ISTA Festivals
At ISTA, our flagship events for young people are festivals.
What is an ISTA festival?
ISTA festivals bring young people and educators together to create communities of learning, exploration and play. They are 3 day events where learners work as both small ensemble groups and together as one full group to explore, through the prism of theatre, a local story, chosen by the hosts for its themes.
Each festival is staffed by a creative team of artists from around the world, all who bring their own experience, culture and skillset. Our artists work within the ISTA method and pedagogy and are experienced working with both young people and educators.
What is the ISTA™ Ensemble Method?
The ISTA™ Ensemble Method is fundamentally a theatre-making process. It is a unique non-competitive theatrical approach to empowerment, learning and co-created theatre making and the heart of the ISTA festival experience. Driven by story-based inquiry, it is a method that responds directly to the participants, their experiences, perspectives and understanding of the world. It also requires educational settings and learners to consider the impact of the learning and how it will inform their future actions.
ISTA festival
Why attend an ISTA festival?
ISTA festivals offer an opportunity for young people to:
- Connect and collaborate with other young people from around the world.
- Work in ensembles led by imaginative and experienced professional international artists.
- Explore issues of global relevance and the interconnected nature of our world.
- Develop theatre skills, creating original theatre collaboratively.
- Discover new places, unfamiliar cultures and share stories.
- Develop as a global learner, gaining confidence, developing international mindedness and working with creativity.
- Discover yourself, celebrating diversity and our common humanity.
- Make new friends and join the ISTA global network of students.
Other types of festival
ISTA InterArts festival
ISTA Musical Theatre festival
Thank you so much for this phenomenal festival. We spoke at length with Vicki about it, but even after coming back, the passion our students developed for theatre, how life-changing this experience was for our students. Parents have emailed us about it, our director has gotten in touch – just such an amazing positive experience. We were a little (a lot) scared of bringing a younger group, with three 9th graders and five 10th graders to what was an unknown beast in a Deep Dive Festival; seeing our kids rise to the challenge and just fall in love with theatre making, was special. The number of students who came out of this festival talking about how excited they were about going into IB Theatre, asking us how they could do that… absolutely outstanding. This festival was very close to perfection – so thank you!