the animations, we "broke" the silence of the elderly. Additionally, the process of building a puppet was especially useful to help elderly people come out of their sense of isolation and improve the relationships among participants. Alongside, the process of narrating stories through puppets was an easy way to transfer feelings and attitudes. Puppetry created a distance from reality and thus allowed to ‘break out of time’, reimagine histories and create new and layered memories for objects.
CV
Magda Vitsou, Kostas Magos
Magda Vitsou, Phd in Theater in Education, Master of Arts (M.A.), is Laboratory Teaching Staff in the Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Thessaly. She has majored in "Puppetry in education and art therapy", in London School of Puppetry, and UNIMA Chile. Her scientific interests and publications focus on issues of Drama in Education, puppetry, bilingualism/multilingualism and social life of minority groups. She has contributed to several research projects related to applied drama and puppetry in education and school inclusion of students from minority background.
Kostas Magos is Professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education of the University of Thessaly in Greece. His scientific interests include the theory and practice of intercultural pedagogy, the education of immigrant, refugees and minority children and the use of folktales and children stories for fostering intercultural understanding.
