From IDEA 1992 to IDEA 2010
18 years ago, IDEA launched its first world congress in Porto, Portugal. Since then, thousands of drama and theatre education teachers and pedagogues, scholars and artists from across the world, have met at 7 world congresses to exchange and celebrate practice, research, case studies, pedagogical theories, new curricula and performances.
Following Porto in 1992, IDEA's world congress moved hemispheres in 1995 to Brisbane, Australia. Many friendships and collaborations resulted. This widening global community met again and again – in Kisumu, Kenya (1998), Bergen, Norway (2001) and Ottawa, Canada (2004), Hong Kong (SAR), China (2007) and in the Brazilian rainforest at Belem (2010).
Each congress includes an IDEA General Council Meeting which elects a new team of officers. In Canada, 2004, IDEA's members resolved to transform its congress-centred organisation into a more inclusive project-driven IDEA, concerned in particular with young people from every continent and social context.
The President of IDEA (2010- 2013) has pledged that a focus of IDEA will now be on drama and theatre in schools (as well as other educational settings) and on all children and young people having access to trained drama teachers/ theatre educators/ drama pedagogues.
In Hong Kong, more than 1200 people from more than 50 countries participated in a 6th congress which experimented with 'dialogic' keynotes, onstage roundtables and a world workshop for young actors and directors who gave their own keynotes. After three years of making and testing new policy for Young IDEA, IDEA Projects and Solidarity, inter-regional collaborations, this new website, the co-creation and coordination of the World Alliance for Arts Education and its first World Creativity Summit, the General Council opted to prioritise communication, fundraise to develop sustainable projects, expand its research and advocacy, and to develop IDEA Regions.
The 7th IDEA World Congress took place in Belem in northern Brazil, the metropolitan capital on the banks of the Amazon, in July 2010. A conference report is expected soon and will be posted on this website.
The 8th IDEA World Congress will take place in Paris, France in 2013.