Keystone Magazine Learning the Keystone Way 2015-2016 EN | Page 75

The students were divided into five core groups
of their choosing – performance, installations,
design, light, and sound. With just one group of
performers, students designed sets, costumes,
lighting and sound along with numerous other
technical aspects to create a production. “It is very
interesting to learn and experience how each
element of theatre impacts the performance and
me as a performer. Before this festival, I was not
aware that sound and light could also commu-
nicate a story without actors,” remarked Serena
Bolzonello, a first-time ISTA student from Nanjing
International School.
Htut Naing from the International School of
Myanmar noted that having been to previous
ISTA festivals, he felt he needed to learn more
about the technical aspects of theatre. But what
he learned is that it is more than just technical:
“I chose to be in the lighting group because I
wanted to understand how lighting can com-
municate. I feel that it is quite similar to the
importance of bass in music bands. On its own,
bass probably makes no sense, but a music band
without it is incomplete,” Htut explained.
Working in their own groups, students built on
the central theme of a play, which focused on
the evolution of culture – the old and the new.
The idea was inspired by the trip to the histori-
cal Summer Palace in Beijing. Therefore, the final
stage performance that culminates each ISTA fes-
tival was based on traditional Chinese tales that
glued everything together, along with the lights,
Theatre in Ensembles
Other student core groups expressed similar
sentiments. Through the three days of intense
group work and taster-workshops, students be-
gan to realize what it meant to produce theatre
in its fullest sense, what it meant to communi-
cate through the entire medium that is theatre.
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