Just Theatre Kids (ISTA TAPS Singapore 2023)

On the 5th of October, we left Sri Lanka on a flight to Singapore for this year’s ISTA TAPS. We were one of the 9 schools taking part in the Singapore workshop.  On the day we arrived, we didn’t do much except check out at a mall for a few hours just to get dinner and then went back to the hotel to sleep for the workshops for the next day.

 

Research Project workshop 

On the first day, we got introduced to one of the ISTA heads and then we moved on to our first workshop. This was one of my favourites which helped with one of the IB theatre researcher projects. In this workshop, we explored the culture of theatre in Thailand which is known as Kohn. It is a story which has been passed down through many years and is sort of a musical since there are no spoken words. The story is conveyed through Thai songs and the movement of Characters. 

The Story consists of a prince and his princess who get kidnapped by an arm of devils, and later on, the prince leads an Army of monkeys that rescue the princess with their special powers. This particular workshop leader played a monkey named Hanuman. 

We learned several things during the workshop such as movements as to how the monkey walks and how every movement needs to have a meaning and a specific body movement.  We learned the culture behind the mask and how it is made. The monkey movements were quite physically challenging which is something I did not expect and on top of that if we were to perform it it would be even harder since the costumes weigh a lot.

 Performing Theatre Workshop

During this workshop, we were put with Ang Pey Ping who guided us through ways we can perform theatre. The whole premise of this workshop was to keep moving and while we did this we were given certain tasks like adding style py either humping sliding spinning. The aim of this is to find a flow and to embody yourself.  While going through this we were randomly without notice asked to stop and stay in the exact frame.

 

It was a very interesting workshop it taught me how to control my impulses as well as that something can be made by nothing solely based on a single intention. It also made me interact with several other people i had never interacted with before since we were moving with others. Every action also had a reaction giving a unique originality to your movements with other people, It taught me how to uncover my emodied potential by interacting with others.

 

A modern Romeo And Juliet Crisis??

 

After the end of the workshops at Dulwich Collage and a nice meal, we were taken to the Victoria Theatre in Singapore to watch Romeo and Juliet.  You must be thinking as a theatre student this must be his 5th time watching this Shakespeare classic, sorry to disappoint but this was my first time watching the play despite having read it before. It was a very interesting take on the Shakespeare classic and I think the cast and crew did an amazing job.

One thing that I noticed was that for each transition from one scene to another instead of cutting to black> They instead started singing and playing music and slowly brought in new props and objects subtly. This not only gets the audience’s attention throughout the whole play but also adds emotion and tension as each song has meaning towards the play as well

 

Staging play Texts

 

On The second day, we sent it straight into our next workshop which was staging play texts with Jeffery Tan . This workshop was all about bringing life into different texts. They weren’t ordinary play texts with specific lines or actions. Our First text was called “Island of the Abandoned Tree”, it was about a tree and its tale throughout the years as it dies and comes back to life. Our task was to create the scene for each paragraph only using our bodies.

It was really interesting trying to figure out how we can bring a story to life by just using our bodies since it typically isn’t a way to act out a play but it really opens the eye to how you can bring stories to life in a different way.

The second text was more like a script, it was called the “Kueh Sellers”. It was quite a comedic play and also had tons of emotions such as anger, and revenge all building up with tension. We were split into two groups and asked to perform the play text.

This was more of something I was used to but it was still entertaining seeing the difference between us and the other group performing it. It helped me think about how we can use our voice, space and body to bring out unspoken tension, Specific movements such as hesitating or visible anger in the body are great ways, even just adding irony or sarcasm to your voice can do the trick.

Colab theatre workshop

 

This was my absolute favourite workshop is all based on a type of devising named “clown”. We were given several different things to do like forming groups and acting out a helicopter, tree and an animal and if someone got it wrong. Someone else in the enable could object and save the person who got it wrong making fun and outrageous claims. There was also enabled building as well as getting paired up with someone and asked to do a catwalk and several other fun things.

It was a fun workshop and it also made me realise how we can make theatre with almost nothing all you need is a single starting point which can range from music to a prompt. It also made me realise that it can be done with practically anyone as long as you share the same passion.

That marks the end of ISTA TAPS! The next day we had a final brief with the director and he made us connect all the workshops to the IB theatre Assenments ,later that evening we said our goodbyes and headed to the airport