At The Paper Birds we pride ourselves on inspiring young people through theatre and enabling them to thrive through participation.
We have a reputation as leaders in the delivery of devised and verbatim theatre workshops throughout the UK. Working in hundreds of schools each year, we have a Participation programme that can be adapted to fit the needs of your students. Whether as a launch to a devising unit, or as a refresher session to kickstart a process mid-way; The Paper Birds can visit your school or arrange an online workshop at any time throughout the academic year.
We deliver workshop in schools across the globe. If you would like a visit from one of our highly skilled practitioners to explore The Paper Birds devising methodology, you can book a visit now!
All of our live workshops can be delivered in 2 lengths; either a 2 hour session or a 5 hour (full day) session.
Explore common devising practices utilised by The Paper Birds enabling participants to collate exercises to use throughout their own devising processes. Focusing on turning research into performance; direct address, and choreographing movement. Suitable for use with all specs; (for Eduqas/WJEC and OCR we will choose one of the set stimuli and demonstrate how we would work form it, or for AQA and EdExcel we can either bring a stimulus or use what participants have chosen.)
Explore engaging techniques in how to use verbatim material; from page to stage — what to do when you get up on your feet? Participants will collate several approaches on how to use the interviews and data they have collected throughout their devising process.
To accompany the tour of our new show Feel Me, we’re offering a brand new workshop which specifically responds to the show. In this 2 hour session, students will explore the key techniques and themes of Feel Me, including choreography and visual vernacular, non-verbal storytelling, and Performance / Non-Performance. Participants will develop an understanding of how devised material is generated, and gain confidence in developing their own non-narrative devised content. You can book the workshop for up to 30 students, either before or after seeing the show, to expand their understanding of The Paper Birds and the themes Feel Me presents.
This dedicated session introduces participants to our popular Theatre Creativity Cards. Designed to get you thinking in new and unexpected ways, this workshop offers a new and highly effective approach to devising. If you have a set of our Cards already, this session can serve as refresher on how to use them best! Find out more about our Theatre Creativity Cards here
We also deliver online sessions as well as having our highly effective pre-recorded Digital Workshop Series.
Adapting to the shifting climate, we have reworked our 2hr workshop so that it can be delivered to students over videocall.
Each session is tailored specifically to where you are in your process, whether you are intending to present a live performance back at school, or work on monologues or smaller pieces of work to evidence students’ learning remotely.
Get in touch now to discuss the options!
As an alternative to booking in a ‘live’ visit from one of our practitioners to deliver a full day workshop, this package gives you access to 4x 1 hour workshops, delivered over pre-recorded video by our Co-Artistic Directors, Kylie and Jemma. This programme allows participants to explore in depth the key ingredients of how to make a performance in the style of The Paper Birds. Utilising our trademarks of devised verbatim, choreography and political/social content, this series of videos is pitched at KS4 & 5. Upon purchasing the programme you will have access to the material for 2 academic terms. In this time you can use the videos to deliver practical workshops with multiple classes. The programme comes complete with a PDF Resource Pack detailing all of the exercises to enable you to work in tandem with the video and pause and play at the right times.
All the exercises included in these sessions are broad enough to work with any stimulus, whilst ensuring that participants gain a detailed understanding of the techniques and processes that we use in the making of our original devised theatre.
There are 4x 1 hour workshops spanning the key ingredients of our work:
We suggest that participants have a stimulus or ‘umbrella’ theme already in place that they are going to use for their devising process. They also need to have conducted some research including an interview to use in the sessions.
WORKSHOP 1: VERBATIM
WORKSHOP 2: MOVEMENT & MOTIF
WORKSHOP 3: CHARACTER & NARRATIVE
WORKSHOP 4: EXPOSING THE METHOD
‘Had the most amazing workshop with the fabulous Paper Birds. My group loved absolutely every minute and were so inspired. They’ve found a new lease of energy and are going back to their devising unit with raw excitement and enthusiasm. I would 100% recommend! The Paper Birds always deliver.’
Drama Teacher, Victoria College
Company Number: 05363584
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