Therapeutic Animated Form: Memory and Trauma
Led by Andrea Markovits and Polo Fernández
For 5 intensive days in January 2025 in the centre of Barcelona, we invite ex-students of our training sessions and new participants interested in the therapeutic power of puppetry, art therapy, the body, and animated forms.
Inspired by different authors who have described and investigated the therapeutic power of animated forms and artistic therapies, we chose Moreno’s ideas on “therapies in action” to frame the theoretical support of this methodology.
Damasio says that “the mind has a foundational origin in the experience of the body,” so the puppet body is a form of knowledge or understanding in action that integrates the body of the operator. Thinking of the puppet body and the operator’s body as a whole invites you to discover different levels of relationship and new dialogues.
We understand the brain, the body, and the environment as cognition, and therefore we approach therapeutic practice with puppets as a form of knowledge and reflection, as an alternative language, or as an alternative form of thinking from action, where sensorimotor processes are linked to the puppet.
This training session will provide tools for the animation of puppets, objects, and materials. It explores their psychological functions and the relationship that exists within puppet-embodiment, as a way to understand the world through this mediating object; to think and reflect on the action, the potential of the body of the puppet and the operator, as resources to guide group processes from creation and healing at the individual and group level.
The Model of Therapeutic Animated Forms: Memory & Trauma© consists of strategies developed through creative activity to accompany the process of the healing of informed trauma, where the personal becomes collective, achieving the physicalisation in material form of complex experiences, that generates a safe and accompanied space in which to find metaphors, re-assigning and comprehending these traumatic experiences via animated forms.
TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED:
Therapists, art therapists, psychologists, social workers, drama therapists, puppeteers, play therapists, artists and anyone, with or without experience, interested in the field of puppetry applied to therapeutic processes.
LANGUAGE: Guided in English and Spanish
DATES: Monday, January 27th to Friday 31st
HOURS:
Monday to Thursday from 10:00 to 17.30 hrs.
Friday from 10.00 to 14.00 hrs.
ADDRESS: ESPACIO La Sala, Ortigosa 14. Metro Plaza Urquinaona.
(Centre of Barcelona, near the Gothic Quarter)
APPLICATION FORM:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1AKePs7-otX6VBx7_lm1tkR_A7bR3DDq3WmJAsSjY9A4/edit
FOR PROGRAM DETAILS, PRICES AND DISCOUNTS: puppettherapybcn@gmail.com
- The course includes materials and coffee.
- A certificate of participation will be issued on the last day of the course.
ANDREA MARKOVITS
PhD student at the University of Barcelona (UB). Line of research application of art for psychosocial improvement and in therapeutic contexts. Founder and director of the Puppet Therapy International program. She has a Master of Arts in Health and Art Therapy (Finis Terrae University). Studied puppet and object theatre at the School of Puppetry and Drama in Tel Aviv. Postgraduate degree in dramatherapy (Universidad de Chile). Teacher of special education with theatre studies. She has been invited to conduct a Puppet Therapy & Trauma training at the School of Therapeutic Figures in Switzerland (2024); a course on “Objects speak of war” organised by Unima Ukraine for puppeteers from Kyiv (2023); and to create the Puppet Therapy academy at the Puppet Festival Chuncheon (2022). She has conducted 3 international bilingual training sessions for Therapeutic Animated Forms in Barcelona. Likewise, she worked as a Puppet Therapist and dramatherapist at the Reuven Feuerstein Centre in Jerusalem (ICELP). She volunteered as a puppeteer with children who were victims of the Syrian civil war. Furthermore, she performed puppet shows at The National Association for the Habilitation of Children and Adults with Intellectual Disabilities program. She has developed research on memory using puppets, with family members of Detenidos Desaparecidos and victims of political violence in Chile (2014–2022). She has been invited to speak at different international puppetry and therapy meetings and on postgraduate programs at universities.
POLO FERNÁNDEZ
Co-founder of the Puppet Therapy program. He trained at the School of Puppetry and Drama in Tel Aviv and graduated in philosophy and Spanish from the Universidad de La Serena. Co-founder and puppeteer in the company Puppets in Transit. He was invited to lead a Puppet Therapy course at the School of Therapeutic Figures in Olten Switzerland (2024). He co-directed three bilingual international training sessions in Therapeutic Animated Forms in Barcelona (2023–2024) and co-created the first Puppet Therapy Academy at the Puppet Festival, Chuncheon (2022). He has worked as a set designer and lighting designer, creating and participating in several independent theatre projects. He worked with Jack-Robinson and Alef Alef, designing and creating scenographies for theatre and television and giant puppets for carnivals. Likewise, he participated with Puppets In Transit as a volunteer puppeteer with children who were victims of the Syrian civil war. Furthermore, he was invited to exhibit at Puppet Power 2020 (Calgary, 2020). He has developed puppet and memory workshops in Villa Grimaldi and Museo de la Memoria (Ministry of Culture and the Arts, Chile) and puppet workshops with children and young people with Downs syndrome (Ministry of Culture and the Arts). He has given training courses on puppetry and therapy to professionals from different mental health teams in public hospitals in Chile.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/munecoterapia/
