The Papercut Theatre

So today I ran a workshop for MMU's Saturday art club about papercraft and shadow puppetry. I led a group of around 13 teenagers in a 3 hr workshop, with the aim of creating several finished mini shadow puppet plays by the end of the session.

I followed the standard design procedure when planning my workshop so the Sat Clubbers had the experience of following a real design process in miniature. Normally these processes could take days, weeks or months, but they only had 3 hrs!

My lesson plan was as follows:

•       10 – 10:30am : Briefing   BRIEF & RESEARCH

We’ll look at examples of shadow puppetry and papercraft art. Separate into groups of 2-4.

•       10:30 – 11am : Storyboarding  DESIGN

Plan out your backgrounds, characters and basic story. Can be your favourite story, a new twist on an old classic or something completely crazy from your own brain. It just needs a beginning, middle and end.

•       11am – 12pm : Making  CREATE

Design and cut out your characters and sets from the paper (sometimes it’s easier to draw with your scalpel rather than sketching out an outline first). Practice your performance.

•       12pm – 1pm : Performing  PRESENT

We’ll project and perform our shadow puppet shows using the overhead projector and film them.

The session went really well I think. In spite of the limited time for each task, (not helped by the usual slow start in the morning)  the Sat Clubbers managed to create characters, backgrounds and storylines in the time. Admittedly this session could be more successful if it took place over an entire day because then there would be more time for developments and practising the performance side. This type of workshop could even be extended into several sessions over the course of a week, with whole days dedicated to RESEARCH, DESIGN, CREATE & PRESENT.

This seemed to really capture the attention of the whole group though as there was something to appeal to everyone, from the designers to the story-tellers to the makers and directors. I think it works well as a group workshop because it requires cooperation, encourages them to talk creatively and share their work, whilst still being light-hearted and fun enough not to be scary. It touches upon lots of themes from childhood, which seemed to put the Sat Clubbers more at ease. They seemed confident when I told them that they could reimagine a traditional fairytale rather than invent an entirely new story themselves, and although shadow puppetry and using a scalpel does take dexterous skill, the pressure to draw something 'well' is reduced when it is just a silhouette. Folk art seems to have this uniting, unintimidating effect on people and it's lovely to see it happen. In the end, it was all just a bit of shadow play and fun.