Education Projects As experienced educators we value our role as teachers and professional artists equally. We strive to initiate challenging yet safe learning experiences that result in positive outcomes. We are interested helping people develop their creativity and are continually exploring new and innovative approaches to doing so. We are aware as educators of the need to ensure the approaches we adopt are suitable to the groups we work with and that the focus of our teaching directly relates to the needs of the individual. We are looking to expand our education work, so if you would like to discuss with us a potential workshop, course or project please contact us.
Broadening and Developing Creative Practice
Overall aims of course are to enable students to: · Increase their personal autonomy (develop as an individual
artist)
‘a significant meeting’ a movement workshop This course explores three themes: · identifying the creative
self The activities within the course provide a range of experiences that focus upon underpinning elements of the creative act. It gives students the opportunity to try different ways of approaching work and use a variety of media in order to identify latent and untapped resources and skills, as well as challenge and broaden their current creative thinking and practice. The course offers a combination of individual, pair work and group work. The aim of the pair and group work is to deepen the students’ understanding of collaboration and will involve them: · Learning to recognise common ground when working with
others
sample bags from an observation and collection exercise By the end of the course it is hoped that students will have a palette of creative skills, experiences, information and ideas to take into other creative situations. When delivering this course we work on the premise that students are committed to developing their creativity and communicating their progress, achievements and setbacks. Support is given to the students as they potentially use techniques that are new to them and work in ways that may be challenging and demanding. We should emphasise that the course is not necessarily concerned with the students producing finished work, rather that the students are given the opportunity to recognise and appreciate their own artistic journey. The learning and development that takes place is seen as the course’s main objective. At the end of the course we produce a resource pack. The pack contains written information, film footage and images that documents the students’ work and progress.
part of a visual response to observation exercise
Hothouse
Images from the film ‘Residue’ Birch & O’Shea 2005 – performers Gavin Coward & Caroline Reece Hothouse is a project for professional artists of any discipline who have a desire to develop and broaden their creative thinking and practice. The project gives artists the space and support to examine how they approach their work, identify and address needs and investigate ways of collaborating with other professional artists. The project includes workshops/activities/tasks, time for contemplation and discussion, and opportunities to work in new ways without external pressures. Hothouse is delivered by Simon Birch and Trish O’Shea and is structured in a way that provides a high level of professional development for participating artists. The entire project comprises three main parts:
These parts fit together to make a comprehensive professional development package, though parts one and two can run as separate courses. Hothouse can be tailored to suit the needs of participants, the funds available and the desired duration. The third and final section of the Hothouse project, which follows on from the first and second parts, culminates in a major public event that involves the participating regional artists and the Birch & O’Shea Company taking over a building/buildings, responding to and installing their work within the space(s) they work in. This event will be an opportunity to publicly celebrate the creativity of the participating artists and for them to present the work resulting from their research. Hothouse is designed to not only feed the creativity of participating artists but also help them to redefine how they work and give them the confidence to push artistic boundaries. From a wider perspective, Hothouse could help to positively shape a region’s art ecology by nurturing greater understanding between artists across art disciplines and encouraging cohesion between artists that raises the standard of professional artistic practice and positively impacts on future art projects. PART ONE: REFUELLING THE CREATIVE SELF Usually 2 weeks Led by Simon Birch & Trish O’Shea Work as a professional artist is often dictated by deadlines and the pressure to produce finished work and because of this artists often fall back on methods and ideas that they know will work, hence Part One – Refuelling the Creative Self. Participants will identify the strengths and weaknesses of their current practice, become aware of the formulas they often automatically adopt and have opportunity to take more creative risks and refuel their creativity. Participants will be involved in:
The activities given will be in response to the needs of the participants (some of which will have been identified prior to the project) and will provide the opportunity to try different ways of approaching work and use a variety of media in order to identify latent and untapped resources and skills, as well as challenge, recharge and broaden their current creative thinking and practice. PART TWO: BUILDING CREATIVE RELATIONSHIPS & COLLABORATION Usually 2 weeks During this part of the project, participants will work in pairs. Birch & O’Shea will deliver creative activities that enable them to focus upon and explore collaboration and address issues of working within creative partnerships. Part Two aims to encourage a deeper understanding of collaboration and will involve participants:
PART THREE: DEVELOPING IDEAS AND CREATING NEW WORK. Usually 3 weeks Led by Simon Birch, Trish O’Shea and movement artists from their company. This part of the project will involve participants developing their ideas further and creating new work, installing and exhibiting it. Part Three of the project will have two parallel strands:
Each morning a physical warm-up session will be held in the place where the Birch & O’Shea Company are based and will be led by a movement artist from the Company. These sessions will be open to the all participants, (though attendance will be optional). Those who choose to attend will have a choice to either take part or observe. These sessions will act as a warm-up for those artists who are working physically and provide an opportunity to gain knowledge of different movement techniques. At the same time the sessions will give the observers a chance to study, respond to and record the body in motion, enabling them to gain a deeper understanding of how the body moves and its relation to time and space. Regular meetingsDuring this part of the project regular mentoring sessions with Birch & O’Shea will be provided for each group of participants. The nature of these sessions will depend on what each group feels they require, as at this point within the project the participants will be encouraged to have greater autonomy. However, the sessions could provide the opportunity to share ideas, receive advice and/or feedback. Birch & O’Shea’s own work may prove to be a valuable learning resource for certain groups. The opportunity to seek support from any member of the Birch & O’Shea Company will be made available if requested. The Exhibition The final week of the project will involve the exhibiting of Birch & O’Shea’s current work, which will incorporate film, visual art and live performance, and the work produced by the artists who participated on the course. This event will be open to the public.
Images from the film ‘Cover’ Birch & O’Shea 2005
Birch & O’Shea Residency at Falmouth
College of Arts, Cornwall, UK.
The course took as its theme the human body. The participants used their own bodies as catalysts and a resource for creating work. The participants used a variety of media to depict their ideas. The group took part in movement and visual art workshops to explore the territory between visual art and movement. Participants’ comments: “The course enabled me to take the next step after my degree show. I was thrilled to realise how focused I could be, how my commitment to the visual practice is well grounded. Because my work is very much about gender/female body, the course strengthened this and allowed me to create outside the domain of ceramics. ” “Trish and Simon were excellent teachers and having the opportunity to work with more mature artists was a brilliant mind opening experience. I will continue to use the body in my work and hope to incorporate movement. It boosted my self esteem”
Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall, UK. – Two
day course
“A wonderful experience”
Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Leeds, UK.
Parterre 1999 (Year 1 BPA Hons Degree Students) The creative process involved the students investigating non-verbal communication with each other. The focus was on the idea of meeting and how to encapsulate, as performers, the potency, significance and spontaneity of an initial moment of engagement. The results of this investigation became a resource when choreographing the work. A significant part of this creative process involved the students participating in mark making workshops. These workshops explored the idea that marks made on paper with a piece of charcoal became evidence of the impulse, intention and motivation of the mark maker’s movement. These workshops consequently informed the way the dancers engaged with their movement and each other. Sections of resulting visual art were then enlarged and developed to form a film and this was projected on stage to create an environment (a cultivated space) for the dancers to inhabit whilst performing.
Human Rites 2000 (Yr 1 BPA Hons Degree Students) Questions Trish posed herself when creating work for Territory
1 were – “When is a body not perceived as a body?” and “Can
the body be viewed as terrain?” These were answered in ‘Human
Rites’ because the performers’ bodies became moving
abstract sculptures. Although performed on a conventional stage
the space created was like that of a gallery, more a space of contemplation
than entertainment. The lighting design was an intrinsic component
in realising this, as clean squares of light ‘dissected’ the
performers’ bodies, illuminating all or parts of them.
This work was a development of an idea explored in Territory 2. The students were asked to recall memories and as a result created visual and written responses that were then used as a resource for generating movement. Through the making of ‘This is the Interior’ Birch and O’Shea investigated, for themselves and with the students, the idea of internal space, the ‘rooms’ within us that we keep locked to contain memories or emotion. The finished work incorporated three short films (The Interior) and live dance performance. The films were symbolic of Birch & O’Shea’s creative situation at that time and depicted them visiting a room separately, moving through it and scrawling messages on the walls, which they left for each other. The dancers entered the stage like they were entering rooms of an old house. They left messages through the resonance of their movements. The third and final piece of film was symbolic of a journey, an optimistic statement of moving on. Blue sky and clouds, trees and reflected buildings streamed past the dancers as they navigated the stage and finally the film ended and the dancers left the stage/room, scattering dried leaves on the floor and closing the door on the memories they had revisited.
Broadening and Developing Creative Practice A one week course delivered to first year BPA Hons Degree students at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. You can find information about this course by returning to the top of this page and clicking FE and/or HE Level Course.
The Bude Light Project 2000
Comments from letters sent by special guests of the evening “I really must congratulate those who choreographed and trained the dance cast. It was a most ambitious event to stage and was most professionally carried out. I found it quite moving” Major W.H.White D.L. “It was a very enjoyable and memorable evening and The Duke of Gloucester would like you to pass on his particular congratulations to all the performers.” Major Nicolas Barne LVO on behalf of The Duke of Gloucester “I would be grateful if you could pass on my thanks to all concerned including, of course, the people who organised the superb performance by the children. They certainly deserve to be congratulated.” Lady Mary Holborow J.P. “At last an opportunity to write to you both to thank you for the simply
stunning performance you created with the young people of Bude for the opening
celebrations of the Bude Light. I do appreciate all the hard work you put into
encapsulating the whole ethos of the project in your presentations to schools
and your totally professional approach…” Sue Richardson, North Cornwall
Arts |
This was a community arts project commissioned by North Cornwall Arts which
involved us working with children from Bude Infant, Bude Junior, Stratton Primary,
Jacobstow Primary and Budehaven Community Schools to create a performance event
which incorporated movement/dance, visual imagery, light and sound/music. Called
the Light Fantastic, it was performed by sixty of the school children in front
of hundreds of local people and special guests including HRH The Duke of Gloucester
and was part of the official opening of the Bude Light. The designs on the mirror
discs, fabric and moveable structures incorporated in the performance were created
by the younger children who participated in visual art workshops. Music for the
performance was composed by Malcolm Walmsley who incorporated recordings of the
children voicing their opinions on the Bude Light Sculpture.
The Bude Light is a public sculpture designed and created by Carole Vincent
and Anthony Fanshawe. This large scale sculpture was the first to use coloured
concrete and fibre optic lighting and was created to mark the millennium in Bude
and celebrate the inventions of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney.