Fifth graders bring stories to life with shadow puppets

By JACQUELINE CAIN | Staff Writer
jackie@miltonindependent.com

Fifth graders at Georgia Elementary and Middle School showed their teachers just how much is possible with paper and lights last Friday, May 27.

Four classes presented shadow puppet shows after a week of working with artist-in-residence Sarah Frechette, also known as Puppet Kabob.

A GEMS alumna, Frechette has been artist-in-residence at the school at least a dozen times, she said.

Friday’s performances, which related to the GEMS fifth grade curriculum, featured a unique style of shadow puppetry involving handheld flashlights instead of the traditional spot lighting.

“Most of the time, shadow puppets appear very flat on the screen,” Frechette said.

“With the flashlights, we create dimension,” she continued. “We’ll layer things, we can spin the shadow around so what was further away now appears closer, and we use the lights to zoom in and out and do cross-fades.”

Frechette’s technique, which her partner, visual artist and film director Jason Thibodeaux, helped develop, is reminiscent of film in the way it creates depth, she said.

Though a puppeteer – she received a degree in puppet arts from the University of Connecticut in 2001 – Frechette knows a thing or two about film. She recently completed her work as costume fabricator for a 2012 film, “ParaNorman,” produced by Portland, Ore.-based production studio Laika, most famous for its 2009 Oscar-nominated film “Coraline.”

Frechette started the week of workshops last Monday, May 23 by creating storyboards with fifth grade teacher Deb Farrington and enrichment coordinator Nancy Mildrum.

The short, visual arcs related to four different topics the students have studied: Animals Around the World, Medieval to Modern, Tropical Rainforest Biomes and Solar System Adventure.

“It gives the art purpose by having it connect with language, math or social studies,” Frechette said.

Each storyboard incorporated some idea of change, Frechette said.

“The medieval show turned into a city; the king and queen turned into businesspeople. I guess that’s what our idea of royal is now,” she said.

Solar System Adventure showed the Discovery shuttle coming down to Earth while a boy watched through his telescope.

“Someone actually really goes into space, but you can have access to that on your telescope,” Frechette said.

The students crafted their own puppets out of paper, colored cellophane, tape and, in some cases, wire rigging. The St. Albans Energizer plant donated the flashlights, and with Frechette’s help, the fifth graders animated the storyboards on Friday.

“The life in it is the shadow,” Frechette said.