Sharon Carr

Storylines Volume VI Issue 1

Sharon Carr A Cinderella A Day

Peg Doll Stories

Both Pyn Stockman and myself work as storytellers under the umbrella of Tree-Mendous Tales and over the past year, we have been holding regular monthly family storytelling sessions on Saturday afternoons at Hall Green Library in Birmingham. These sessions are usually very lively and eclectic as they are aimed at a wide ranging age group from toddlers to adults that ebb and flow into the group as we tell the stories. However, as you can well imagine, this can be very challenging as often we find ourselves competing with other users of the Library on busy Saturday afternoons. So when we found out we had got funding from Art Works to run a series of monthly storytelling and craft-making workshops focusing on the Cinderella stories from around the world over Christmas and the New Year’s we felt very fortunate indeed. Our project was one of four selected by Art Works, a local arts organisation that works within the Hall Green constituency in Birmingham to promote and support individuals and groups in the creative arts as well as provide opportunities for participation and professional development. This year’s Commission focused on the theme of Connecting Spaces and in partnership with the Midlands Arts Centre, (MAC), Art Works enabled local artists, community groups, residents and venues to connect and collaborate with each other to create a vibrant and colourful programme of activities that took place throughout the Hall Green locality in Birmingham over a four month period, ending in an energetic, joyful and vibrant showcase of all four projects’ work on 24 February at MAC before an invited audience of participants, their families, friends and other guests.

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Storylines Volume VI Issue 1

The title of our project was “A Cinderella A Day” and this connected beautifully with the story theme of MAC’s family show last Christmas as it was exactly that – the story of “Cinderella.” Both Pyn and myself are fascinated by the Cinderella story cycle and had talked about getting something together, using some of these stories to create a performance piece. However, we had not progressed the idea any further until we found out about Art Works’ Connecting Spaces Commission. We both felt this could be a wonderful opportunity to work specifically with a group of children at Hall Green Library through a series of workshops, using some of the stories from the cycle as the creative inspiration and combining this with a craft activity. Pyn came up with the idea of using peg dolls. Our aim was to encourage children and their parents to use the stories, getting their inspirations from either some of the characters in the stories told or whatever took their fancy when crafting their doll. We found this approach worked particularly with the boys who attended as very likely their views of the Cinderella stories are these are “girls only” territory. However, we showed them that not of all of the Cinderellas in the stories selected for the sessions had a Prince Charming waiting in the wings to sweep their Cinders off their feet into marriage.

Pyn Stockman telling Baba Yaga

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Storylines Volume VI Issue 1 In particular, one of the selected stories, Chinye from West Africa, tells of a young girl who overcomes a life of hardship and cruelty, and achieves independence, happiness countries and cultures from around the world. We felt it was important to show there is a universality in the themes that connect the different stories and

and wealth for her local community and herself through her acts of kindness, self belief and good works (plus with a little magic thrown in) but not through the motif of marriage. that each Peg-Doll created in the workshops, could be seen to be representative of the many stories to be found in the story-cycle. However, due to time constraints, we could only focus on a selected number of stories in some of the workshops and to illustrate the diversity and quantity of the stories in the cycle, we felt it was important to focus on a target number of peg dolls that could realistically be achieved, that is,

By telling these stories, we also

over a four month period from November to February this year.

wanted to show that the Disney version is not the definitive story of We held only three workshops –one per month – and so it was

the Cinderella fairytale; that there

necessary to limit the number of are between 350 to 1,500 dolls being made.

versions of the Cinderella stories originating from different

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Storylines Volume VI Issue 1

Although there are many versions of the story, Pyn suggested we should aim for a target of 365 dolls as a realistic number to achieve. Each doll created would eventually be displayed in an exhibition of Art Works’ Connecting Spaces Showcase of all four projects’ work.

We had the full backing and support from Margaret Hunt, the Librarian Manager and her staff to go ahead with the project. Both Margaret and her staff were very enthusiastic and made available their meeting room space upstairs. The Library then publicised the three free Saturday workshops -our first session was fully booked.

Both parents and children who attended that first Saturday were told of the project’s aims and also of the chance to win a free ticket to go and see MAC’s production of “Cinderella” before Christmas, if they attended two workshops. There was a lot of excitement and in our first session, we told our two chosen Cinderella stories, Tattercoats (England) and Vasilisa the Beautiful (Russia.) Afterwards, people were encouraged to create their own Cinders inspired peg dolls, using materials, fabric samples and textiles very kindly

donated by a local haberdashery shop as well as from other sources. There was a budget to purchase the copious materials needed. The dolls created at our story-workshops were truly

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Storylines Volume VI Issue 1

inspirational and very therapeutic!

from Super-Heroes, to air-planes fashioned from pipe cleaners, pegs and fabric to sparkly Fairy In fact, this was a rather Godmother peg-dolls and Baba surprising consequence from the Yagas. We were amazed and so

story-doll-making sessions. The adults attending - fathers, pleased with the results.

mothers, grandparents, etc. -

became thoroughly absorbed in creating their dolls, working alongside their children. Their involvement became a shared However, to reach our target of 365 Cinders peg dolls, we knew that people attending all three workshops would not be able to

family activity with their children and the atmosphere at the workshops was relaxed but very industrious, resulting in all kinds of Cinders Peg Dolls being created

Sharon Carr telling Tattercoats achieve this number so Pyn came up with the idea of leaving bags filled with materials and instructions on how to make the dolls at the Library for people to collect and then return with the finished dolls. We were helped by Art Works who advised that people collecting the bags from the Library should be asked for a £1 deposit that would be redeemed on the return of the completed doll. The deposit would act as an incentive to

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Storylines Volume VI Issue 1

return the dolls and this strategy worked so well that there were very few bags left by the end of the third and final workshop in January. In fact, people loved working on the dolls so much, we were amazed and delighted with the results of our “outreach” peg dolls.

By the time of our third workshop, we felt that the children might wish to participate in one of our stories, acting out some of It has been an eventful story-

journey for both Pyn, myself, Hall Green Library and for all those Pyn Stockman

Part of the display of the peg dolls

the characters as the story was being told. We decided to use the story of Chinye and the children were encouraged to take on the roles of the animals like that of the gazelle, the herd of sleeping zebra and others. This was great fun and this performance was worked into our showcase presentation for Connecting Spaces on 24 February at MAC. families who took part in our “A Cinderella A Day” Project. We learned so much from doing the workshops, telling the stories, working with the children and their families and with the Library Staff. We would like to thank everyone involved who enabled our project to happen – to Art Works, to MAC, the Library and of course to our gal, Cinderella as without her this

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