Help me find a sense of play at any age
From everyday questions to more complex problems, we’re asking the experts to lend us a hand. Throughout the series "Professional Help," we’ll hear some direct advice, for us not-so-direct Minnesotans.
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We all need a little help to get through life sometimes. From everyday questions to more complex problems, we’re asking the experts to lend us a hand.
Throughout the series Professional Help, we’ll hear some direct advice, for us not-so-direct Minnesotans.
Especially for adults without kids in their lives, it’s easy to forget that there was a time when play was their number one priority. There’s evidence that grown-ups are happier, healthier and more creative when we make time for play. But with responsibilities and expectations and worries, it’s hard to do so.
Our ask: Help me find a sense of play at any age
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Our professional: Sofia Padilla, co-assistant director of Puppet Lab at Open Eye theater and co-founder of Paradox Teatro
Listen to more Professional Help segments here.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.
Audio transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: Time now for our Minnesota Now series where we call Professional Help, because we all need a little help to get through life sometimes. From everyday questions to more complex problems, we are asking the experts to lend us a hand. Here's Minnesota Now producer Alanna Elder.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALANNA ELDER: The 2017 movie The Florida Project starts when three little kids run to the second floor walkway at the motel where one of them lives, and they start a spitting contest aimed at a neighbor's car down in the parking lot.
CHILD 1: I can get it farther than you, Moonee.
CHILD 2: Yeah, right.
ALANNA ELDER: This moment, and the movie in general, captures what it feels like to make up a game with friends and get lost in it.
CHILD 1: I got two points ahead of you, Moonee.
CHILD 2: No, I got 100 points.
CHILD 1: That's not possible.
ALANNA ELDER: Especially for adults without kids in their lives, it's easy to forget that there was a time when play was our number one priority. There's evidence that grown ups are happier, healthier, and more creative when we make time for play, but with responsibilities and expectations and worries, it's hard to do so. For Professional Help, I reached out to someone whose job requires a lot of play.
SOFIA PADILLA: I would define play as the space where everything is possible without worrying or without anxiety or without thinking about the result or the productivity that haunt us as adults.
ALANNA ELDER: Sofia Padilla is a puppeteer based in Minneapolis. She's been working with puppets for 17 years, and she co-directs her own company, as well as a program for emerging artists. Back in 2016, she was first assistant director of Sesame Street in Mexico City. That season was called "Listos a Jugar," or, "Ready to Play."
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- [SPEAKING SPANISH]
- [SPEAKING SPANISH]
SOFIA PADILLA: To be honest, I feel like puppetry is play all the time. An important thing of that craft is to explore and improvise and try many things, like different movements, different qualities of movement, different rhythms of movement, different voices, different colors for the costume, different transitions between scenes. I feel like all those possibilities for play are what make a show good, in my opinion.
[END PLAYBACK]
ALANNA ELDER: As a teacher of puppetry, Sofia has watched people face a variety of hang ups around play.
SOFIA PADILLA: Some people are more comfortable when they are covered to perform with puppets, and some people are more of a natural performer and are more comfortable just puppeteering at plain sight of the audience, and some people feel more secure and confident building puppets than performing, and the other way around.
The great thing about working with groups is that you learn a lot from each other. So somehow, the strengths of others-- you can learn from them and absorb them into your own skills if you spend a big amount of time with that group exploring and creating and learning why certain scenes work, why certain scenes are funny. What's the rhythm of comedy?
ALANNA ELDER: In addition to surrounding herself with other people to learn from, she's found it helpful to set aside time to be playful.
SOFIA PADILLA: I do struggle sometimes, especially when it's my own show with my own company. You have to think of the lights, and you have to think of the marketing, and you have to think of the attendance and the tickets and the grants and all those things that keep your art alive. But sometimes, it can pull me away from the sense of play. And I try to remind myself, and I try to schedule time just to play around and to explore different things without thinking of the result.
So usually, when I'm creating a show, I schedule a big chunk of time at the beginning to just explore different techniques and different possibilities before actually deciding what the show is going to be so that I can protect, fiercely, that time to play, and that play is going to be the origins and the base of the show.
ALANNA ELDER: The shows Sofia creates aren't always as giddy as Elmo. One of her projects, for example, used puppetry to tell stories of immigrants and refugees. She says for something to count as play doesn't mean it can't get into serious issues.
SOFIA PADILLA: Even the most difficult emotions and grief and anger, if you put them into something creative and playful, and you express them, they somehow change, and they transform. So I do believe that it's very healing to do really any creative practice with those difficult feelings, because then you are transforming them.
With that spirit of play, I feel you can be more prepared and more optimistic and a possibilitarian. I like that term. If you allow yourself to play more in your life, and you dedicate time to that, your attitude and your spirit will be more positive and will be more like a possibilitarian where you see the possibilities to change the things that are wrong instead of just feeling powerless.
ALANNA ELDER: Ultimately, finding a sense of play is not about what you do, but how you do it Sofia says a good first step is to challenge yourself to do something new. Find a new place where you have nothing to lose.
SOFIA PADILLA: Talk to somebody new, or go to meetings where you don't know anybody to meet more people, different people than your usual friends. Conversations can be very playful too, especially when you don't know people. Or take classes that challenge-- maybe you have never danced in your life, and you think you are very bad at it. But maybe there is a beginner's dance class that you could take just to keep your brain flexible and just to keep that sense of learning while playing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALANNA ELDER: And if you're looking to learn more about puppetry, and you're near Minneapolis, you're in luck. It turns out the city is full of puppets, meaning there are multiple theaters with events and workshops that are open to beginners. One of the biggest local puppet events of the year begins this evening, actually. the Barebones Halloween Extravaganza is running today through Sunday, starting at 7:00 PM each evening in Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis. For MPR News, I'm Alanna Elder.
CATHY WURZER: And you can hear this series called Professional Help every other Thursday right here on Minnesota Now. Or if you missed one, you can find the whole collection at mprnews.org.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALANNA ELDER: The 2017 movie The Florida Project starts when three little kids run to the second floor walkway at the motel where one of them lives, and they start a spitting contest aimed at a neighbor's car down in the parking lot.
CHILD 1: I can get it farther than you, Moonee.
CHILD 2: Yeah, right.
ALANNA ELDER: This moment, and the movie in general, captures what it feels like to make up a game with friends and get lost in it.
CHILD 1: I got two points ahead of you, Moonee.
CHILD 2: No, I got 100 points.
CHILD 1: That's not possible.
ALANNA ELDER: Especially for adults without kids in their lives, it's easy to forget that there was a time when play was our number one priority. There's evidence that grown ups are happier, healthier, and more creative when we make time for play, but with responsibilities and expectations and worries, it's hard to do so. For Professional Help, I reached out to someone whose job requires a lot of play.
SOFIA PADILLA: I would define play as the space where everything is possible without worrying or without anxiety or without thinking about the result or the productivity that haunt us as adults.
ALANNA ELDER: Sofia Padilla is a puppeteer based in Minneapolis. She's been working with puppets for 17 years, and she co-directs her own company, as well as a program for emerging artists. Back in 2016, she was first assistant director of Sesame Street in Mexico City. That season was called "Listos a Jugar," or, "Ready to Play."
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- [SPEAKING SPANISH]
- [SPEAKING SPANISH]
SOFIA PADILLA: To be honest, I feel like puppetry is play all the time. An important thing of that craft is to explore and improvise and try many things, like different movements, different qualities of movement, different rhythms of movement, different voices, different colors for the costume, different transitions between scenes. I feel like all those possibilities for play are what make a show good, in my opinion.
[END PLAYBACK]
ALANNA ELDER: As a teacher of puppetry, Sofia has watched people face a variety of hang ups around play.
SOFIA PADILLA: Some people are more comfortable when they are covered to perform with puppets, and some people are more of a natural performer and are more comfortable just puppeteering at plain sight of the audience, and some people feel more secure and confident building puppets than performing, and the other way around.
The great thing about working with groups is that you learn a lot from each other. So somehow, the strengths of others-- you can learn from them and absorb them into your own skills if you spend a big amount of time with that group exploring and creating and learning why certain scenes work, why certain scenes are funny. What's the rhythm of comedy?
ALANNA ELDER: In addition to surrounding herself with other people to learn from, she's found it helpful to set aside time to be playful.
SOFIA PADILLA: I do struggle sometimes, especially when it's my own show with my own company. You have to think of the lights, and you have to think of the marketing, and you have to think of the attendance and the tickets and the grants and all those things that keep your art alive. But sometimes, it can pull me away from the sense of play. And I try to remind myself, and I try to schedule time just to play around and to explore different things without thinking of the result.
So usually, when I'm creating a show, I schedule a big chunk of time at the beginning to just explore different techniques and different possibilities before actually deciding what the show is going to be so that I can protect, fiercely, that time to play, and that play is going to be the origins and the base of the show.
ALANNA ELDER: The shows Sofia creates aren't always as giddy as Elmo. One of her projects, for example, used puppetry to tell stories of immigrants and refugees. She says for something to count as play doesn't mean it can't get into serious issues.
SOFIA PADILLA: Even the most difficult emotions and grief and anger, if you put them into something creative and playful, and you express them, they somehow change, and they transform. So I do believe that it's very healing to do really any creative practice with those difficult feelings, because then you are transforming them.
With that spirit of play, I feel you can be more prepared and more optimistic and a possibilitarian. I like that term. If you allow yourself to play more in your life, and you dedicate time to that, your attitude and your spirit will be more positive and will be more like a possibilitarian where you see the possibilities to change the things that are wrong instead of just feeling powerless.
ALANNA ELDER: Ultimately, finding a sense of play is not about what you do, but how you do it Sofia says a good first step is to challenge yourself to do something new. Find a new place where you have nothing to lose.
SOFIA PADILLA: Talk to somebody new, or go to meetings where you don't know anybody to meet more people, different people than your usual friends. Conversations can be very playful too, especially when you don't know people. Or take classes that challenge-- maybe you have never danced in your life, and you think you are very bad at it. But maybe there is a beginner's dance class that you could take just to keep your brain flexible and just to keep that sense of learning while playing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALANNA ELDER: And if you're looking to learn more about puppetry, and you're near Minneapolis, you're in luck. It turns out the city is full of puppets, meaning there are multiple theaters with events and workshops that are open to beginners. One of the biggest local puppet events of the year begins this evening, actually. the Barebones Halloween Extravaganza is running today through Sunday, starting at 7:00 PM each evening in Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis. For MPR News, I'm Alanna Elder.
CATHY WURZER: And you can hear this series called Professional Help every other Thursday right here on Minnesota Now. Or if you missed one, you can find the whole collection at mprnews.org.
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