ISTA Festival

Wohooo! We love FIS!

This was the best experience I have had. When I first heard about this festival, I had no idea what it could be. But since I had interests in theater and performing arts, I thought that why not try out for this event. ISTA festival in full form it is an International Schools Theatre Association. It is where many different international schools would come together and do a theatre workshop and create a piece of theatre. It was a 4-day workshop on Feb 6-9 and the theme was "In The Telling". 

On the first day, Thursday afternoon, we had a chance to know each other from different schools and artists. It was really nice to meet new people. We were able to meet different people from different backgrounds and stories. That makes this experience more interesting and memorable. There were 5 ensembles, Musical Minds, Movement and Dance, Secret Life of Things, Once upon a Creative of Body, Commedia dell'Arte. Each of the artists got a chance to give us an idea of what the workshops were going to be. We were singing, dancing, laughing, etc. I was in the Secret Life of Things ensemble, and we did drama with different objects. It got us an opportunity to interact with other teammates. Our artist for our ensemble is an amazing teacher and she had really fun games in mind and she is very funny. We were asked to bring an object that means a lot to us for the next day. Then we had met our hosting guests. I had 2 guests, one South African and one Indian, both from an Austrian school. They were such nice people and I was so happy to host them. We talked all night, learning about the South African culture, and Indian culture. 

The next day, we had started the day with some warmups and the same things we were doing with all the artists the previous day. Then we all went on a field trip to Saalburg, we went with our ensembles to try to find 3 things - an imprint, a staturistic figure, and a handmade craft made by the people from the history of the Saalburg. We then spent time with our ensemble to do some acting with objects. We had some hot cocoa and biscuits, it was sooo good for an extremely cold weather. We went for a tour and learned about the history of the Saalburg. It was very interesting how life had to be for the soldiers at that time. How they had to live there, there would be 8 soldiers per room in a hostel-like house. Each room was very small, small kitchens in each room. We had seen some old things that archeologists found in a well. The historians would throw these precious things in a safe spot like the well, where they know that nothing will happen to it, during the time when wars happened. We had lunch with our new friends, sang the song that we had to practice for the final performance on Sunday. We all loved the song. Then, later on, we came back to FIS, and we did some warmups. The artistic director of the ISTA festival asked us to write down a letter to our favorite childhood book. I had written to the book "Wonder" by RJ Palacio, I had thanked that book for making me feel like I am not the only person with a disability getting bullied when I was younger. Then the director asked us if some of us could present our letters to the audience and I came up to perform. When I said my lines, everybody was in shock, one girl hugged me and some asked me about my story. Only the FIS students knew that I am hearing impaired, so I understood why the others were shocked. After we were relaxed, we went to our ensembles for a few hours. In my ensemble, we brought our favorite object and mine was a hearing aid. Some had notebooks, wallets, water bottles, headphones, rings and bracelets, and a hoodie. We all shared our story about this special object. All the stories were beautiful and touching. Then we all had to with our partners' present scenes from the story "The things they carried". Then we had dinner, and we had the most funnest part of the evening.  We all had Irish dancing, it was so fun as most of us couldn't do tap dancing. There was music played by famous musicians, lights, and we danced all night. We all were sweating like crazy. Then we came back home with our guests. 

On Saturday, our last day of the workshop, we were so sad that it was ending so soon. We had gone our second workshops which were Lines, language & loops; Sanford Meisner Method: True or False?; Figurative Gesture Drawing; Villain! Your resting days are done!; Laban’s guide to music video choreography. We had to do 2 of them, I was in Figurative Gesture Drawing and Lines, language & loops. They both were fun, we learned what are some techniques that artists use to draw figures and how movements help our bodies. Then we went to our ensembles. This time we were doing how can we combine all we learned in our ensemble into a story to present on Sunday. We all had many ideas, we combined our ideas and created a piece of theater. The story goes like this. There are 4 different boxes, in each box, we have different stories we can present about our favorite object. There was one about how a ring was passed from the father of the girl to her grandmother and then to her. Then there was a story about how 2 sisters keep in touch with each other since they are about a few years apart. They would write in a notebook and swap it with the other sister when they meet and they would write it in that book. Then a story of me being hearing impaired. Then a story about all the other favorite objects combined together. We would each present our story with 3 objects out of 5 objects that our teacher gives us. So since i was with my group doing hearing aids, we chose a cloth and a stick but we only used the cloth. I let my group decide how they want to show my story because I wanted it to be a challenge and I would only help with telling if it shows my story or not. When we finished, I was pretty impressed with how they showed it. A surprising thing came when I was practicing, the artistic director wanted to speak to me. I was stunned, so I went and she said that the musical minds group is doing a theater piece about a deaf girl getting bullied because she couldn't hear and speak. She wanted to ask me if it was ok to do this piece, she didn't want it to be offensive and that if I was not ok with it, she would tell them to change the story. I was stunned, I realized why she asked me this, she had heard what I had said in the letter to the book. I told her it was ok, I had no things against this idea. She had even spoken to the teacher of the group and my drama and dance teachers about this. I was stunned at this. I couldn't believe all this support I was getting. I felt accepted at this festival and I tried not to cry. After all the tough times, I am getting this support and acceptance. Even the teacher of the Musical Minds group wanted to speak to me, he said that he had no idea he was presenting my story. He asked whether I was ok with it, and do I want to see a sneak peek of it. I said I was ok with it and I wanted it to be a surprise. He said that now he knows and when he performs, he will have me in his mind. I was so grateful. When we reached home, we had a homemade dinner at home with our guests and I played monopoly with them. We had so much fun. 

The next day, it was our PERFORMANCE!! I was so excited. When we got to FIS, we first warmed up with all the artists, then we practiced our pieces with our ensembles. When I saw the musical minds group's story, I literally had tears in my eyes. It was so beautiful. We were wearing our ISTA shirts ready to go. One of the schools had to leave early and we were all crying. Then we performed and I cried again when the musical minds group came. I had to not cry because I was sitting waiting for our turn to perform. In the end, we thanked everybody. My mom came to me and said that everybody had tears when they watched. Mom, Dad, and my brother along with the rest of the audience were crying. When we were thanking the teacher of the Musical Minds group, he was in tears and he said he had no idea and it was such a beautiful story. We thanked my ensemble teacher, she had tears in her eyes. We thanked the drama and dance teachers. I thank my drama, dance and performing arts teachers for helping me participate in this event. It was the best experience ever. I had tears in my eyes. They have been so supportive and helpful. I learned many things from this festival. I enjoyed it so much. I loved performing and meeting new people. This experience has been the best ever.