Applications for the Mary Dick Award are currently closed. The Mary Dick Award is an annual opportunity for a disabled artist or disabled-led arts collective to present their work as part of Summerhall‘s Edinburgh Fringe Festival programme. Page Navigation Click on the section titles below to navigate between sections. About the Award Application and Selection Past Winners About the Mary Dick Award The Mary Dick Award aims to help UK-based d/Deaf or disabled artists making new performance work to undertake an Edinburgh Fringe run. After the cancellation of the Fringe in 2020, Summer ..read more

BOP likes to learn and we are increasing finding ways to undertake research to formalise our learning and its outcomes. This is so that we and others can benefit from our successes – and our failures! Our research practice has in part developed from our approach to evaluation which has always centred on taking learning forward to develop and improve what we do. This page is in development and in the meantime you might be interested to explore some or our research activity past, present and future. Current Research In 2024 we are embarking on an exciting AHRC funded research in collaboration wi ..read more

BOP has established on ongoing relationship with partners in Nepal and in particular with Diverse Patterns and its founder and director Sagar Prasai.  Working together, BOP and DP have exciting plans to build on work to date to impact on access to and increased involvement in the arts in Nepal for disabled people.  BOP and DP first worked together on a British Council Project in 2019 – see below – and then in 2022 Sagar Prasai invited Michelle Rolfe, BOP Producer to collaborate on an event examining how to make the arts more accessible as part of the second Nepal International Theatr ..read more

Creative Licht is launching a new programme of work in summer 2024! Creative Licht is seeking a Project Lead to support the partners in the delivery of the next stage of this research and development project looking at Sign Language Interpretation in live performance. Between 2017 and 2019, The National Theatre of Scotland, Solar Bear, Birds of Paradise, and Sign Arts (Catherine King and Yvonne Strain) designed and delivered Creative Licht, a two-year programme to: Develop a cohort of hearing Sign Language Interpreters with increased skills, knowledge and confidence to artistically embed inte ..read more

BOP Turns 30! Over the coming year, Birds of Paradise Theatre Company is celebrating 30 years as Scotland’s disability-led professional theatre company. From touring world-class theatre around Scotland and as far as Japan, developing artists through projects such as BOP Young Artists and BOP Writers, to strategically supporting organisations and artists in Rwanda, Mexico, and Nepal, we hope to build on our work for another three decades and beyond. Still image from Orbits, featuring dancer Diana Niepce. As we celebrate our achievements to date, we are also looking to the future and how we can ..read more

Super Special Disability Roadshow This page has information on it to help you have conversations about Super Special Disability Roadshow and the ideas in it after you have watched the film or experienced the live performance and film screening. The film is about two disabled people, Rob and Sal, who come together to deliver shows in school about disability.  Rob and Sal have been doing this for a long time and Rob thinks he has brought the show bang up to date with a new set and some digital input from two young people, Oona and Ollie.  But do they agree with what Rob is sayin ..read more

A Digital, Disabled-Centred, Artistic Platform PAGE NAVIGATION What is it about? Jump to section Why digital access? Jump to section Who is involved? Jump to section When will it happen? Jump to section How do I get involved? Jump to section Commissions Jump to section Locked World is a digital-born project: an online arts space which is being designed for (and by) disabled people. There will be a number of different pieces of digital art* by emerging disabled artists, areas for audiences to be creative, as well as workshops and events. And the best part? Everything on th ..read more

BOP Young Artists is a new artist development initiative from Birds of Paradise Theatre Company, supported by The Robertson Trust, and led by BOP’s Development Officer, Morna McGeoch (go to BOP staff). BOP Young Artists is an artist development opportunity aimed at young people who have experienced barriers in taking part in other artist development opportunities due to an impairment. This project aims to provide a space where young people with a passion for the performing arts can learn skills and develop their own creative practice, so they are better able to apply and take part in future cr ..read more

This webpage details the process of making Locked World – BOPs disabled-centred digital arts platform. [insert link] Visit Locked World Contents of this page: The Origins (2019); The Digital Shift (2020); Delving Deeper (2021); The Making (2022); The Launch (2023); Timeline of Locked World; Creatives Involved The Origins (2019) September 2019: The pilot cohort of BOP Young Artists had decided that they wanted to make some creative work as part of their time with BOP. With the opportunity to share a ‘work in progress’ that December, the group members started creating solo pieces of work (suppor ..read more

BOP Youth Arts Online is a new free social space for disabled* young people aged 13-18 across Scotland.  Page Navigation Click on a link below to jump to that section What is Youth Arts Online? When are the workshops? Where will the workshops happen? Who runs the project? Who can take part? How do I sign up? What is Youth Arts Online? An accessible online space to create and connect. Each week, join Mal and Ink on Zoom to try a different creative activity and connect as a community.  Banner making, film, theatre, and collage, are already on the list but it would be great to know ..read more