Watch our highly engaging training video, 'Ask the Expert', from the comfort of your own office, nursery or home where we will be joined by our Guest Expert, Rachel Riggs, Creative Director of Imaginary Leaps & Artistic Director of DNA Puppetry & Visual Theatre. 

Rachel is an internationally experienced visual theatre artist/producer who designs and directs using traditional and contemporary puppetry techniques. She devises and creates theatre projects for indoors and outdoors with professionals, community groups and young people, collaborating together to visually tell stories.

Using puppetry, Rachel will be looking at examples from indigenous and emerging communities around Australia:

• Storytelling with puppets and objects – a universal way for all cultures to communicate.
• Practical ideas to directly engage parents with young children and build confidence, social skills, develop language and facilitate the parent/child play relationship.
• Using a key communication puppet to provide non verbal points of interaction.
• Making cultural connections and respecting diversity in early year’s theatre play engagement.
• How puppetry can aid children’s understanding, and develop compassion and empathy by being able to view things from another’s point of view.

Hosted by Earlyarts Director, Ruth Churchill Dower, this highly stimulating session is suitable for teachers, early years practitioners and professionals, nursery managers, local authority officers, home educators, parents and carers.