Just like last year, this year I participated in the International School Theatre Association, know as ISTA for short. During this 3 day event, we participated in different workshops focused on the four assessments and a workshop by a IB Theatre specialist. I really enjoyed this trip and the people on it made it so much better. ISTA this year took place in Singapore at Dulwich College. Even though I may be extremely biased I think I got the best ensemble. We were all willing to throw ourselves into the activities without being embarrassed. We all of course had to warm up to each other but after the first work shop we all were able to connect closely.

We arrived at the airport and were taken away to our hotel by luxury carriage (no really we had a whole travel bus to ourselves). The 3 girls shared a room together on the 12th floor, which gave us the added benefit of free ramen replenished daily. We took full advantage of this by hiding the ramen in Naomi’s suitcase so they would keep giving us more.

The next day after a breakfast buffet full of pancakes, waffles, dim-sum, cereal, hot drinks, fresh fruit and so much more. We then got taken to the school by bus and had a warm up. We did a warm up with everyone every single morning with Darren Sculley, one of the workshop leaders which was a lot of fun. It warmed up our bodies and got us to meet lots of new people from different schools. One of my favourite warm ups he conducted in the morning was to the song ‘run boy run’ in which you play someone in an apocalyptic setting in which people are trying to hunt you down. He would shout random cues such as against the wall (to which we had to run to one of the walls and have our arms up, looking over the right shoulder for 3 secs), helicopter (looking up and from left to right for 3 secs tracing an imaginary helicopter in the air), and get down (getting down in a fetus position for 5 secs). It was the perfect way to warm up for days filled with theatre and acting.

Even though I could go on and on about my workshops of becoming a clown, staging play texts physically whilst listening to the narration, exploring space as an artist, exploring Thai Khon whilst acting as a monkey I thought it would be best to share my favourite moments. From a trip filled with watching theatre performances, geeking out about characters and lines with my fellow ISTA goers, having the best ensemble there were key moments which made my trip so much better.

The first moment I would like to highlight in more detail is the Khon workshop. I met Benjamin, a Canadian Thai Khon performer, when I did ISTA last year. In his workshop we learnt to be Khon monkeys, learning their mannerism from scratching and being unable to sit still, to walking and tumbling as they do. When you tumble as a monkey you have to keep in mind that you are wearing a mask that can not hit the floor or else it will break. The trick is to go onto your shoulder and roll over that way pushing with your legs before getting up. Since our group was so good at this, he demonstrated an advanced one which took us all by surprise. From a standing position he launched himself into the air and tumbled before moving on as if nothing had happened. This was where people opted out but I was determined to complete my monkey soldier training. After the marching, walking, scratching I had to attempt it. I found it to be much easier than I thought, the only barrier being my mind. A moment that made this experience better was when he came up to me and asked whether I did gymnastics as he said all my moves were perfect. This made me feel really good as I put in a lot of effort into the workshop. He recommended me to go into Khon as he said I had all the skill sets for it and could see me doing it professionally. As a performer this really stuck with me because its not often you get people telling you that you should continue into the professional world and really made me consider going into it or at least doing some classes.

A video of the moment Ms Jackson was asked to act as the Princess in the Thai Khon performance

Another moment I really enjoyed was the clown workshop. In this workshop we were encouraged to let ourselves go and have fun because being a clown is all about making yourself and others laugh so you can’t take yourself too serious. We took part in games such as coconut, elephant, helicopter, boy band and runway. For the runway one of the people in the pair would have to stumble and let their body flow through the movement which ended up with lots of accidental falls but added to the performance nonetheless. However out of all of the smaller activities we did, my favourite had to be ‘so you think you can dance: clown edition’ we got into groups of 5 and each had 4 moves to do to create a sequence. Then we would go behind the screen and Shanice would introduce us in a way. For my group it was monks having found eternal peace and then bodyguards teaching people how to stay safe. We adapted what we created to the scenario which is a very important skill to have especially in live theatre.

I am so happy to have had this opportunity to go on this trip in my final year of school. All the people on it made it such a memorable experience that will go into my core memories. From laughing out loud to each others shenanigans to making unlikely friends this trip was one of the best I’ve had.

Featured Image Credit: Lakshita Dewasinghe