ISTA = HL Theatre Kid Approved

This year’s ISTA was hosted in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and went on from the 5th to the 8th of October. ISTA is an opportunity for Theatre students (or anyone interested in Theatre) to work with professionals and others from different IB schools, which include the American School of Doha (Qatar), Bangkok Patana School (Thailand), NIST International School (Thailand), International School of Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Oberoi International School (India), and the hosting school: Prem Tinsulanonda School (Thailand). With this trip, you can explore the different styles of theatre and also, meet new people from different schools.

When Worlds Collide (Day 0.5)

After our first flight from SL to Bangkok landed at 2am, we had to wait for 5 hours until our next one. While doing so, we socialized with people from ASD since they were on the same flight as us. Which was a wonderful experience and in a shy ambivert’s opinion, it really cut some tension for me as I feel more confident with talking to other people from different. We finally landed at 1pm and got to the school an hour later.

After cooling off, we then got a tour of the school and ate dinner around the campfire, which featured more socializing and singing happy birthday to Jacob from ASD.

We then sat through more introductions of the artists and then did the “monkey, tree, crab” activity (an activity where u have to walk around the space and then recreate an image of a monkey, tree, or crab with the people near you). We also played tag where the person who’s “it” has to walk like a crab while everyone else has to walk in the smallest steps.

“The Chicken was Banging” (Day 1)

We woke up and went to the auditorium where we did our monkey, tree, crab activity (I’m sure it was a great first impression for ISPP since they weren’t there for the first day). Also, we had more introductions to do before we part our ways into our groups to start our first workshops.

Me and my group’s first workshop was collaboratively creating original theatre with Kanye from the East. This workshop taught us how to use body and voice (without dialogue) to express our emotions and make comedy. Our second workshop was staging play texts with Jitti Chompee. In this, we got to know his theatre style and learned the cooperation between 2 people without being able to see each other.

We then watched 2 performances for our night activity, which will help us with our theatre performances in the future. The first performance was called “Pieng Buhn (Wings)”. A performance about a DaraAng refuge in Thailand from Myammar sharing their story with the use of theatre. This performance helped me learn about the hardships and what DaraAngs went through.

The second performance was about the floods in urban ares in Thai rivers. This piece also featured river dragons, which I thought was a really cool concept. One thing I really liked about this performance was that the actors asked people from the audience to join, and I just couldn’t say no.

One iconic part, I must say was probably during our walk to our rooms after the performances, Ms. Jackson getting flamed by some of us for liking the chicken from lunch (to be fair, it was AMAZING)

Me and Seb as Romeo and Juliet >> (Day 2)

Our first workshop of the day was exploring world theatre traditions with Benjamin. We learnt about Khon, a Thailand genre of theatre that has elements of dance added into it and masks to indicate which character is which. We leant about the monkey character, like how to behave, how to walk, how to roll, doing this all with masks.

Our second workshop of the day was IB Diploma Perspectives with Scully. Where we took some notes for some time, but we did more activities. We learnt about the different ways to use the space. Let me not forget that me and Seb as Romeo and Juliet is the most ICONIC thing to ever happen.

Since this was our last night, we had a traditional Khantoke dinner, which featured more interacting with others, more amazing performance (A GUY BLEW FIRE !!), and many games made by the teachers… and the “monkey, tree, crab” activity’s last appearance.

This night was truly magical, especially because some of us started blasting out songs and screaming the lyrics to them (me somehow knowing every single lyric to ‘Bohemian Rhaspody’ is honestly an achievement).

Worst Goodbye Ever (Day 3)

This is it. The one trip I was longing for. It’s finally done.

Our final (and personally my favorite) workshop was performing theatre theory with Ap and Eye. We used freeze frames and geustures to show how we feel and who we are in a certain scene. We also learnt about characterization, which helped us a lot with coming up with our own piece of serious topics. In this case, I made my piece about the mental health stigma and made my character as someone who was struggling with mental health, but couldn’t get the resources to find help (come on now… I’m a psychology kid…). I must say, I’m really proud of it as I made most of my lines on the spot.

Drama Performance

Saying goodbye was the hardest thing since I won’t see some of these wonderful people until the next ISTA, or possibly for a really long time. It was so emotional for all of us because even though we only knew each other for 4 days, we all formed a lovely bond. (I’m still so sad I only found out that someone was a fellow Stray Kids fan an hour before I’m supposed to leave).

Fever Dream. All I have to Say.

10/10 experience. From learning about Thai culture to meeting the best people, this trip really benefited me ! I truly recommend this trip to any Theatre students or anyone interested in Theatre. I hope next year’s ISTA could be just as top tier as this one.

PS: @narascameraroll is Back !!

As I mentioned before, @narascameraroll is an Instagram account where I post photos on the family camera. Since I didn’t take it with me to DP Orientation because the risk of breaking it, I decided to take it with me to this trip. Which was honestly a great decision since I have a new way of looking back to these 4 days, remembering how much of a fun time I had. Stay tuned for content coming soon (STARTING ON THE 17TH)