My husband and I had tickets for a puppet show last night– I know, that doesn’t sound too thrilling, but it blew me away. The show was Petrushka, an old Russian folk tale of a sad love triangle between three puppets– a clown, the beautiful ballerina he loves and the moor who eventually kills Petrushka.
The puppets are big– between 3 – 4 feet tall and each is moved by a team of three puppeteers dressed entirely in black who move invisibly about the stage bringing the puppet to life. One puppeteer controls the head and torso, one the arms, and the third the legs. When all three puppets are on stage at the same time there are 9 humans racing silently and invisibly, coordinating extraordinary movements– lunges, pirouettes, clown antics. The puppets dance, race, pout, kiss, fight and in this story, even kill.
The teamwork of each triad is seamless. In fact, during the entire show I kept trying to figure out how they managed what they were doing. It never occurred to me that there were three people working each doll and that they were racing up and down scaffolding as the puppets jumped, pranced and flew around the stage. If you’re curious to get a sense of what I’m talking about, this clip of Basil Twist and the troupe shows how the puppetry is performed and will give you a sense of the artistry involved. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=627832077355
I work with lots of teams– high performing teams and ones that want to be. And the challenge for these work teams is to find a way to create the same kind of synchrony and commitment that the puppeteers have- ballerina legs that are in a glorious arabesque but arms that flail goofily is a failed puppet act and the audience knows it in a flash. In the same way, a team with a lagging or uninvolved member or with sub-rosa competing agendas severely impairs the final product.
In a funny way, the puppeteers have the advantage of absolute interdependency. There is no magic unless all three are in constant and unified communication.
I think I’ll start team workshops with a clip of these puppeteers in the zone of performing as one. Might be a great launch pad into a rich discussion about what it really means to be a team.
Cheers,
Dina
