On 3-6 ?November? 2016,? ?20 Harrow ?Hong Kong ?Prep?-?School Drama? students attended the ISTA Middle School Festival at Shanghai American School, Pudong. The theme of the festival was ‘The City of Dreams’ and was all about exploring the world that we live in through theatre. Students were asked to consider at what cost societies constant striving for excellence has on our world. We attended the festival alongside students from four other international schools and we were thoroughly spoilt by our hosts SAS? – not only was the weekend full of fantastic theatrical experiences but we ate amazing food, we were treated like royalty by our host families and we used very high quality theatre resources.
On the first day, our students worked in their ensemble groups with ISTA artists, they played theatre games, learnt new drama exercises and started to rehearse their final pieces. On Saturday we travelled to central Shanghai to see The Bund and to explore Old Shanghai. We were excited to experience life in this amazing city. There were so many sights, smells and sounds that inspired our students’ theatre. In the afternoon students took their inspiration from our tour of Old Shanghai to influence their final performance pieces. Students then took part in a series of workshops which ranged from musical improvisation, an introduction to Peking Opera, set construction and clowning.The fun didn’t stop when the sun went down; in the evening we were treated to a feast at the school (including an enormous ISTA cake!) and then a talent show. Some of our pupils were brave enough to take part in the talent show and we all had a brilliant evening!
Sunday mainly consisted of preparation for the final performance, which took place in front of over 100 people! The performance was a culmination of all the work from the previous days.. We were all sad to leave on Sunday after such a brilliant few days of creativity and making new friends.