The PaperBoats
the creation of magic through the magic of creation
partnerships
beginnings
performance-makers respond to the project’s animating idea
principles
modularity
co-creation
performance modules can be shared across the co-creating communities
participation
performances
platform
Modularity and Sharing
The inaugural Phase One project of The PaperBoats was a four-way co-creation partnership with carefully selected communities of artists and organisations in Australia, USA, Singapore and New Zealand.
By sharing and accumulating ideas and content across our four partnership communities in slow-brewing processes, underpinned by The PaperBoats creative principles, we progressively created a range of outcomes for early childhood audiences, with the support of tertiary training institutions, funders, arts organisations, councils, presenters, agents and teams of theatre-maker artists from Australia, USA, NZ and Singapore. Works included: Especially on Birthdays (Aust, Singapore & USA) , Gimme Please! (USA), When the Mirror Bird Sings (Aust) and Wonderkind (NZ).
The PaperBoats 2016 - 2022 Project
We define The PaperBoats as “an international partnership platform for performance-makers, pioneering new ways of connecting and creating around the devising of simple yet sophisticated visual theatre works for 4-8 yr old audiences accompanied by adults.”
We set out in 2016 by asking ourselves: “What explosion of possibility happens when performance-makers connect with one another across nations, cultures and communities, in a whole range of ways around performance-making for early childhood audiences?”
Our objective was demonstrate as a “proof of concept” how The PaperBoats seven creative principles could give rise to inventive, viable local and international theatre-making, exemplified by the activity and outcomes of its inaugural 8-year project (2016-2023).
Across the seven years of its existence, The PaperBoats has developed an extraordinary array of new theatre works for children through a process of co-creation that builds an ecology of creative engagement and partnership between communities, artists and presenters both at an international and local level.
The PaperBoats has created three new sophisticated and nuanced South Australian works for 3-8 year olds using The PaperBoats creative principles. Each new work has evolved over a two year period of theatre-making, trialing and refining. (Especially on Birthdays, When the Mirror Bird Sings and Seven Little Wonders)
The PaperBoats has also co-created five additional works in partnership with other artistic teams (Gimme Please (USA), Wonderkind (NZ), The Strangest Dream (USA/Aus), Wonder (with Sally Chance Dance and InSite Arts), The Chrysalis Box (with Patch Theatre) and the Boy and the Ball (with Stephen Noonan) with another two works still in development. (Precious Things (Temeka Lawlor) and SEVENWELL.ORG (with Jon Bode))
the paperboats - lovingly hand-crafted, artful and beautiful vessels, venturing to unseen places
a project of theatre thinker and tinker, Dave Brown and associates