What Is the Theater of the Oppressed? Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - toplab@toplab.org Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory 122 West 27 Street 10 floor New York, New York 10001 (212) 924-1858 toplab@toplab.org http://www.toplab.org What Is the Theater of the Oppressed? by Marie-Claire Picher "The Marxist poetics of Bertolt Brecht does not stand opposed to one or another formal aspect of the Hegelian idealist poetics but rather denies its very essence, asserting that the character *is not absolute subject* but the object of economic or social forces to which he responds and in virtue of which he acts... "In Brecht's objection [to idealist poetics], as well as in any other Marxist objection, what is at stake is who, or which term, precedes the other: the subjective or the objective. For idealist poetics, social thought conditions social being; for Marxist poetics, social being conditions social thought. In Hegel's view, the spirit creates the dramatic action; for Brecht, the character's social relations create the dramatic action.... "Brecht was a Marxist; therefore, for him, a theatrical work cannot end in repose, in equilibrium. It must, on the contrary, show the ways in which society loses its equilibrium, which way society is moving, and how to hasten that transition. "Brecht contends that the popular artist must abandon the downtown stages and go to the neighborhoods, because only there will he find people who are truly interested in changing society: in the neighborhoods he should show his images of social life to the workers who are interested in changing that social life, since they are its victims. A theater that attempts to change the changers of society cannot lead to repose, cannot re establish equilibrium. The bourgeois police tries to re-establish equilibrium, to enforce repose: a Marxist artist, on the other hand, must promote the movement toward national liberation and toward the liberation of classes oppressed by capital...[Hegel and Aristotle] desire a quiet somnolence at the end of the spectacle; Brecht wants the theatrical spectacle to be the beginning of action: the equilibrium should be sought by transforming society, and not by purging the individual of his just demands and needs.... "I believe that all the truly revolutionary theatrical groups should transfer to the people the means of production in the theater so that the people themselves may utilize them. The theater is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it." —Augusto Boal, The Theater of the Oppressed The Theater of the Oppressed, established in the early 1970s by Brazilian director and Workers' Party (PT) activist Augusto Boal, is a form of popular theater, of, by, and for people engaged in the struggle for liberation. More specifically, it is a rehearsal theater designed for people who want to learn ways of fighting back against oppression in their daily lives. In the Theater of the Oppressed, oppression is defined, in part, as a power dynamic based on monologue rather than dialogue; a relation of domination and command that prohibits the oppressed from being who they are and from exercising their basic human rights. Accordingly, the Theater of the Oppressed is a participatory theater that fosters democratic and cooperative forms of interaction among participants. Theater is emphasized not as a spectacle but rather as a language designed to: 1) analyze and discuss problems of oppression and power; and 2) explore group solutions to these problems. This language is accessible to all. Bridging the separation between actor (the one who acts) and spectator (the one who observes but is not permitted to intervene in the theatrical situation), the Theater of the Oppressed is practiced by "spect-actors" who have the opportunity to both act and observe, and who engage in self-empowering processes of dialogue that help foster critical thinking. The theatrical act is thus experienced as conscious intervention, as a rehearsal for social action rooted in a collective analysis of shared problems of oppression. This particular type of interactive theater is roote d in the pedagogical and political principles specific to the popular education method developed by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire: 1) to see the situation lived by the participants; 2) to analyze the root causes of the situation; and 3) to act to change the situation following the precepts of social justice. Augusto Boal Augusto Boal is a political activist and major innovator of post-Brechtian theater. He served as Artistic Director of the Arena Theater in Sao Paulo from 1956 to 1971. In the 1970s, he came under attack by the Brazilian government, resulting in his imprisonment, torture and subsequent exile. Boal has lectured, conducted workshops, and mounted productions throughout North and South America, Europe, India and Africa, and has written a number of books, including Theater of the Oppressed; Games for Actors and Non Actors and The Rainbow of Desire. An activist in the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT), he presently resides in Rio de Janeiro. In 1992, he was elected to the City Council of Rio, a post he held for four years. Once installed in office, he adapted his theater techniques for use in city politics, with some hilarious -- and sometimes rancorous -- results. Members of the Center for the Theater of the Oppressed became Boal's City Council staff, and created seventeen companies of players practicing "Legislative Theater" throughout the city. The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) The purpose of the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, founded in New York City in July 1990, is to provide a forum for the practice, performance and dissemination of the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed. TOPLAB is a group of educators, cultural and political activists and artists whose work is based on extensive training and collaboration with Augusto Boal since its founding. TOPLAB conducts on-site training workshops on theater as an organizing tool for activists in neighborhood, labor, peace, human rights, youth and community-based organizations. We work with educators, human service and mental health workers, union organizers, and political and community activists who are interested in using interactive theater as a tool for analyzing and exploring solutions to problems of oppression and power that arise in the workplace, school, and community -- problems connected to AIDS, substance abuse, family violence, homelessness, unemployment, racism and sexism. The problem directly addressed by TOPLAB is one that underlies the very process of organizing for democratic social change: the relationship of means to end. The way people conceive of a specific problem -- how they see themselves within it, how they interact with others who share similar oppressions, and how they organize (or not organize) to propose and achieve solutions, is part of the problem itself. In other words, the nature of group process -- specifically, the need to establish democratic group process as the means to achieving participatory democracy -- needs to be addressed. One of the challenges of organizing, for example, is that marginalized people often lack confidence in their own thinking and ability to strategize, and therefore look to organizers for answers, and due to expediency, they may not find within the group the necessary support structures for developing strong leadership skills. Thus, despite meaningful victories the group may be able to achieve by following the lead of the organizer, this dynamic perpetuates long-term dependency and disempowerment. Therefore, just as the principal goal of popular education is to change the power relations in our society and to create mechanisms of collective power over the structures of society, so too the principal goal of the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory is to help groups, within the context of a democratic learning process, confront and transform power relations of domination and subjugation that give rise to oppression. Within this learning process: 1) all participants are learners; 2) all participate in and contribute equally to the production of knowledge, which is a continuous dialogue; 3) the learners are the subject and not the object of the process; 4) the objective of the process is to liberate participants from both internal and external oppression, so as to make them capable of changing their reality, their lives and the society they live in. Since 1990, through the auspices of the Brecht Forum, the Laboratory has initiated and organized intensive workshops led by Augusto Boal in New York City. It has also planned and led hundreds of training workshops in the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed. In this capacity, the Laboratory has brought together people from diverse backgrounds, occupations, and organizations, and functioned as a resource, information, and networking center serving individuals and groups interested in theater for social change. The Laboratory has given workshops in the New York City public schools, and at colleges and universities in New York and elsewhere, and has developed and conducted on-site workshops with different community organizations to explore problems specific to their particular work: the role of the arts in the struggle against racism, at the North Star Conference; building solidarity among women, at the Urban Pathways/Travelers Hotel Women's Shelter; AIDS prevention, with the Shaman Theater-Pregones-ASPIRA coalition; and promoting health among homeless people with HIV/AIDS, at the Foundation for Research on Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The Laboratory has led workshops at numerous conferences, including the Brecht Forum’s April 1995 teach-in in New York, "Out from under the Bell Curve: A Teach-in on Confronting Right wing Ideology and Social Policy," and at the February 2002 "Challenging the Color Line" conference on Race and Class, and has presented workshops at the annual Socialist Scholars Conference held in New York City. Members of the Laboratory attended the International Festivals of the Theater of the Oppressed held in France in 1991 and in Rio de Janeiro in 1993, strengthening relations with theater activists from twenty-two different countries, while planning the creation of an International Association of the Theater of the Oppressed. TOPLAB has also facilitated workshops at the Claremont School of Theology in California, with the Sisters of Mercy leadership training for homeless women in Burlington, Vermont, and in a four-year long youth leadership development training program at Ohio State University in collaboration with New York City’s Deep Dish TV. The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory has presented workshops in indigenous communities of the Los Altos and Las Canadas regions of the Mexican state of Chiapas, and worked with the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas in the cities of Comitan and San Cristobal, offering training workshops for social justice workers and educators. Other work in Mexico included training peace and social activists who were part of a youth community in the state of Tabasco, and with street children in Mexico City, and peace and solidarity groups based in the capital. TOPLAB was also a participant in the International Festival of Alternative Theater (Reunion Internacional de Especialistas en Teatro Alternativa), held in Mexico City in 1997. TOPLAB has also presented workshops in El Quiche, Guatemala, in conjunction with Caritas, for health and literacy educators, women's rights groups, and community organizers, and in an alcoholism treatment center, working with both clients and recovery professionals, all within the context of community rebuilding and healing following the 36-year-long civil war that resulted in the near-genocide of the Mayan people and the murders of more than 200,000 indigenous Guatemalans. TOPLAB also presented staff-development workshops in Guatemala City for psychologists and teachers of at-risk pupils, and participated in the November 2001 Conference on the Psychology of Liberation that brought together mental health professionals, educators and activists from all over Latin America. In addition to targeted training workshops, TOPLAB members have worked in various street theater projects around the themes of globalization, neoliberalism and international solidarity, and to protest United States aggression in Iraq, the Balkans and elsewhere, and its members and associates are involved in a wide range of progressive political groups and movements. The Laboratory also gives advice and support to individuals and groups who use the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed in their particular field (education, social work, community organizing, the arts). The Images Theater Collective, for instance, grew out of the meetings and study sessions led by the Laboratory on the political potential of interactive theater. In 1992, as part of the movement to counter the official Columbus Quincentennial celebrations, the Collective wrote and performed a play, based on Image Theater techniques, on colonial oppression and resistance in Latin America. In addition, as a result of Laboratory activity, Theater of the Oppressed theory and techniques have been integrated into the basic curriculum of both the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre Training Unit and the Education Program of the Latino Experimental Fantastic Theater. Finally, in 1993, the Laboratory became an independent affiliate of the Institute for Popular Education at the Brecht Forum, established to promote the Paulo Freire approach to popular education. TOPLAB will neither facilitate workshops for, nor accept funding from for-profit corporations and similar enterprises. "We must emphasize: What Brecht does not want is that the spectators continue to leave their brains with their hats upon entering the theater, as do bourgeois spectators." -- Augusto Boal ***** For more information about the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, please visit our website at http://www.toplab.org ***** The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) April-June 2002 workshops all workshops take place at The Brecht Forum 122 West 27 Street 10 floor (between 6 & 7 Avenues) Manhattan Friday, April 26 (6-10 pm), and Saturday, April 27 (10 am-6 pm) This workshop is part of TOPLAB's 2001-2002 workshop series and Internship Program. In these two-day workshops, we will explore and practice Forum Theater, one of the techniques in the Theater of the Oppressed repertory. Primarily for TOPLAB interns, but open to the general public, space permitting. Sliding scale: $60-$75. ***** Sunday, April 28 (10 am-1 pm) Special guest workshop: Star Power -- A Strategy-building Game, designed to develop problem-solving and strategizing skills through game structure, role play, Theater of the Oppressed Image Theater body-sculpting techniques, discussion and writing. The goal is to offer participants a practical tool for developing strategies effective in building a coalition for racial and economic justice. Sliding scale: $10-$15. ***** Sunday, June 3 (10 am-6 pm) Special benefit workshop for the Brecht Forum. Open to the general public. An introduction to the Theater of the Oppressed. Sliding scale: $50-$150. ***** Friday, June 7 (6-10 pm), and Saturday, June 8 (10 am-5 pm) This workshop is part of TOPLAB's 2001-2002 workshop series and Internship Program. In these two-day workshops, we will explore and practice Forum Theater, one of the techniques in the Theater of the Oppressed repertory. Primarily for TOPLAB interns, but open to the general public, space permitting. Sliding scale: $60-$75. ***** Saturday, June 8 (7-10 pm) Special Forum Theater Mini-Festival. Open to the general public. A performance/demonstration of the practice and techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed by TOPLAB interns and facilitators, with audience participation. Sliding scale: $6-$10. ***** Friday, June 21 (6-10 pm), Saturday, June 22 (10 am-6 pm), and Sunday, June 23 (10 am-2 pm) Image Theater workshop, open to the general public. Sliding scale: $75-$100. ***** Friday, June 28 (6-10 pm), Saturday, June 29 (10 am-6 pm), and Sunday, June 30 (10 am-2 pm) Cop-in-the-Head workshop; open to the general public. Sliding scale: $75-$100. TOPLAB workshops are designed primarily for people who are currently involved in social action movements or projects and who work with an activist organization, but they are also open to the general public. Enrollment is limited. To Register If you have attended any previous workshops in the 2001-2002 series, please call Liz Roberts at the Brecht Forum (212 242-4201) and let her know that you plan to enroll. If you have never attended a workshop, send an application to TOPLAB at toplab@toplab.org . Let us know: 1) how you will use and apply the techniques you will learn, and with which group or constituency (give a brief description of the group or constituency); 2) the organization, university, etc. with which you are affiliated, if any; 3) if you have had any previous Theater of the Oppressed or general theater experience (not a pre-requisite); 4) if you are a member of a trade union. Please include your phone number. We will contact you prior to the workshop to let you know if you have been accepted. Sessions will begin promptly. Please arrive 1/2 before the workshop start time to register. Checks should be made payable to The Brecht Forum. Note that in order to insure continuity, participants must commit to attending an entire workshop. We cannot admit people who want to attend only part of a workshop, nor can we admit observers. For more information about the Theater of the Oppressed and TOPLAB please visit our website at http://www.toplab.org Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory 122 West 27 Street 10 floor New York, New York 10001 (212) 924-1858 toplab@toplab.org http://www.toplab.org ********************************************************************* "The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated." -- José Martí ********************************************************************* The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory http://www.toplab.org ********************************************************************* ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytact-04.13.02-11:51:33-26777