the bunker project /
creative development / Education workshops
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Education workshops
Over the course of three day-long workshops with St Bedes School in Cambridge we worked with 22 students on some of the themes of the Bunker Project. We were keen to share with them our process of exploring historical documentary material, and the interviews, to demonstrate ways of converting such material into drama. The documentation that follows shows some extracts of these workshops. Over the course of the workshops, led by Education Manager Samantha Lane, the students worked with director Zoe Svendsen, performer Jeremy Hardingham, and writer Lizzie Hopley, to provide a variety of creative perspectives.
The ‘Goodall’ Exercise: the students were asked to take part in a day-long version of the ‘Goodall’ exercise, which had been invented for the Creative Development, using research about UK exercises rehearsing for nuclear disaster during the Cold War. Tasks included building a shelter, translating government information into code, and designating areas of the school to be used for various purposes in a post-attack scenario. What follows are extracts from the improvisations and exercises, alongside the students’ feedback.
After reading through the historical material, and watching several videos, students were asked to feed back to one another what they had learned from the Bunker Project. This material was then used as the basis of a variety of different kinds of exercises and improvisations. For example, students were invited to explore translating ordinary language into ‘official’ language, to imagine a company which sells protection against threat, to symbolise the events they had been reading about in tableaux or short improvisations, and to create imaginary TV programmes providing public information about possible attack to different kinds of audiences.
