9th Annual Dulwich Shakespeare Festival

Last October, hundreds of students across our EiM network of schools joined us on campus to take part in the 9th Annual Dulwich Shakespeare Festival – a collaboration with Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Learning, the Learning team of the world-renowned British theatre company.

Held at DCB from 26-28 October, this is the first time the Festival has been hosted in person since 2019 and DCB is delighted to have hosted this special event. The following schools took part in this year’s festival:

• Dulwich College Beijing
• Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong
• Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi
• Dulwich College Seoul
• Dulwich College Suzhou
• Dulwich High School Zhuhai
• Dehong Xi’an

RSC Learning led a number of sessions throughout the event as part of EIM’s exclusive partnership. Students engaged in immersive workshops and masterclasses led by visiting Associate Learning Practitioners (ALPs) from the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed onstage at our Wodehouse Theatre in the evenings. 

As part of the Festival preparations, each school had been asked to prepare a performance based on the theme of “Reconnection”. The only requirement was that there must be Shakespearean language used within each performance. Each school worked independently on this and had to create a performance of no longer than 15 minutes. The quality of the performances was exceptional, with each school taking on a different approach.

During the Festival, students were grouped into different teams named after Shakespeare’s characters and they worked as part of these groups when completing workshops. All of the students received nine workshops led by Associate Learning Practitioners from the Royal Shakespeare Company, in an intensive but thrilling three days.

We are delighted at the unique opportunities that the Festival offers our students, gaining experience from professional artists working in the industry as well as the invaluable experience of collaborating with students across the EIM network.