Community Arts

The outcome is for 100% of the participants to gain skills in contemporary puppet theater production and begin developing artistry in the form (visuals, narrative and performance). Artistic success is Native/POC having gained skills and artistry in performance and construction and storytelling, but also the expressed desire among some of the participants to continue to create shows after this project, or the desire to participate in work by other puppeteers/puppet theaters/companies. Our evaluation methodologies: Qualitative: interviews and formal surveys with participants and master puppeteers as well as check-ins every month so we can change things in the moment if it's not going smoothly. Feedback about participants' experience in the process, if experienced puppeteers were great at conveying concepts and techniques, all of this will help us get a sense of the impact of the program and how to improve it. The interviews also help us track outcomes that are transformative in nature. Quantitative: We will track demographics so we can see how to better promote to be inclusive of all the diversity within our community. We also have ongoing evaluation to track participants' participation in other puppetry opportunities in the Twin Cities, and engagement again with Monkeybear through future workshops/projects. We place importance on both the tangible outcomes of our project as well as transformative changes within the participants.