- Drama
- MS
At the festival, students were split into eight groups, each combining people from different schools and led by a Drama teacher from one of the participating schools.
On Friday, November 8, twenty Seisen middle schoolers joined students from eight other international schools across the Kanto region for the 2024 KPASS Middle School Drama Festival, hosted this year by British School Tokyo at the National Youth Center in Yoyogi.
This was the first time Seisen participated in the KPASS MS Drama Festival, now in its eighth year, having only ever participated in the HS Drama Festival previously. Seisen’s Drama Teacher Dr. Reimer and MS Principal Ms. Sato spearheaded this year’s participation to provide interested students with further opportunities to collaborate in theatre-making.
Seisen participants at this year's KPASS MS Drama Festival in the Arts Building auditorium at the National Youth Center’s Arts Building in Yoyogi.
Dr. Reimer and Ms. Sato accompanied a group of Grade 7 and Grade 8 Seisen representatives at the event, which hosted 126 middle school students from Seisen, British School Tokyo, Saint Maur International School, Saint Mary’s International School, Tokyo International School, the American School in Japan, K. International School Tokyo, Aoba-Japan International School, and the International School of the Sacred Heart.
At the festival, students were split into eight groups, each combining people from different schools and led by a Drama teacher from one of the participating schools. This year’s workshop facilitators were Dr. Reimer, Nicolas Gregoriades, Jisoo Bae, James Dallimore, Kédie McIntyre, Shane Meiklejohn, Helen McCann, Claire Minnitt, and Damon Shearer.
These workshop leaders guided each group of students through the process of devising original 5-minute-long performances of their creation based on their initial impressions and subsequent conversations around a 1559 oil-on-oak-panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder titled “Neverlandish Proverbs.”
Grade 8 students Sumile Mizutani and Neha Vijay Sundaram portrayed the “Village Gossips” in their group’s performance at the KPASS MS Drama Festival.
By the end of the day, the eight groups showcased devised pieces their members created on the stage in the National Youth Center’s beautiful Arts Building auditorium. Each performance could use simple lighting, sound, and props but otherwise focused on them using their bodies and voices in space to tell the story they had created.
“This was an incredible opportunity for our middle school Drama students,” said Dr. Reimer. “Yes, the students met other middle schoolers from different schools and made new friends, but they also got a chance to collaborate with like-minded young artists to see the potential of making quick artistic decisions to generate a show.”
“Today was such a great day of seeing and celebrating middle school theatre,” said Ms. Sato. “We should definitely do this again next year!”
Having such a strong, positive response from students and teachers demonstrates the desire amongst middle schoolers in the KPASS school system for more opportunities to create theatre and meet other like-minded artists. With any luck, Seisen’s participation in the KPASS MS Drama Festival will continue to grow and thrive in the coming years.
Congratulations to all of the students who participated!
This year's KPASS MS Drama Festival participants outside the National Youth Center’s Arts Building in Yoyogi.