The new Paper Birds digital workshop series is an alternative to having the company come and run a day of live workshops. The digital collection offers four video workshops, presented by Paper Birds co-artistic directors Kylie Perry and Jemma McDonnell (pictured), and guides students through how to devise their own theatre in the style of The Paper Birds. The workshops are aimed at Key Stages 4 and 5, but would also be accessible for Year 9.
The package
Access to the workshops is for 12 weeks and prior to beginning the work it's suggested that you have an ‘umbrella theme’ ready, and students will need to have conducted a short interview with someone. This preparation could all be done in lessons as a buildup to the online workshops. Once you've run through the workshops as they are presented with the stimulus, you can adapt them or pick and choose what to use with any stimuli, so you really will get plenty of use from what is on offer.
The digital material has a short introductory PowerPoint which is useful for introducing The Paper Birds and their terminology, techniques and influences, followed by four one-hour workshops. Although the workshops are meant to be one hour, you could easily get a full term of lessons from them, especially when you factor in extension work, performances, feedback, and rehearsing pieces in light of feedback.
The videos
Each video features clear and detailed explanations of the activities, with written instructions on the screen so you can pause when necessary. In addition to this, there are engaging examples of the work from The Paper Birds’ performances, so students have a very clear idea about the techniques they are exploring. Kylie and Jemma's presentation style is straightforward, enthusiastic, and encouraging, allowing students the freedom to interpret the work in their own way.
The four workshops cover verbatim, movement and motif, character and narrative, and exposing the method. I found all four workshops really engaging. As a teacher I was particularly inspired by the use of sock puppets in the verbatim workshop, as well as the clear ideas on how to create locations.
In the movement workshop, the section on how to stage something that's difficult to show naturalistically was very useful and tackled a common problem for students. The focus on ‘scaling up’ small movements and moving away from naturalism in movement, as well as the focus on subtext and the use of micro/macro in the character and narrative workshop are ideal for pushing students’ exploration further at KS4 and 5. The suggestions offered in the ‘exposing the method’ workshop are rarely seen in students’ work and it would be really exciting for your classes to push these Brechtian ideas further.
In times when it's hard to imagine taking a year group to the theatre or having a company in to run a workshop, this is an excellent alternative. I highly recommend The Paper Birds.
The PB DIGITAL Series is £375 + VAT. For more information, visit www.thepaperbirds.com/workshops