| By ISTA in collaboration with Emily Grant |
The excitement on the first day of a TAPS Perspectives event is palpable.
Students meet peers from other schools and quickly find a common language through theatre. Teachers make new connections, or reconnect with colleagues, ready to observe and gain fresh perspectives to enrich their teaching practice. Artists arrive to deliver a series of carefully planned workshops.
The rehearsal rooms are alive with movement and conversation.
Over three fast-paced days, students move between workshops, attend live performances, and work with professional artists while collaborating with peers from around the world. They are also given structured time at the beginning and end of each day to take stock, record their ideas, and reflect on their experience.
October is always an exciting time in the ISTA year. TAPS Perspectives, the Theatre and Performance Symposium, brings IB Diploma Programme Theatre students together in London, New York, and locations across Asia.
What may be less visible during the event is how intentionally the experience has been designed. TAPS Perspectives is not a general theatre intensive or simply a series of workshops. Every element of the programme is chosen to support the IB DP Theatre course and give students opportunities to learn from professional theatre companies and industry artists.
The work behind TAPS Perspectives
My work on a TAPS Perspectives event begins months before the students arrive.
I lead the research and development of the artist teams and theatre performance programmes. Drawing on my background as a theatre director, practitioner, and performer, I spend time researching artists, watching work, attending performances and fringe festivals, and speaking with artists and educators.
The role is not only about selecting strong practitioners. I also have to consider how the artists and performances will work together and what they will offer the students taking part.
One question guides the process: how will this experience support IB DP Theatre students as they develop their understanding, perspective, and confidence throughout the course?
Choosing the artists
The artists invited to TAPS Perspectives are not generalists. They are practitioners whose work reflects the kinds of creative, analytical, and cultural decisions students are being asked to explore through their course and assessment tasks.
TAPS is an opportunity for students and educators to engage with professional artists who are actively creating, performing and contributing to today’s theatre landscape. These artists are asking important questions about access, diversity, colonisation, democracy, and the relevance of current theatre practices to the world in which we live.
Their work is important, but how they work with young people matters just as much.
For me, finding an excellent artist is only one part of the process. TAPS artists also need to collaborate generously, adapt to the group in front of them, and invite students into professional ways of working.
As one student reflected:
“Being able to learn Kabuki theatre from a professional was amazing. It’s something I never would have studied on my own.”
This is what these encounters can offer. Students have an opportunity to explore a practice they may never have experienced before and to learn directly from someone working professionally in that field.
Experiencing live theatre
The live theatre programme is approached with the same level of care.
Each performance is selected to offer insight, introduce a new perspective, or challenge students’ existing ways of thinking. Students are encouraged to look closely at what they see and consider how the performance communicates its ideas.
The performances give students concrete reference points that they can return to when reflecting on the event or developing their own work back at school. Together, the workshops and performances ground the IB DP Theatre course in real theatre practice.
Making the connections
What distinguishes TAPS Perspectives from a series of standalone workshops is how the different experiences are threaded together.
Alongside the specialist artists, an IB DP Theatre practitioner works with students throughout the event. They help students pause, make sense of what they are encountering, and connect their learning to the IB DP Theatre course.
Sometimes this happens before a workshop or performance, when students are encouraged to think about what they might notice. At other times, it happens afterwards, when students look back at the experience and consider how it relates to the course and their own creative pathways.
As one participant at London TAPS Perspectives shared:
“The workshops were inspiring, and the workshop leaders helped us connect everything to IB Theatre in a clear, practical way.”
Teachers find these connections valuable too. By observing and taking part, they discover new strategies and language they can use to support their students back in the classroom.
Reflection and the TAPS Journal
Every participant receives an ISTA TAPS journal written by IB DP Theatre specialists. It provides information about the course’s assessment tasks, along with prompts and space for students to capture observations, questions, and emerging ideas.
The journal is not an add-on. Reflection is built into the rhythm of the event.
Students can record their thinking as they move between workshops and performances, while the experiences are still fresh. These entries become a practical record they can return to later. The journal can help them articulate their thinking, make connections across the course, and draw on their TAPS experiences.
Amid the energy of the rehearsal rooms and theatres, these quieter moments are important. They give students time to think about what they have experienced and what it might mean for their own work.
Taking the experience back to school
A TAPS Perspectives event is carefully designed, from the selection of artists and live performances to the involvement of IB DP Theatre specialists and the time provided for reflection.
The aim is to give students more than inspiration. It is to offer experiences that support their learning, creativity, and confidence throughout the IB DP Theatre course.
Behind the scenes, this requires time, care, research, and collaboration. During the event, those elements come together in the rehearsal rooms and theatres.
What matters is that students leave with new experiences, questions, and practical ideas they can carry back into the classroom and into their own creative work.
Don't miss your chance to join this year's TAPS Perspectives events.
Bookings close 31 August 2026!
Emily Grant is a bilingual theatre director, practitioner, and performer. She trained as an actress at ENSATT in Lyon, France, and holds a BA (Hons) in Drama and Theatre Arts from Middlesex University in London.
Her recent work includes The Path of Words directed by Thomas Masters at Momo Art Space, Italy, Assistant Director/Dramaturg on Light by Gerry Carroll, and Romeo and Juliette Reimagined with Butterfly Theatre and Emerge Productions. In addition to her freelance work, Emily runs her own company, Join the Dots Theatre.
Emily is ISTA’s Student Programmes Manager and also works as an ISTA Artist, Rep, and Event Manager. She works closely with teachers and schools to develop exciting and inspiring student events and programmes. As part of her work on TAPS Perspectives, Emily researches and curates artist teams and live theatre programmes, connects with industry professionals, and co-produces the TAPS journal for IB DP Theatre students.
