How great to see a room full of 20 plus teachers and practitioners being funded by their CPD budgets for ‘An Introduction to The Paper Birds.’ The company, famed for its excellent, engaging and accessible work, offered two practical workshops in October 2024, one in Hammersmith at The Lyric Theatre and one at Sheffield Theatres. There were a range of teachers, performers and facilitators here to develop devising and verbatim work for GCSE, A-Level and BTEC courses. The workshop itself focuses on five aspects of Paper Bird's work, namely: Verbatim, Character/Narrative, Movement, Exposing the Process and Motif. The experience was a fantastic practical exploration where we put ourselves into our student's shoes, making use of energy and hard work, in an atmosphere of warmth and safety in the room.
The approach of co-director Gemma McDonnell and participant manager Georgie Coles made sure that the participants felt able to be creative and imaginative without feeling self-conscious. Exercises included simple guidelines, but a mantra (which was often repeated) that there was ‘no right or wrong’, which was so freeing and led to some excellent creative work. After a couple of fun warm up and focus games, we began by using Paper Bird's own resource, the excellent ‘Theatre Creativity Cards’ which are a great ‘way in’ to beginning devising work and can be purchased on their website.
I have used these with pupils and although the cost seemed high at first, the use I got out of them made the investment well worth it. We then moved on to exploring creating physical work in response to an image – a common choice of stimulus. The exercises were simple to start with and then layers of complexity were added, using techniques such as the ‘Dot to Dot Choreography.’ The best element to all of the exercises explored was the accessibility for all involved, meaning that they are ready made to use in lessons to encourage practical work, creativity and imagination. The verbatim exercises were particularly excellent with simple ways of creating work that is engaging and not too dry or cerebral. I left the workshop with a real spring in my step and a number of exercises that I've already used with my own students with positive results. Book a course, watch a Paper Birds show or purchase resources online (thepaperbirds.com).