Workshops in the community
Anyone can book a Magnificent Weirdos workshop. Anyone can drop into a Magnificent Weirdos workshop. Whether you’re a community centre catering to a wide demographic, or a small organisation or group, with specific goal. We’re here for you and we want to play!
Why do one of these workshops?
We think that art and creativity are really important for well being, and everyone should be able to access all sorts of different art forms in order to live a fuller life. Art heals, surprises, inspires. It brings to joy, laughter and silliness to our lives. It gives us alternate ways to express ourselves. It’s a pretty amazing gift we can give ourselves.
These workshops have no end goals except exploration and fun. The idea is to release creativity from being a commodity or something that feels unattainable, and to simply enjoy it for itself and for how it makes us feel. Art helps us connect with our community and our inner joy, and we want to make being creative an ordinary part of everyday life.
How does it work?
If you’re an organisation that caters to a group of people in a community - whether you’re a general community centre or an organisation with a specific focus - we want to offer you and the people you take care of the chance to experience art.
These workshops are all koha. If you have a budget, great - let’s talk. If you don’t have a budget for arts programs, or your budget is already stretched, no worries - we can bring you the workshops for free. Our kaupapa is to always pay the practitioners for their mahi, but the only thing the people attending the workshops need to think about is having fun.
The maximum workshop size is 25. This allows everyone to be heard and included and to have all the fun times. A workshop will usually last 3 hours, including some intro time and some debrief time. All workshops are koha for your community. Any materials needed for a workshop will be provided by us.
Our facilitators
We have chosen workshop leaders who are committed to making their own work inclusive and accessible. They understand how creativity enhances community. As we expand and bring more practitioners on board, we will add more workshops.
What's on offer?
Our standard workshops are listed below. If there is something here that you feel would work well for your organisation, your group or your team, please get in touch. We’d love to chat with you about how we work, what your specific needs are and how we can tailor the workshops to your community.
More workshops will be added as we add more Magnificent Weirdos to our core team, but we can also create something bespoke. In the past we’ve created storytelling workshops for survivors of domestic violence, spoken word workshops for young adolescents, and bouts of creativity that cater for groups of diverse ages.
Reach out. Get in touch. Let’s get creative.
How do I book?
Contact us on KiaOra@magnificentweirdos.com, so we can have a chat about how you would like to work with us.
Standard workshops
How To Write a Song
How DO you write a song, anyway? This workshop explores genres and types of songs and, in small groups, we will create a song of our own. It can be silly, or funny or even a little bit rude. It can be political or loving or abstract. Mainly, it will be a lot of fun. We will end by singing a medley of the songs, no matter what kind of voices we think we have. Loads of people think they can’t sing, but that is nonsense. We sing for our own enjoyment, and to release all the happy hormones inside us.
Theatre Games
Theatre games are played in pairs and groups and combine creativity and (friendly) competition. Performative play is a great way to have fun while exploring creative solutions, working as a team, and generally finding out what your mind and body can do when they relax in a non-judgemental, all-offers-welcomed environment.
Paper Masks
Explore the powerful potential of masks to enhance our creative thinking. We will make some basic masks, imbue them with characters, and put them in little stories together. Working in pairs and groups, we will end up with funny, silly, poignant stories to share, and a mask to take away and play with forever! (Or until the paper crumbles, which won’t matter, because now we know how to make them and can do so anywhere, at any time.)
The Story Inside Me
Using visual and written storytelling, this workshop explores who we are, our past and future, and what we are looking for. Use words, pictures, songs, dioramas - whatever helps you to express the story inside yourself. Playing with art and imagination, this is a really fun way to create your own myth. Facts not necessary!
Clowning
A clown can be funny or sad, naughty or saucy. In this workshop we explore the joy of failure, and finding the funny when things go wrong. There will be a lot of silliness and laughter as we find our inner clown through both individual and group play.