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! 

IDEA 30 years logo design: Anastasia Tasić

The organizers of the AFRICAN THEATRE WEBINAR, Mercy Mirembe Ntangaare and Marion Küster are wishing us a Happy New Year!

Dear participants,

We would like to send you our warmest greetings at the end of the year 2021. We wish you all, our participants, a good end of the year. We are very happy that you continuously followed our offers with interest and commitment. Above all, we thank all our colleagues who, through their active contribution and presentations, brought us closer to the theatrical events of their countries through lectures, stimulating discussions, films, pictures, dances and songs. We would also like to thank them for the insights and exchanges we were able to experience on the subject of theatre and education with children and young people.

We have gained the impression that the webinars have created a bit more connection between all of us and we very much hope that we can continue to develop and strengthen this feeling of togetherness and mutual exchange in the coming year. We are very happy and always curious to be in touch with all of you.

To all those who are celebrating Christmas, we wish you happy holidays. We hope that all of you will be able to celebrate the end of the year in good health, with family, friends and loved ones, and take good stock of the work done, education, events and experiences.

It was not an easy year worldwide. All the more we need friendship, love, hope and mutual respect and dignity for our actions.

In this sense, we look forward to seeing you again in January. Until then, greetings and thank you for this wonderful digital community that we have been able to develop together.

With a good hug,

Mercy and Marion
Kampala/Rostock 

Happy New Year from IDEA! 

IDEA wishes everyone a happy, joyful and peaceful holiday season ahead. We wish all of us safety for the new year of 2022 and let's sincerely hope that this will be the year when we'll all get out of the pandemic crisis, step by step, through acts of solidarity. 

Let's continue to cherish drama/theatre education in 2022 and let's all continue the great work we are doing in this field in all parts of the world. 

IDEA is working really hard so we could meet in July next year at the IDEA World Congress in Reykjavik, Iceland. We hope that a large number of you will be able to meet us there. (For more information about the Congress, visit: https://ideaiceland.com/) 

2022 will also be a year when our Association will celebrate 30 years of its existence. We will commemorate this special event by organizing intergenerational and intercultural monthly dialogues between past and immediate Elected Officers and new, young members of IDEA. A print publication will also be created for this occasion. Stay tuned!

Thank you for staying with us and for making the world a better place through drama/theatre education. 

Happy New Year!

Celebrating IDEA Day 

27th November 2021

Happy IDEA Day 2021 from Elected Officers! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpTbRChKqjg   

IDEA Members Celebrating IDEA Day 2021 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9PWpWfKl0A   

IDEA Day Message from President Sanja Krsmanović Tasić 

I want to address this IDEA Day Message to all those around the world believing that art education can change a person's life for the better.

To all those who feel alone in these hard pandemic times, knowing that our art belongs to live performative art.

To drama teachers who feel that real work, face to face with children, youth, adults, elderly is endangered.

To all those who fight from day to day for their right to teach drama and theatre in schools, in classrooms, in cultural spaces, on the fields and in courtyards.

To children who have learned from an early age to express, analyze, synthesize through the language of drama, understanding how beneficial it is for them.

To children and all who have not had that privilege and chance, but hopefully will.

To parents and guardians who patiently and with love bring children to drama classes, support and watch them develop and learn humanity through our noble form.

Also to all those thinking there are more important things than drama/theatre and art education in this world in turmoil. Who see no hope and only darkness.

Next year our IDEA association is celebrating 30 years since it was formed. We shall celebrate this important milestone together in July at the IDEA Congress in Iceland. 

On the 25th Anniversary celebration in Evora, Portugal, Jovana Mihić from Serbia, a nineteen-year-old participant of the Young IDEA project that was part of the celebration, wrote and performed a story, that Maria van Bakelen also cited in her speech on that occasion.

The story is of a little boy who was the only one able to climb a very high tree in his village. When they asked him in wonder how did he do it, he answered: “I did not look up, I did not look down. My eyes were straight.” I share with you Jovana’s story.

I wish you all to keep climbing your tree, keep working, day by day, moment by moment, being aware of how important our mission is in this world. Let us not be stuck in the past, or too worried about the future. Let us be alive, giving our best to every moment.

Let us bring happiness and sense to the world through drama theatre education.

Let us celebrate IDEA Day 2021!

Sanja Krsmanović Tasić

IDEA president 

From Here to the Sky

By Jovana Mihić

There is a story about the tree with branches that had grown up to the sky. 

They were touching the clouds and it was a miracle. 

Everyone wanted to climb to the top of the tree and to feel the softness of the clouds. Many of them had injuries because of that adventure, but one boy made it. 

He said it was the happiest moment in his life. Maybe it is because he made his wish come true only by his efforts. Maybe it is because he did something that nobody had done before. 

People from his town were so jealous. They were saying: "We couldn’t understand how can a little boy do such a great thing.“ 

There was a woman who was fascinated by this boy, and she asked him, without any jealousy in her voice: "How did you make it?“ 

And the answer was simple: 

"I didn’t look down, I didn’t look up, my eyes were straight. My look was focused on the presence, on that very moment. I didn’t care what have I been through nor what is waiting for me, I was just trying to be the best I can in presence. And like that, I was changing the future and remaking the past.“

The woman told him that she wished she had his focused look, his eyes.