Creative side of students shine through during puppet-making workshops with Karen Hethey

Local students from Roebourne, Wickham and Karratha have gotten in touch with their creative side by making puppets inspired by important creation stories.

Juluwarlu Group Aboriginal Corporation is creating an outdoor performance aiming to tell creation stories from the Yindjibarndi culture. And as part of the broader project, puppet-making workshops have been held with local schools, with the end result to be showcased at the opening night of the Red Earth Arts Festival on March 17.

The workshops were facilitated by spectacle puppetry artist Karen Hethey, who said the workshops gave students the opportunity to learn the art form of puppetry.

“They learned specialist skills in puppetry and got to understand the art form a little bit more,” she said.

“They’re not interpreting the stories, they’re not performing a story but what we’re doing is there are characters within the stories that has inspired the puppets.

“We’ve actually got a renegade flamingo and a couple of toucans — there are some fantasy creatures that they have combined with different birds from the region and created their own inspiration.”

Ms Hethey said the students were “really inspired” by the activity.

More than 200 students across nine schools from Roebourne, Wickham and Karratha were involved in the workshops.