Paper Birds
09/12/2024
The British theatre company 'Paper Birds' was formed in 2003. The Paper Birds was founded upon friendship and a mutual love of contemporary theatre, movement, and a desire to make work that placed female roles centre stage.
The Paper Birds is a devising theatre company, with a social and political agenda. They are recognised as UK leaders in devised verbatim theatre.
"Our vision is to provoke change, one encounter at a time. Our mission is to be quiet rebels, amplifying the voices of everyday people. We inspire change through the theatre we create.We are story collectors. We spend time in communities, listening to personal experiences. The words of the people we meet form the backbone of our shows, giving voice to the voiceless, painting powerful and very human alternative social commentaries. Our desire to listen, to understand and then 'give voice' means not only making space for the under-represented and the misunderstood, but also that our shows explore voices from all walks of life. We aim to do this in breathtaking theatrical fashion." - The Paper Birds home page
Techniques
- Verbatim - the impact the show had on audiences was one of honesty, integrity, shock and deep emotional connection.
- Movement - , we try to use movement as a mode of conveying parts of the story to heighten or accentuate the spoken word. We have always used physicality in this way
- Character and Narrative - Sometimes both the characters and narratives that feature in out productions are real – they might be people we've met throughout the research phase, or they might be stories that we've collected. In this instance, we try to play them verbatim and use a convention so that the audience know they are real. But we often need to fill in the gaps or use our artistic licence to create interesting and relevant characters that will feature in the story. This sees us play a lot at the start of a process and use improvisation.
- Exposing the method - t we try to incorporate ways of heightening the action on stage with some insight into the background of how we made the show, or the choices or editing we've conducted throughout the process. Many of these techniques hark back to Brechtian traits such as alienation effects; reminding the 3 audience that they are here in the theatre and that the issues they see on stage are real issues currently happening in our society.
- Motif - Motif is commonplace throughout all of art, and within The Paper Birds' productions, it features heavily. The motifs we incorporate can take the form of textual or language references, physical or movement, sound or musical, or symbolic or visual recurring motifs. In each production we choose a selection of motifs that suit the content and the style of the piece. In our production