IDEA Newsletter October 2021

IDEA Quarterly Newsletter October 2021

IDEA President: Sanja Krsmanović Tasić idea.president.sanja.tasic@gmail.com
IDEA Administrator: Borisav Matić ad.ideadrama@gmail.com
IDEA Director of Communications: Colleen Roche colleenmackroche@gmail.com

International Drama/Theatre and Education Association
Associação Internacional de Teatro Educação
Association Internationale Théâtre et Éducation
Associación Internacional Teatro y Educación
国际戏剧/戏剧和教育协会

This e-bulletin contains important news and updates about our work at the
International Drama/Theatre Education Association, as well as our activities and
invitations to IDEA events.
Dear readers, dear colleagues, dear members and friends of IDEA,
Here we present the third edition of the IDEA Newsletter consisting of
activities that occurred in the past three months, as well as future

activities and events. Even though the situation is not easy, and we seem
far from exiting the Covid-19 pandemic, we are happy to announce live
events that are about to happen, as the IDEA Congress in July next year,
or an event that has just finished, hours before the distribution of this
newsletter, the IDEA Europe network meeting in Sandnes, Norway.

One of the most significant events of our past trimester is the exciting 36
marathon of the IDEA Online Festival Together We Go On that made us
reconnect online and realize the vastness and richness of knowledge,
practices and work of our members over the globe. We mapped the time
zones of the world, as the Festival was traveling from country to country
following the Sun, and it made us aware of different circumstances and
ways our members do their work, and how they have adapted to the
virtual reality. The Festival was the result of the initiative and work of our
two Directors of Projects and Concepts, Tom Willems and Tomas Leijin, and
I would like to congratulate them for this incredible event, as well as all
our members who participated. We have decided to make this a biennial
event, with the next edition coming in 2023.

I am looking forward to the activities we are initiating concerning the
celebration of the 30 years of IDEA, consisting of a book about IDEA, a
live celebration event as part of the Congress in Iceland and monthly
online sessions THE (HI)STORY OF IDEA with narratives tracing the
footsteps of IDEA through trans-generational and trans cultural dialogues.
Our working groups have been planning these events and activities, and I
am thankful to our Honorary President Maria van Bakelen for her
contributions and sharing her experiences in this work, as Maria has been
one of the initiators of the IDEA 25th Anniversary celebration in Evora,
Portugal, in 2017.

One of the important traditions of IDEA is the Celebration of IDEA Day
each 27th of November. As this day is approaching, I invite you all to
celebrate, activate, share and let your voice, bells, song or action be seen
or heard for the support and promotion of drama theatre education over
the world.

There are many interesting and inspiring events happening, like the
ongoing African Theatre Webinars organized by Mercy Mirembe Ntangaare
and Marion Küster, our Sharing IDEA(S) series of online workshops. I invite
you to take part, as well as to propose IDEA activities that we shall be glad
to promote and help you organize.

For the end, I quote the title of our Online Festival : Together we go on!

Sanja Krsmanović Tasić
IDEA President

IDEA ELECTED OFFICERS MEETINGS

The IDEA Board of Elected Officers meets every month through the Zoom
platform when they closely collaborate on IDEA work and activities.

The Elected Officers also continued working in working groups that let
them use their specialized knowledge and skills in the best possible way for
IDEA. And the EOs had quite a lot of work since the past quarter was
marked by some milestones and very important IDEA events, as well as
the ambitious plans for the future. IDEA Communication Working Group
made detailed plans for the reconstruction of our website, IDEA Online
Working Group worked alongside the rich ecosystem of webinars, forums,
workshops, festivals, etc. IDEA Translation Working Group started working
on providing some IDEA news and material in non-English languages, and
IDEA Finances and AC Working Group, IDEA Membership Working Group
and IDEA Solidarity Funding Working Group continued with their regular
activities.

Also, the temporarily established working groups had a busy quarter. IDEA
30 Years Celebration working group advanced in their planning of next
year’s jubilee, while the Evaluation of 2020 General Council Meeting
Working Group organized the forum on the evaluation of the 2020 GCM.

WELCOME TO NEW MEMBER

We would like to wish a very warm welcome to Dr Janardan Ghosh from
India as a new individual member of IDEA and our drama/theatre and
education community.

IDEA ACTIVITIES AUGUST – OCTOBER 2021

TOGETHER WE GO ON Festival

IDEA did it! The first IDEA Together We Go On Festival with a 36 hours
non-stop online programme was held on 28th and 29th August.

We are grateful and impressed by all the work the IDEA community
showed during this intensive festival.

With more than 500 unique watchers we can say that it was quite a
success and well received. We want to thank all the participants, the hosts
and the audience that bore with us during the technical mess-ups.

IDEA showed the variety of perspectives, ideas and knowledge that lay
within her.

As most of us have experienced during the last year, international
coöperation is not self-evident, but we managed to create a space where it
did feel possible to meet each other across our borders and to be inspired.
The Together We Go On Festival showcased performances, discussions,
workshops, documentaries and theatre-related artworks from all
continents. The list of participants expands through the countries of
Iceland, the Netherlands, Germany, Serbia, Kenia, Chez Republic, Uganda,
Mexico, Peru, Lithuania, Australia, China, Turkey, Portugal, Malaysia,
Romania, USA and Ireland. The festival also had a time-zone friendly
programme, all of which have given new meaning to IDEA’s inclusive
philosophy.

You can watch complete recordings of our 36 hour festival on IDEA’s
Facebook page.

Tom Willems and Tomas Leijen
Co-directors of Concepts and Projects

IDEA FORUM: DIALOGUE AND
REFLECTION ON GCM 2020

On 15th September 2021 we facilitated an online meeting to evaluate and
talk about the GCM 2020 and the Elections of the IDEA officers, with the
help of two neutral mediators, who were not part of the elections and have
experience in moderating evaluation discussions. The Moderators opened a
space for dialogue and listening by letting the people involved speak freely
and holding space for the emotions that can run high in processes like
these.

Representatives of different IDEA Member organizations and most of the
candidates and the organizers of the GCM were present.

The discussion was structured in three parts: 1. Space to talk freely and
express how the experience of the online GCM and the elections was. 2.
Express wishes for the future and 3. Form concrete proposals and solutions
with the help of the moderators.

Here are the proposals for next elections and IDEA in the future
● More time to talk, engage, build trust, engagement for all members
● Better means of digital communication
● Simultaneous translation for inclusivity
● Translation of culture
● Someone neutral to oversee election processes
● Explore co-candidacy more
● Not to become too technical
● Less complexity in the procedures
● More delegation of responsibilities
● Equal continental representation and leadership
● Organisational knowledge more transparent – easier for newcomers
to step in
● In the next congress: put forward motions to change the
constitution
● Address the deeper issues of inclusivity and equality
● Continue the talks and the evaluation of the meeting in more
meetings like this.

The moderators created a constructive discussion and a climate of honesty
and listening to each other, which everyone appreciated. We thank
everyone who participated and was open and frank. We hope to continue
this climate of open dialogue and will arrange more meetings like this to
make IDEA more inclusive and truly international. We thank all who
participated. Until next time!

AFRICAN THEATRE WEBINARS
AUGUST-OCTOBER

The African Theatre Webinars successfully continued from August through
October, every third Wednesday of the month at 6 pm UTC.

The August session “Producing Theatre in the New Normal” brought us the
work and experiences of two theatre artists and teachers who continue to
make theatre and train artists even in difficult times like the present
Covid-19 pandemic! Sophia Mempuh Kwachuh from Cameroon and Hope
Azeda from Rwanda shared with us the strategies they use to train and
make theatre and festivals online.

“Ghana National Theatre and the Abibigro Concept”, the September edition
of the Webinar, saw Amy Appiah Frimpong as the guest who highlighted
the evolving roles of the National Theatre of Ghana, but she also discussed
the African theatre tradition of Abibigro Concept. And the October edition
under the name “African Theatre: Concepts, Methods, Differences and
Equality” saw a more relaxed and free form, a panel discussion with the
audience about the concepts and methods of African theatre and the way it
compares to Western performing arts.

African Theatre Webinar Series is a Project of IDEA in cooperation with the
Department of Performing Arts and Film, Makerere University Kampala,
Uganda, and Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock, Germany. The series gathers theatre practitioners, researchers and educators from 12
African countries who speak about both traditional and contemporary
theatre forms from their countries.

Stay tuned for November and December editions of the Webinar!

SHARING IDEA(S) WORKSHOPS:
The Interactive Workshop II

The Interactive Workshop II is the fourth online workshop in the series
Sharing IDEA(S) and it took place on 26th October via Zoom. Liliana
Galvan, Vice-President of IDEA, drama teacher, educational psychologist
and researcher, facilitated the workshop with the aim of training
participants in a creative and playful way how to use digital platforms such
as Padlet, Mural, Mentimer, Jamboard and Storyboard. The participants
also discussed how to use those digital tools in their drama/ theatre and education practice. The Interactive Workshop II gathered people from
Peru, Argentina, Kenia, Uganda, the UK, Serbia, and Latvia.

IDEA EUROPE MEETING: NORWAY

The 2021 IDEA Europe Meeting has just finished and it took place in
Sandens, Norway from October 29th until October 31st. Members from 13
European countries gathered and had the opportunity to see the rehearsal
of the musical Chicago’ that is being created by the students of the Vaagen
upper secondary School of Performing Arts in Sandnes/Rogaland. The
meeting was hosted by the School, as well as the IDEA member Dramaog
teaterpedagogene/Norwegian Association of Drama in Education region
Rogalan, and Kristin Runde, the GCM President of IDEA.

During the IDEA Europe meeting an IDEA Exchange project took place,
with the title “Spatial Costume Installation with Theatrical Expressiveness”.
12 Students of the Academy for Theatre and Dance Amsterdam from the
Department Theatre in Education and 8 students of the Vaagen
Videregaende Skole in Sandnes, Norway, met each other from October
27th until November 1st 2021 in this exchange.

The students worked together to create new theatrical work based on
costumes. They investigated existing costumes as an object and did spatial
research. They used the results together with Norse Myths to create short
performances.

The performances were shown to the delegates of the IDEA Europe
Meeting 2021 in Sandnes.

The project was guided by Kristin Runde ( Norway), Elian Smits and Tom
Willems (Netherlands).

NEWS FROM WORLD ALLIANCE
FOR ARTS EDUCATION

MOOC “Arts, Armed Conflict and
Humanitarian Aid”

The massive open online course in English language “Arts, Armed Conflict
and Humanitarian Aid”, organized by Ateliers du Rêve; WAAE and APECV at
NAU platform, took place on 15 September, 2021.

The MOOC offered a 4 weeks training space dedicated to different
professionals of the humanitarian or artistic field concerned by artistic
practices in humanitarian emergencies. The course aimed to bring
theoretical knowledge in Humanitarian aid contexts through different
topics, and to link this knowledge with a more practical part, allowing the
participants to become aware of real situations lived in the field, as well as bringing expertise and sharing experiences of real contexts of artistic
practices in humanitarian emergencies contexts.

World Alliance for Arts Education Virtual
World Summit

During the WAAE Virtual World Summit the presidents of the four
associations that form WAAE, and are part of the WAAE Executive Forum,
Teresa Eca from INSEA, Emily Achieng Akuno from ISME, Sarah Knox from
WDA and Sanja Krsmanović Tasić from IDEA, gave their inputs and
comments on the International Guiding Principles for the Assessment of
Arts Education. The document itself was the focus of the discussion groups
of the Summit.

The World Alliance for Arts Education partnered with the University of
Florida and SEADAE to host a Virtual World Summit from October 11-15, 2021. This event invited primary and secondary school arts educators,
out-of-school time practitioners, higher education professionals, arts
education researchers and policymakers, national, state and local
education officials from across the world to attend the summit to network;
share research; and examine quality structures, processes and practices.
With notable keynote speakers, session presenters from all six continents,
and provocative ideas on timely topics, this conference aimed to shift the
dialogue about arts assessment in the global context.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF IDEA ACTIVITIES
IDEA CONGRESS IN ICELAND 2022

FLISS – The Icelandic Drama in Education Association and The University
of Iceland, School of Education will host the 9th IDEA World Congress in
Reykjavík from July 4-8, 2022.

By hosting the congress FLISS and the UI aim to celebrate drama as a
subject in its own right in compulsory education as part of the curriculum.
We welcome all drama educators, cultural workers, theatre artists,
researchers, teachers and students from all over the world to this common
arena for inspiration and development.

It is an honour for FLÍSS and UI to have the opportunity of hosting an
international congress on the subject of drama/theatre and education in
collaboration with IDEA. The website is now open https://ideaiceland.com

The call for papers and workshops starts on 1st November and early bird
registration begins on 1st January, 2022. On the website you find
information about registration, call for papers and workshops, conference
programs and solidarity.

Conference Dates: July 4 – 8, 2022.

Important Dates for DRAMA4ALL 2022

01.11.2021 Submission starts for papers and workshops
15.01.2022 Submission ends for papers and workshops
01.01.2022 Registration starts – early bird
01.03.2022 Review results announced
01.04.2022 Early bird ends
15.04.2022 Registration Deadline for presentations
01.06.2022 Presentation times announced
04.07.2022 Conference starts

Solidarity fund

As a part of the preparation for the congress a solidarity fund has been
established. The aims of the Solidarity fund are to enable as many
colleagues as possible from every part of the world to participate in the
IDEA world congress. By supporting participants who otherwise would not
have been able to participate due to financial constraints, IDEA wishes to
ensure and strengthen the intercultural exchange that the congresses in
particular can offer.

Information about the solidarity fund and applications are on the congress
website: https://ideaiceland.com/

We are looking forward to seeing you in Reykjavík, Iceland July 4 – 8,
2022.

The Congress committee
Ólafur Guðmundsson, Congress Director
Jóna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, Director of Finance
Ása H Ragnarsdóttir, Director of Academic and Pedagogic Program
Dr. Rannveig Björk Thorkelsdóttir, Director of Academic and Pedagogic
Program
Aníta Ómarsdóttir, Director of Young IDEA

IDEA DAY – 27th NOVEMBER

Let Us Celebrate IDEA Day Together!

A special day for our association is approaching, a day that every year
reminds us of the importance of drama/theatre education and the universal
right to cultural life and full participation within it – IDEA Day on 27th
November.

We would like to use the month of November as an opportunity to
strengthen the IDEA community by showing creative ways our members
celebrate IDEA Day all over the world. We invite you to send us your
messages and wishes regarding this special day and its relation to
drama/theatre education. We ask you for the messages to be in a visual
form – short videos or photographs – so we can edit and collect them in a
joint work that we will share on our platforms on 27th November. Be free
and creative, we don’t have any other limitations in terms of form and
content. We want to hear your voices and showcase them together on
IDEA Day, building on a premise that we can connect, hear each other’s
voices and build a stronger international community even in these
challenging times!

Please send us your works no later than 24th November at noon UTC.
For information about the history of IDEA Day, visit our website.

30 YEARS OF IDEA

Next year our Association will celebrate thirty years of its existence, since
it was founded in Porto, Portugal in 1992. The 30 Years IDEA working
group is closely collaborating with past and immediate Elected Officers in
conceptualizing the year-round events that will happen in 2022 and that
will celebrate IDEA through intergenerational, intercultural and critical
dialogue. The dialogue and reflection on IDEA will take place in at least two
forms: 1. Verbal transgenerational interviews between IDEA members,
regarding IDEA’s past, present and future; and 2. Printed publication
written by a group of authors.

The first activities will start in January, culminating during the IDEA
Congress in July and will continue until the end of 2022.

Let us celebrate IDEA together!

QUESTION QUEST INITIATIVE

We are still looking for team members. Every region needs a voice. Please
share yours. Let us ask questions, together.

IDEA is launching the QUESTION QUEST INITIATIVE, online initiative that
would propose and then answer inquiries about drama/theatre education
and share them on IDEA platformes. It’s imagined as a crowd-sourced,
multi-media publication including every region, representing a democratic
space for targeted community-generated common questions to be taken
up by practitioners, researchers, organizations and artists in their work,
with responses/answers/new questions shared on a platform designed to
honor a wide array of “answer stories”.

It has four phases. We will:

(1)ASSEMBLE a team. We would love to have voices from every region.
(2)GATHER the important questions for drama/theatre education today
from IDEA’s members and their communities.
(3)SELECT several questions and CHALLENGE IDEA members to answer
them—through creative and/or research projects.
(4)COLLECT, CURATE and SHARE the answer project artifacts in an online
gallery space.

If you would like to join the Question Quest team or have other inquiries,
please email Beth Murray, IDEA Director of Publications –
emurra17@uncc.edu.

NEWS FROM IDEA MEMBERS

BITEF POLYPHONY: “Play for Life”
September 2021; Belgrade, Serbia

Our Serbian member, Center for Drama in Education and Art – CEDEUM,
successfully organized the joint 21st and 22nd BITEF Polyphony editions
that occurred during the Belgrade International Theatre Festival (BITEF),
perhaps the most important theatre festival in South-East Europe.

Traditionally held every year since 2000, BITEF Polyphony showcases
performances that promote new theatrical tendencies and are made through collaboration with young people. These two editions in 2021 –
brought together thanks to last year’s unstable epidemiological situation –
presented theatre works created under the pandemic circumstances of
isolation, uncertainty and multiple limitations.

One of the performances played during the Polyphony was 2100: A tale of
Aska directed by IDEA President Sanja Krsmanović Tasić at the Youth
Theatre PATOS from Smederevo. The story of the performance is set in
2100 when clean air is a distant memory and art is banned, but a group of
young people create their community where they can share and perform
stories such as Aska and the Wolf, a story of resistance through art by the
Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić. The performance tells us that even in the
darkest times there’s reason for hope, resistance and change.

You can read more about the whole program of the 2021 BITEF Polyphony
at the following link.

FESTIVAL “MATER TERRA”
27th and 28th November; Belgrade, Serbia

The eight edition of the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Festival
“Mater Terra” will take place in Belgrade on the 27th and 28th November.
With this Festival CEDEUM, its organizer, will join the celebration of IDEA
Day-

Participants of the festival “Mater Terra” (lat. “Mother Earth”) will present
the result of the work of different school drama groups as well as drama
studios from Serbia, with themes of: “Ecology” and “Ecology of the
soul”.

FIDEA GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING
24th October; Helsinki, Finland

FIDEA (Finish Drama/Theatre Education Association) annual General
Council Meeting was held in Helsinki on 24th October 2021. The new
president, Annemari Untamala, was unanimously elected for 2022-2023
and she immediately started her role as president after the GCM, because
the former president left already on 1st July 2021 – the period ends
31.12.2021. The six new Executive Committee (EC) members and four vice
members were also unanimously elected. Plans for 2022 were confirmed
by GCM, including cooperation with IDEA, IDEA Europe, other Scandinavian
countries, as well as participation in IDEA Congress 2022 in Reykjavik – all
very important issues in FIDEA’s work.

More info: Tintti Karppinen tintti.karppinen@iki.fi

ZHIREN THEATRE FESTIVAL
9-17 December; Chengdu, China

Zhiren Theatre Festival is organized by Tianfu No.7 High School Primary
Section (also called Zhiren Academy) which is a primary school located in
Chengdu, China, and will be held from 9th to 17th December, 2021. This
theatre festival consists of four parts: Environmental Theatre, Cultural
Heritage, Experimental Theatre and Future World, and its basis is the daily
courses of drama in education of this primary school. The Chinese name of
this theatre festival is “youxi”, which means the children’s future is full of
hope and their lives in schools are warm and interesting. All the content of
the theatre festival are from the daily drama courses, but not specifically
designed for the festival, so it aims to show a real view for the school’s
efforts on drama in education. The theatre festival is directed by Miao Bin,
the drama teacher and leader of the art education team of the school.

Publication
“Innovative Teaching of Chinese Traditional
Culture – Dramatic Classroom Examples”

The new book by our member from China, IDEC, was published under the
title “Innovative Teaching of Chinese Traditional Culture – Dramatic
Classroom Examples”. The book thematizes education in primary and
secondary schools and teachers who are enthusiastic about Chinese culture
education. The publication aims at improving students’ humanistic and
aesthetic literacy, as well as strengthening educational abilities of teachers.

The launching ceremony for the publication was organized at the Foreign
Research Institute and some 200 principals and teachers from public
schools in Beijing attended the ceremony.

You can find out more about the publication here.

Two Publications of Jun Xu from China

Jun Xu, IDEA member from Shanghai, China and Doctor of Theatre and
Chinese Traditional Opera and Associate Professor, has recently published
two papers related to the progress of drama education in China. The first
paper focuses on the impacts of the experimental reading project Hunter
Guolie on migrant children’s reading abilities in drama education with
Chinese folktales. You can read more about the publication here. And the
second publication is an essay in the Routledge edition International
Perspectives on Drama and Citizenship Education. The aim of this chapter
is to consider some of the issues and possibilities presented by recent
developments in citizenship education, drama education and theatre in
China.

IN MEMORIAM
Prof. Dr. Inci San

Our members from Turkey Çağdaş Drama Derneği have informed us
about the sad loss of Prof. Dr. İnci SAN.

“The pioneer of drama in education in Turkey. The Founder and Honoured
President of Contemporary Drama Association; groundbreaking professor
in arts education, creative drama, aesthetic education and museum
education; the pioneer of education through art in Turkey, a contemporary
woman of the Turkish Republic. Retired professor from Ankara University
Faculty of Educational Sciences.

We are in deep, indescribable sadness of losing our teacher.
May her rest in peace…”

For further information visit the IDEA website:
www.ideadrama.org

Contact: IDEA Administrator Borisav Matić: ad.ideadrama@gmail.com
This message was sent to you by IDEA International Drama/Theatre and
Education Association

*The last version of the newsletter did not emphasize that the photo from the
IDEA Europe Meeting in Sandens, Norway was from 2014, thus confusing it with the meeting in 2021. The current version of the newsletter also contains an additional screenshot from the 2021 IDEA Europe Meeting, as well as news
about the upcoming IDEA Day on 27th November 2021.