Download Eden MS - guidance document for parents and administrators

The International Schools Theatre Association
Welcome to the Eden Middle School festival
May 8th – 10th 2015
Our mission
ISTA believes that the future of our world depends on confident,
internationally minded, collaborative and culturally literate young people who
are empowered to engage with and change the world responsibly. We believe
that this is achieved through the ISTA experience.
Educators play a key role in the fulfillment of our mission. We therefore offer
educators worldwide the opportunity to come together to develop themselves,
their pedagogy and their skills, equipping and empowering them to bring
about this change through theatre.
ISTA brings together young people, artists and teachers from different
countries in different settings to experience, create and learn about theatre.
We passionately value diversity and collaboration, celebration and play,
friendship and collegiality.
Our artistic focus
Title
Words of hope and wonder
Starting point
How do words help us to express the inherent beauty in nature, bringing
science and art together? Using the poems of Anna Maria Murphy, we will
explore how place and poetry and performance interact.
Out and about
The entire festival takes place at the stunning Eden Project in Cornwall – so in
a sense the whole festival is an out and about! Participants get the
opportunity to see all of Eden including the biomes, education centre and all
the outdoor garden/exhibition spaces.
Our festival pedagogy
What do young people get out of a festival?
Every festival is a unique, immersive experience and each one:
Ø places young people in an environment in which
international mindedness can flourish;
Ø brings people – educators, artists and young people - together in
a spirit of collaboration regardless of age, nationality and experience;
Ø immerses children in an experience where they can learn about theatre
and through theatre;
Ø develops cultural literacy and capital through interaction
between people, place and perspective.
Through ISTAʼs festival model of engagement (people, place, perspective)
children and young people develop intellectually, socially, emotionally and
physically and are better able to understand who they are, how they fit into the
world and what they could do and be in the future.
Before we get onto the pedagogy itself it is important to recognise that our
festivals can be categorised as follows:
Ø Primary School festivals – for children aged 9-10;
Ø Middle School festivals – for young people aged 10-14;
Ø High School festivals – for young people aged 14-18. They can then be further categorised into:
Ø customary – hosted by a member school and engaging 100-140 young
people;
Ø bonsai – hosted by a member school and engaging approximately
40 young people;
Ø sites of learning – hosted by ISTA in collaboration with
organisations such as the Eden Project or the Terezin Memorial Trust;
where the focus is learning through theatre as opposed to about
theatre. Terminology
AD – Artistic Director – the artist hired by ISTA to lead the artistic team and
the creative work of the festival.
SEL – student ensemble leader – the artist hired by ISTA to lead a specific
ensemble that will be general devising or tech at MS and specialist at HS.
(This is in exception to workshop model festivals where the SEL will lead a
developmental core workshop for a number of sessions throughout the
festival).
PS – Primary School festivals.
MS – Middle School festivals.
HS – High School festivals.
Middle school festivals – meaning making
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important
thing is not to stop questioning.”
Albert Einstein
Ethos
The middle school festival model is situated in inquiry and in meaning
making. The child is taken through a series of questions – Who are we?
Where are we? Why are we here? How do we relate to our starting point?
How do we tell and show stories through theatre? How can these stories help
us all to better understand the world in relation to our starting point?
Questions drive the learning, encouraging curiosity. The key focus for a
middle school festival is that the child should be able to articulate the
experience and the understandings that have emerged from it.
Experience – the learning happens:
• through interaction with a curious adult in ensemble groups;
• through specialist workshops with artist-educators, focusing on
introducing and developing particular skills;
• through an out-and-about trip, particular to the geography of the
location of the festival, in which the space is experienced as a place
of playful inquiry;
• through coming together as a whole group in collective acts of
singing, movement and investigation.
Expression
The festival culminates with each ensemble individually sharing
the results of their inquiry through theatre. The questions emerging from
the starting point should be evident to the audience.
This may take the form of:
• posing questions to an audience and then sharing the ʻanswersʼ;
• telling and showing stories which clearly articulate the
questions emerging from the starting point;
• engaging the audience in their own process of inquiry, with
the ensemble work acting as the stimulus for the inquiry;
• sharing the process of inquiry by demonstrating theatrical
approaches or games/exercises.
The final festival sharing is always in the form of a theatrical presentation
of discoveries.