Quotes from people who have worked with Martin Daws
"Coming to your workshops really bolstered my creative spirit again and all your encouragement grew my confidence enough for me to start writing again"
Anwen - Participant in a Carers Writing Group
"Amazing! We don't normally get that kind of response in class"
Yr 9 Teacher
"That girl who just did that rap with you, she's a selective mute, we haven't had a word out of her for 6 months"
KS2 AEN Teacher
"You've helped me find my voice. I can't thank you enough"
Participant in an Adult Creative Writing Programme
"Coming to your workshops really bolstered my creative spirit again and all your encouragement grew my confidence enough for me to start writing again"
Anwen - Participant in a Carers Writing Group
"To be honest, working with you kept me out of prison"
Young Person who participated in a long term music project in their local youth club
Background
Martin Daws began his practice as a creative educator in Liverpool in 1996 when he was put on a scheme for artists claiming unemployment benefit. Since then he has facilitated workshops with 40 000+ participants in a very wide range of settings from Schools (all Key Stages, Special Schools, PRUs), Youth Groups (qualified Level 3 P/T Youth Worker), Youth Detention Centres and Adult Prisons to LGBTQ+ Groups, Homes for the Elderly, Psychiatric Wards, Woodland groups, Future Pathways Groups, Women's Centres and Mental Health Support Groups.
The core value of Martin's work is that through creative practice we build key life skills: self esteem, confidence to communicate, literacy (linguistic, emotional and digital), building identity, resilience and enhanced ability to contribute to our communities.
Having developed his spoken word into singing and his lyricism into songwriting Martin incorporates sung elements in his workshops, often facilitating compositions that combine sung choruses with spoken or rapped verses.
What Happens in a Martin Daws Workshop
The most popular workshop delivered by Martin is a rap music workshop utilising digital music production (Garage Band, BandLab, Ableton Live) to create a musical platform for raps written by the participants. The fun and accessible process begins with games developing the key skills of Talking with Rhythm and Rhyme, proceeds through a performance of a piece of his own work by Martin into writing a chorus as a whole group. Then we work in smaller groups, or individually, to write a section of a verse. All the written parts are then recorded by participants to create a collective composition. The vocal recordings can then be used as stimulus for digital music and video production. These workshop can be delivered on a timescale of one hour up to a whole day or developed as part of a longer term programme. Rap is a brilliantly vibrant, accessible and authentic educative tool which can be tailored to address any specific topic, theme or issue.
Martin also facilitates poetry and creative writing workshops exploring different genres of poetry and a wide variety of texts to provide stimulus for participants to develop their own written voice. As a spoken word artist of decades long experience Martin is adept at creating a relaxed atmosphere for people to share, read out and celebrate their work.
Martin has worked extensively with Arts Council Wales in their Lead Creative Schools and Cynefin Programmes, delivering over 20 term long projects and training Teachers and Creative Practitioners at their point of entry into the project.
Benefits to Participants of workshops with Martin Daws
- enhanced self-esteem and confidence to communicate
- improved ability to collaborate and and work in groups
- improved engagement with literacy and oracy
- fun learning transferable skills
- accessible entry to digital production
- excellent method for delivering issue based education
Rap video by Ysgol Mair, Rhyl (Yr2) celebrating the their school before it closed to be replaced by a new build school.
Music Video produced by Fitzalan High School and Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy (Yr9) as Part of Arts Council Wales' Cynefin: Ethnically and Culturally Diverse Wales Project
Music Video produced by girls from Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy (Yr9) as Part of Arts Council Wales' Cynefin: Ethnically and Culturally Diverse Wales Project