3 January 2018
(STA volunteer giviing puppet show to little patients)
(Group photo of STA voluntter with medical staff and little patients)
(Group photo of STA volunteers with little patients at Paediatic Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University)
On 28 December 2017, led by Qin Feng, a teacher of the puppet major, the student volunteers from the puppet major and professional hosting major of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) went to the paediatric hospital where they presented a wonderful New Year evening party to the doctors and nurses of the paediatric hospital and the little patients hospitalized in the hospital.
Before the evening party began, the teachers and students of the puppet major came to the wards of the inpatient department of the hospital and performed a puppet show on the spot for the little patients who could not go to watch the evening party. One of the little patients, after watching the puppet show, was sent to the operating theatre by the medical staff. For every volunteer, cheering up a little patient and making him/her forget the pain of illness temporarily before entering the operating theatre is the biggest motivation that has supported the teachers and students of the puppet major of STA to persistently send the blessing to these little patients for six years.
The evening party began with a rod puppet show "red silk dance". The actors and the puppets in their hands danced together with the red silk ribbons flying above all over the stage, attracting bursts of applause from the audience. Then, the students of the Puppet Class 2015, with a piece of ordinary cloth, gave a wonderful performance called “Magic Towel”, which inspired the children to stimulate the imagination and enthusiasm to explore the world and to invent and create in their daily life. After that, the students of the Puppet Class 2016 brought the wonderful sock puppet performance of “Daming Prefecture” and “Wu Song Fights the Tiger” which belonged to the classic repertoire with strong Chinese characteristics, enabling the children to have an understanding of the Chinese culture in a vivid and interesting way. The cultural volunteers of the puppet major not only performed the puppet shows, but also brought a variety of other performances to the audience, such as singing and dancing, Quhu solo and story recited to the rhythm of bamboo clappers, which filled the entire auditorium with laughter and applause from the children. Sending the New Year greetings to the medical staff, social workers, volunteers and little patients has also shown the new look of the university students of the Shanghai Theatre Academy in the new era.
For the cultural volunteers of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, this performance for public welfare was not only a social practice to examine what they had learned, but also a classroom for them to enhance their moral accomplishment and social morality. Through their wonderful performances and real emotions, they devoted themselves to public welfare undertakings, and wrote a warm song of praise in the cold winter with their youth and professional skills. The teachers and students of the Shanghai Theatre Academy firmly expressed that they will never forget their original inspirations and will continue to move forward, and that they will continue to carry on the public welfare activities of this kind and include more students to contribute as much as they can thereby transmitting the positive energy of today’s university students.
