Case Study - One Small Bird

The very first performances at the Minack Theatre back in the 1930s involved many young people from the local community. Today, we wish to create the opportunity for every child in West Cornwall to experience and take part in live performance. We work with schools across the county through workshops, mini-performance festivals and projects such as One Small Bird. Our education programme is delivered free of charge to all participating schools in West Cornwall.

In 2021 we set up a special project in collaboration with Cornwall Music Services Trust (CMST), to create an educational project with learning content suitable for all ages, which would bring together year groups from both primary and secondary schools to perform collectively on the Minack stage. The resulting performance of Ocean World was such a success, that we launched a follow up in 2022, One Small Bird.

One Small Bird is a song cycle inspired by the RSPB’s 2014 discovery of the migratory route of one of Britain’s rarest birds, the red-necked phalarope. Facing huge obstacles, this tiny creature, which weighs no more than a packet of crisps, successfully crosses the Atlantic between Shetland and Peru every year. This little bird’s journey tells an inspiring story about strength and resilience in the face of harsh conditions, and of the unstoppable drive for survival among earth’s creatures.

Our team leaders worked with year groups 3-6 & 8 from 9 primary and 2 secondary schools, plus Cornwall Youth Chamber Choir to stage a one hour song cycle, including choral singing, movement, dance, puppets and poetry. The project involved 493 students and teachers.

We began with a teachers’ induction day run by composer Kate Stilitz, musical director Christine Judge and choreographer Kim Nicholls. We then set up group workshops bringing together 3 participating schools at a time, where Kate and the team really fired the imaginations of the children and brought the story to life.

Christine visited each school weekly to teach students the songs and Kim lead a movement session with each group to show them the simple choreography. These sessions were videoed so that teachers could work independently with their groups.

Each primary school gave one performance on the Minack stage, while secondary school groups performed for both shows. The whole event was brought together on the day of performance, when pupils from the performing schools came to the theatre for a dress rehearsal followed by a full performance to an enthusiastic audience of friends and family plus members of the general public.

“The children had an amazing time and the opportunity was truly awe-inspiring. Every child who performed was buzzing with excitement when I saw them at the end of the performance and all learned so much from the experience – confidence building and love of the arts being two huge aspects of this.” (Head Teacher, St Hilary School)

“The engagement of young people and staff in this project has been wonderful. As well as providing the chance to learn high quality and challenging music with beautiful harmonies, the themes running through the show have been a gateway to exploring and discussing important environmental issues relating to our planet and its wildlife.” (CMST teacher Christine Judge)