Students enjoy Rabbit and Bear Paws puppets

Kingfisher Lake’s Romeo Brown enjoyed performing Oct. 26 as a bear in an interactive puppet theatre along with First Nations puppeteer Chad Solomon and five other students.
“It was pretty cool,” said the Grade 7 Mary Ann Aganash Memorial School student. “It was fun moving their mouths while they were talking.”
In addition to taking part in the interactive Rabbit and Bear Paws: The Way performance, which retells the Anishinabe creation teaching of Nanabazhoo and the animals, Brown and the other Grade 3-8 students also learned some drawing skills from Solomon. The puppeteer has created and published five graphic novels based on the seven grandfathers teachings using his Rabbit and Bear Paws characters.
“The kids absolutely loved it,” said Solomon, who is a Henvey Inlet band member from southern Ontario. “I always loved puppets as a kid and now that I’m a bigger kid, I get to play with puppets more often.”
Solomon said each of the animal characters in the interactive puppet theatre represents one of the seven grandfather teachings.
“I get the kids to share their knowledge to the audience of what they know about that animal,” Solomon said. “Depending on the audience, I sometimes share additional information that I know about the animals. 
“But the idea is to get the kids to be able to share their knowledge with their own peers on what they understand about those animals and how they connect to the teachings.”
Solomon also distributed some of his books to students at Mary Ann Aganash Memorial School.
“The purpose was to encourage all the students to continue reading because he believes that through reading, it widens your horizons,” said Angelita Seloterio, acting principal at Mary Ann Aganash.
Solomon also delivered his interactive puppet theatre to students at Wasaho First Nation School in Fort Severn along with Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Stan Beardy and Ruth Onley, wife of Ontario Lt.-Gov. David C. Onley.
“It was awesome,” Solomon said, noting that Onley and Beardy both participated as puppeteers in his interactive puppet theatre. “Her honour was the beaver and the grand chief was one of the helpers in becoming the water.”
Solomon found the students to be “incredibly gifted students with amazing talents.”
“Given the opportunity, they would excel at anything that they do,” Solomon said.
He is scheduled to deliver his presentation to communities across Ontario, Manitoba and the northern United States for most of the winter.
Solomon also delivers a program to address bullying.
“We use the puppets in a bullying program using laughter while focusing on a restorative justice program to help kids understand about bullying through puppetry,” he said.