"Shadow Dancing"

This is the collaborative multimedia project I did with the kids from WIRE (Wilmington youth center for Inspiration, Recreation, and Education), a Communities in Schools program. The workshop was held in conjunction with Wilmington's first annual puppet festival. We created our puppets using air dry clay, and allowed each character to evolve. As we worked, we bounced around ideas for our shadow play and discussed conflict resolution as a possible theme. We talked about West Side Story, a movie set in New York City in the mid-1950s, that explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Taking our cue from the many extended dance scenes in the musical, we decided to do a shadow play in which our birds challenged each other in a dance off. The music was all performed live by the students. Enjoy and adjust your volume as necessary.