ISTA Festival- International Schools Theatre Association, 2017 Brussels Drama Festival
The ISTA drama festival is an opportunity for students from all over the world to meet and collaborate over an intense four day festival. This year’s festival was in Brussels with the theme being Magritte and the surreal.
Thursday 9th February: Day One of the ISTA drama festival
Our first afternoon was a whirlwind of activities as we met our fellow students and were sorted into three ensembles under the direction of the ISTA artists: directors and teachers from all over the world. We spent the time getting to know our fellow students before meeting our host families and spending the evening with them.
Friday 10th February: Day Two of the ISTA drama festival
We spent Friday morning in Brussels, visiting the historic centre, visiting the Magritte museum and of course enjoying a Belgian waffle! We then returned to BSB (the British School of Brussels) to work in our ensembles, using our visit to the Magritte museum as inspiration. We spent the evening at BSB doing a quiz and spending time with our new friends.
Saturday 11th February: Day Three of the ISTA drama festival
Saturday morning was spent doing workshops on either: physical comedy, performing Shakespeare or using music and the set. These workshops were a brilliant chance to meet students from outside of our ensembles and improve our theatrical skills. The afternoon was spent generating ideas and creating our pieces for the performance on Sunday. We the spent the evening with our host families.
Sunday 12th February: Final Day of the ISTA drama festival
The morning was spent finalising and performing our piece based on Magritte and the surreal. We then had to say goodbye to all our new friends. We were all surprised at how close a friends we had made after only four days, so it was after much exchanging of snapchat and Instagram details that we finally said goodbye and travelled home to the Netherlands.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to Ms Ball and Mrs Reynolds for making the trip possible and to our host families in Brussels for making us feel so welcome. We all had an amazing time and learnt so much as well as making new friends from all over the world
Sophie
