The Apricot Centre

This short film explores the making of a puppet musical with the children at a residential school in Suffolk, UK and specifically explores working with processes of creativity and destruction. The puppet musical involved working creatively with 12 children between the ages of 10 and 15, described as having educational and behavioural disorders or special learning difficulties, and with a team of educational staff, during a 4 month period from September to December 2006. The initial question behind the project was: ‘Is it possible to address a sense of stuckness which we, the project organisers, experienced in the school during the Summer of 2006?’ This question evolved to include: ‘What is the relationship between creativity and “destructivity”?’, and ‘How can we work creatively with destructive behaviours?’

To start the project the organisers chose four key words which the children were asked to associate to, and this resulted in the development of the entire plot and performance. These words were: ‘Stuck’, ‘Castle’, ‘Key’, and ‘Secret Room’. The film highlights the importance of accompanying and engaging children in their urges to create and destroy.

Creation of the Short Film – a Narrative

Part 1

A young girl comes into an early puppet musical session and spits at me. I say, ‘Spit at the paper on the wall and then turn it into a castle.’ She spits and then draws a castle around her spit. During the next 10 minutes she writes the entire main plot of the story. ‘A princess is locked in a cage by a wicked witch in Spit Castle. Only the intelligent professor can save her, but he is is locked in the secret room. There is a wild bear roaming through the castle, and they will need to deal with the bear, and kill the witch.’

A boy with severe learning difficulties describes the sub-plot ‘Neptune Class find a map of the castle. There’s gold there. They go to the castle. Find the secret room. They take the gold.’ He spontaneously writes ‘Horses of the Cattle’, a song they sing as they travel to the castle.

Part 2

The Puppet Musical Project emerged from a conversation I had with a colleague in the school grounds last summer. It felt to us a time of low morale and a pervading sense of stuckness in the atmosphere. Keys were frequently being stolen from staff and used to gain access to various parts of the building. There were regular incidents of bullying and other hurtful and damaging behaviours.

We became interested in a process-oriented project that would address this atmosphere in some way. We aimed to work with the interplay between creativity and destruction. We wanted to explore some core themes within the school at that time, and to invite the children to weave them into a story of their own, hopefully finding unexpected resolutions to the problems within the school.

We developed an approach to bullying incidents which involved quickly attending to and engaging children who appeared to be looking for trouble. We also expected that a project on the theme of ‘stuckness’ would at some point reach its own ‘sticking point’ and that we would have to deal creatively with that when it arose.

The puppet musical was an ambitious project to create a full-scale production from the imagination of the children using their words and images, puppets, a puppet theatre, props, and backdrops where their stories could be performed with a pre-recorded narrative and mostly with songs which they had written.

The final outcome was a successful performance, but in many ways the most valuable experience was the process of getting there. This was full of highs and lows, times of heartache and distress, and magical moments when everything seemed to come together.

Part 3 – Master Keys

Just before the making of the puppet show there had been several months during which master keys were being stolen from staff and then being used to gain access to all manner of areas in the building. The key motif introduced at the beginning of the project was chosen for just this reason, to see if it would be possible to explore the process behind the taking of keys. A boy who was one of the main ‘key takers’ wrote a song called ‘The Master Key’, a moralistic spoof based around the thoughts and enjoyment of a boy running away with a manager’s key.

Part 4 – Engaging Trouble – Inner and Outer

When I started the project in September I became physically unwell, with painful and undiagnosable pains in my back and stomach. This lasted throughout the project, and over time I came to realise that the outer project was also very much an inner project. There was a relationship between the ‘challenging behaviours’ we worked with, and the disturbing processes in my body. Towards the end of the project I had reconnected to a period of loss in my youth, when I lost the slow and careful attention of my father to my own creative process.

My body experience and the behaviours of the children, were disturbing forces seeking awareness. The children seek our attention through their behaviour, challenging us and pushing for our reactions, needing parenting and eldership, but often expecting neglect or abuse.

The children entered this project with a huge energy. The very first session was characterised by an enthusiasm to make puppets during which some of the children started turning their creative imaginations towards inventions to hurt or disturb one another. We quickly realised that these behaviours were not to be endured, but rather they needed to be effectively engaged with, responded to. The children needed attentive feedback, limits and creative options. This responsiveness is no small thing, and I think it would be one of the most valuable of things to make an active study of in the future. An important feature of this ability to respond is when staff are able to stay flexibly engaged with their own creativity especially when faced with challenging behaviours.

Destruction & Transformation of Spit Castle

In the middle of the project a boy with Asperger’s is destroying the buildings and keys he has made. He tears open a dust bin bag emptying the contents onto the floor. His suggestion is to literally burn the castle down (in the school grounds) at the end of the show. He then builds the set so that it can appear to be burnt down and then transform into a magical castle, and this scene becomes the pivot point of the entire show. He himself has an inner fortress around his bad moods and negative behaviours, the walls of which need to come down, so transformation can occur.

Bullying

Bullying is a problem throughout the project, but we manage to adopt an approach of attending to bullies and supporting them in finding their creative or destructive direction, rather than initially excluding them or condemning them. We become increasingly aware of the subtleties of bullying, and that often the more overt ‘bullies’ are emotionally goaded or encouraged by more invisible bullies before they act out. Over time our supportive approach leads to a culture in which children seem to feel safer to explore their creativity, and a period of focused calm descends over the project.

Pink Love Hearts – Heartfelt

One small boy comes into a session wide-eyed and looking for trouble. He has a tough and puffed up body language, begins to break things other children have made and is intimidating his peers. A colleague and I firmly engage him. Telling him we won’t let him destroy others’ work, and ask what would he really like to do. After awhile he sits down and begins to cut out large pink love hearts from felt.

The Destruction and Transformation of the Spit Castle Show

Towards the end of November the project suddenly enters a low dream. There is a confrontation between some staff and children and several boys completely destroy the magnificently constructed and painted puppet theatre. They also destroy many puppets. We lose the ability to hold and engage the children. They feel less safe, and incidents of bullying rapidly rise. Staff work overtime to repair the physical damage.

I dream that a member of staff is peeing freely in the air, and through working on this in supervision I connect with expressing my feelings of fear and unhappiness more openly.

One week before the final performance, we still haven’t properly rehearsed the show. I express my unhappiness about how children are hurting one another and damaging each other’s work. I have a confrontation with the girl who is central to the creation of the project but who is continually hurting children and staff. Finally I reach my limits and walk out, saying I refuse to go any further unless things change.

Sitting with colleagues outside under a tree a boy comes to me and tells me he really wants the performance to happen. I ask his advice, and he tells us to only work with children who are not destroying the production now.

Four smaller boys enthusiastically volunteer, but I have to refuse the girl who has been central to the project, as she continues to intimidate the others. It is an important point for her and me when that evening a colleague spends time with her to discuss the situation, and she decides to ring me at home to ask to be in the production and promises not to hurt anyone. During the days that follow the children work solidly in their rehearsals, and the final performance to parents and children is a great success.

Summary

In our work with children it is common to become polarized in policing or judging children for their behaviours, labeling them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The Puppet Musical Project developed an approach of engaging and attending to creative and destructive processes. The ability of staff to respond effectively with children is deeply rooted in our ability to respond to and work with an awareness of our inner creative and destructive processes, both inner and outer.

Mark O’Connell Dipl FT (Plymouth Unit) Dipl PW (Zurich).

I have worked for eight years in residential children’s homes in the UK. I am very interested in the broad range of applications of process oriented approaches to many aspects of this work using music, puppetry, film, and games. I have learnt to trust the inherent creativity within each child, and ever seek to work at the cracks and creative edges of children who have suffered abuse, trauma, or attachment difficulties.

My wife Marina and I have developed the Apricot Centre for Sustainable Living in Essex, and work closely with Creative Partnerships in delivering workshops and supporting creativity within schools.