PRESS RELEASE
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONEMNT AND COASTAL RESOURCES
THE FIRST EVER PUPPET THEATRE WORKSHOP TOUR OF TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS’ SCHOOLS STARTS THIS WEEK
‘Talking Turtles’, the first puppet theatre workshop to tour Turks and Caicos Islands schools starts this week in Grand Turk, before moving to South Caicos and then Providenciales throughout April.
In collaboration with the UK’s Marine Conservation Society (MCS), the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR, formally DEMA), and the Turks and Caicos Friends of the Arts Foundation, the UK’s Lempen Puppet Theatre has come to TCI to teach participating high school pupils puppet theatre craft.
The workshops, run by professional puppeteers Liz and Daniel Lempen, will focus on the performance of a Taino fantasy story with an ocean conservation theme. The story celebrates the long tradition of fishing in TCI, and promotes the need for responsible fishery management and ocean conservation.
Daniel Lempen said “We have been running puppet performances and workshops around Europe for nearly 30 years, but this is the first time we have been to the Caribbean so we are delighted to be here. We cannot wait to see the creativity that the students bring to the workshops and how they shape the performances. Because it hasn’t been done before, everything that happens during the Talking Turtles tour will be new - it’s very exciting!”
Dr Peter Richardson, Head of Biodiversity and Fisheries at MCS said “Through our TCI Turtle Project we have been working in the Island’s for many years, and our work with DECR and TCI fishermen resulted in positive changes to the turtle fishery laws in 2014. The Talking Turtle workshops will use these revised regulations as a good example of how we should manage our oceans, and talk broadly about how responsible fishing is an important part of ocean conservation.”
The workshops will start this Thursday at the HJ Robinson High School in Grand Turk, with a student performance at the school on the 18th April, and will then go to Marjorie Basden High School on South Caicos. The student performance there will be on the 21st and then Liz and Daniel return to Provo. The Provo workshops will be at the Edward C Gartland Youth Centre after school hours during the week of the 25th April, with the student performance on the 29th April.
Barbara Strogatz of the TC Friends of the Arts Foundation said “”We have a long track record of bringing international performers to the Turks and Caicos Islands, so when we heard about the Talking Turtles idea and the opportunity to bring Lempen here we jumped at it. We are always amazed at how much support we get for our work and again we are thankful to everyone who is supporting the project – we are sure the students are really going to enjoy this unique experience,”
The Lempen Puppet Theatre will also be running two ticketed performances of their show ‘The Amazing Thing’ on the evenings of the 23rd and 29th of April in support of the TC Friends of the Arts Foundation.
The workshops are supported by the TC Friends of the Arts Foundation, the TC Reef Fund and the UK’s British Chelonia Group.
For more information about the Talking Turtles puppet theatre workshops, please contact Amy Avenant, DECR Environment Outreach Coordinator on 338.4176 or
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