Indigenous puppeteer connects with students

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on March 1, 2025.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

Students and staff at St. Patrick Fine Arts Elementary School had the opportunity to learn about the art of puppeteering from their latest artist in residence over the last week, who then closed his residency with a puppet show sharing an important message.
DerRic Starlight, an indigenous puppeteer from Tsuut’ina Nation who has worked on productions such as Fraggle Rock, has been the artist in residence at SPFA over the past week. On Friday morning he put on a special show with his Nuppets for the students, where he shared messages of being proud of who they are and standing up to bullies.
“I call them Nuppets because they are half Native and half puppets,” said Starlight. “A different way to express not just my culture, but my characters are from all over, there’s Cree, Blackfoot and Stoney. And teaching about my culture with puppets, it’s another unique way of doing it.”
Starlight pointed out that children might not always listen to adults, but they do listen to puppets.
“When it comes to a puppet, they will listen to that character because it becomes their friend, someone they can trust, and it’s cute and cuddly, so children really pay attention to that character.”
Starlight worked with students on “puppet making 101” during the week, which he said it is the starting point of how to create a character.
By using the puppets to convey the messages of anti-bullying and pride, and giving instructions during the puppet making class, he found it easier to keep their attention on him while using the puppets.
“If I was to do it on my own, they probably wonder off, but once I added that character, they are tuned into it, so it’s a great tool to teach kids.”
Starlight shared that he wanted to learn about puppets from a very young age, and was particularly influenced by the famous Muppets Show.
“When I was a kid, the Muppets Show was the biggest show on television and all I wanted to do was to go to Sesame Street and find out how this puppet worked,” he said.
That question fuelled his curiosity throughout his younger years, but once Jim Henson passed away in 1990, Starlight decided to dedicate his life to the art of puppetry.
“I would study everything (Henson) would do, and then I would go to film school and later on I started working in television with my own Indigenous puppet characters,” he said.
Starlight uses his indigenous puppet characters to tell stories and to satisfy the curiosity of those who want to know about life in the reserve.
“We’re just like everybody else, but we blend our culture into everything we do. I have nursery rhymes that are changed into indigenous stories and I use my puppets to tell them.”
When it comes to the response from the students, principal Kathy Jones-Husch, said they were over the moon, and it has been a great week celebrating the creativity and the magic of puppetry.
“As well as the powerful message from DerRic about being yourself, loving yourself, being passionate about something, admiring a role model in the community who went before you and sticking to that plan,” said Jones-Husch.
As a fine arts school, St. Patrick’s always wants to welcome professionals from any walk of life and a puppeteer is a unique element, because it is a different kind of drama.
“They have different type of skills that the kids maybe haven’t seen in other artists that have joined us. So, we were very fortunate to have the opportunity to afford this artist in residency through a grant in our school division,” said Jones-Husch.
She said the grant is called the ISWAG, which stands for Indigenous Student Wellness Access Grant.
“And having those indigenous characters is huge because we have many students who are indigenous and they want to see themselves in the school they go to, so they can make that connection, plus everyone likes to learn about a culture that isn’t their own,” said Jones-Husch.

3
-2