Theatre Festival 1

I have had one BUSY week! The day after my HIV/AIDS camp Becky, her Mom (who came to visit), and I all headed off to Korat for the 4th annual Theatre Festival put on by the Peace Corps Volunteers. Korat is in the region known as Issan, a very dry and large area of Thailand to the east. The festival was 2 days and had 250 students from about 6 different provinces attend. I didnt bring a group this year, but I helped with teaching and planning of the festival and made all of the red and blue Thai Youth Theatre t-shirts . I made 300 of them and they were really fun (sarcasm) to take on a 10 hour bus ride where we had to keep taking them on and off as we changed vehicles. The first day of the festival we did workshops about different aspects of theatre. Emily and I taught about theatrical make-up. The second day the children actually got to perform the plays. This year the festival was held at a high school for the performing arts. It also had a national theatre on the campus that all of the students at the festival got a tour of and had the chance to see a professional production there on Sunday. The festival was very successful this year, and we leave the project in the capable hands of group 118.

Photo 1: When the students arrived on Friday they were all really tired and pretty much went straight to bed, so they were ready for the next days activities. Here is a picture of a little boy that took a train all night from Chiang Mai. He was plum tuckered out!

Photo 2: For every meal the students who actually attend the high school did performances for us. Here are a few doing traditional Thai dancing from Issan while an orchestra plays Issan music in the background.

Photo 3: Here is a student doing a make-up design at one of the workshops.

Photo 4: These students are learning about costuming with Bryn.

Photo 5: These students are getting to actually practice using theatrical make-up. Im pretty sure this students inspiration is drag queen...what do you think?