His lit IV - TO Panel Presentation PDF

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an exploration of the history of Theatre of the Oppressed ...

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His lit IV Spencer Gjerde Mark Lococo 1/31/17

A Somewhat Brief Exploration of Theatre of the Oppressed, as Founded by Augusto Boal Paulo Freire, Boal’s “late father”: -Freire was a teacher who specialized in adult literacy, but eventually began teaching his students methods of “reading society.” -believed that knowledge had to be linked to action in order to inspire social change. -Technique created in opposition to what Freire called “banking education,” in which educators simply “deposit” knowledge into the minds of their students and never challenge them to apply said knowledge. This fostered passive learners. -Being active learners allowed Freire's students to bring their own personal experiences into the learning process, which allowed for a richer learning environment which based itself in real world experiences. -in order to enter this world of group learning, there must be deep trust and understanding between all participants. This can be considered a small danger to TO performers, because they put a large amount of trust in their audience.

Key terms: Praxis: a combination of action and reflection. It is not enough for groups to come together and recognize social inequality. They must physically act together in order to create change. Easter Experience: Freire says that in order to truly understand another individual’s experiences, we must be constantly reevaluating and exploring ourselves. In this way, learning about others acts as a sort of “rebirth”. Looking at situations with new eyes means constantly seeing the earth a different way, and you will never look at it as you once did again. Conscientization: developing a clear idea of one’s own social reality, void of social myths. Becoming aware of our actual needs as individuals, versus what society THINKS we need. Codification: gathering information and then using it to create real pictures of real people. As audiences watch these performances, they will see aspects of themselves and their own struggles in it. This is called “decodification” and it helps audiences see how the action on stage can be applied to their real life situations

Roots in Brecht -Much like Brecht, Boal sought to use theatre as a means of inspiring social reform. -Boal also repurposed the idea of theatre of alienation, performing in spaces that were not traditional theatres. -However, Boal did not support the idea of an active spectator. Instead, he vouched for an entity called the “Spect-actor”

The Joker System:

-A precursor to TO -joker does not belong in the universe of the play, but is “a man of our own time” -gives lectures, breaking up the narration of the play. Similar to Brecht’s alienation theatre. He is used to explain situations and put things into context. He draws comparisons between what is happening on stage and what is happening in the world. -offers commentaries throughout the play that may also serve as scenic transitions -joker may ask questions of the audience so that he may answer them to further understanding -joker can bend time, replaying scenes for better explanations.

The Goal Behind Games: -Our bodies are affected by power. Because of this, we can analyze power through our bodies. -Your body has been habituated by circumstances around you. These exercises are focused on breaking out of habituated patterns put in place by oppressive powers. -It does this by asking the body to do things it doesn’t normally do. -Exercises also explore ways that oppression mechanize bodies, and created opportunities for casts to experience failure together as a group. Solving a problem is not the end goal, exploring strategies in order to solve a problem is. Sources: Boal, Augusto. Games for Actors and Non-actors. London: Routledge, 1992. Print. Gokdac, Ebru. Augusto Boal's The Joker System. The Joker System. N.p., 2014. Web. Howe, Kelly. "Personal Interview." Personal interview. 31 Jan. 2017. Institute, Freire. "Paulo Freire." Freire Institute - Paulo Freire||Critical Pedagogy. Freire Institute, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017. TOPLAB. "TOPLAB - Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory - About Us." TOPLAB - Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory - About Us. International Theatre of the Oppressed Org., 2014. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.

Anna Joaquin Dr. Mark E. Lococo THTR 367 2 February 2017 Theatre of the Oppressed: Political Origins, Augusto Boal, and Branches

Brazil ● Authoritarian military dictatorship from April 1, 1964 - March 15, 1985 ● Era of great political unrest Augusto Boal ● Industrial chemist by trade in Brazil ● Moved to New York to study drama at Columbia University during late 1940s - early 1950s ● After graduating in 1956, asked to work for Arena Theatre in São Paulo, Brazil ○ Adapted methods and plays to social conditions in Brazil ○ Organized performances in streets, factories, unions, and churches where they could reach slums of Rio ● Critical political theatre caught attention of government officials ○ 1971: Boal was kidnapped, tortured, and imprisoned ● International movement to get him out of prison ○ Arthur Miller among playwrights to write to government in an effort to release Boal ● Released after four months and sent into exile-- spent five years in Argentina, two in Portugal, eight in France, then returned to Rio ● Moved to Argentina and began working with various populations in Latin America ○ Inspired by political climate, wanted to make theatre in a language accessible to all and for people who would not normally consider themselves actors ○ Believed that theatre itself is rehearsal for revolution. One should not have to wait to leave the theatre to act. The Tree ● Oppression happens through image, sound, and word ○ Roots come together to form raw material that gets built into TO ● Games warm up the body, but more importantly, they analyze how power works on bodies so that you might use what you learn to make a new reality ○ Oppression mechanizes bodies ○ Games de-habituate the body and help people understand how bodies have been habituated by the systems of power in which they work ○ Ex. Manual laborers lifting heavy things and experiencing their bodies conforming to that job (think Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times) Major Branches Image Theatre ● Using only touch and resisting the use of words or mirror-image modeling, one person acts as the sculptor who molds other people acting as statues into images.

TO participants were of a variety of literacy levels and backgrounds. While their shared language was for the most part Spanish, Spanish was not necessarily their first language. Words have different meanings in different contexts, so Boal emphasized bodies as a tool for expressing visceral responses to words. Forum Theatre ● Actors take a dramatic situation from everyday life and rehearse different strategies to approach them in a collective investigation of shared problems. ● Audience members consciously intervene by stopping the action, replacing actors, and enacting their own ideas; they are spect-actors. Invisible Theatre ● Invisible Theatre involves a presentation of a scene in a public space other than the theatre, such as a sidewalk, restaurant, or train. ● Performers disguise the fact that they are performing so viewers witness their spectacle as a real event. Rainbow of Desire ● Stemming from Image Theatre, Rainbow of Desire focuses on internalized oppression played out by a protagonist in relation to an antagonist. ● Form of theatre and therapy. Grounded in the fact that everyone faces oppression in some way. Newspaper Theatre ● Developed by Nucleus Group of Arena Theater with the goal of analyzing news during time of dictatorship. Stages news pieces into theatrical performances in order to contextualize them. ● Techniques: simple reading, crossed reading, complementary reading, rhythmical reading, parallel action, improvisation, historical, reinforcement, concretion of the abstract, and text out of context. Legislative Theatre ● Developed when Boal was a councilman in Rio as an opportunity for voters to express their opinions. Like Forum Theatre, but specifically about a proposed law to be passed. ● Spect-actors facilitate the creation of new laws in a flow of power between citizens and legislators. ●

Sources and Further Research Alrutz, Megan. “Theatre Journal.” Theatre Journal, vol. 63, no. 3, 2011, pp. 485–486. Howe, Kelly. Personal Interview. 31 January 2017. Huxley, Michael, and Noel Witts. "Augusto Boal." The Twentieth Century Performance Reader. London: Routledge, 1996. 80-92. Print. Markoff, John, and Silvio R. Duncan Baretta. “Economic Crisis and Regime Change in Brazil: The 1960s and the 1980s.” Comparative Politics, vol. 22, no. 4, 1990, pp. 421–444. Schutzman, Mady. “Activism, Therapy, or Nostalgia? Theatre of the Oppressed in NYC.” TDR (1988-), vol. 34, no. 3, 1990, pp. 77–83. Taylor Lach HIST LIT IV Panel Presentation 2.2.17 Dr. Mark Lococo Theatre of the Oppressed: Examples and Jana Sanskriti

Invisible Theatre: -Waiter and patron at hotel argue over bill-eventually rally spectactors to help him pay for it and tip the waiter. -Actresses at fruit stand in Comas, Peru talking about the futility of learning to read at their age. Old woman spectactor nearby- “My dears, that’s not true! For learning and making love one is never too old!” Photo Romance: -Peasants act out plot of comic-strip stories to assume a critical, comparative role which allows them to be more aware of the “ideological domination” lying in these stories. Breaking of Repression: -Social construct of oppression based on race, gender, or class is explored -Reenacted examples but with opportunities for spectactors to fight back -Important that this type of theatre opens discussion about how this example came to be based on larger social problems/flaws Myth Theatre: -Analyze truths behind a myth and logically telling that story instead. -Motupe, hill with a cross that no one would walk beyond because it was haunted and no one had ever returned before. Later it was discovered that Americans owned a gold mine atop the mountain and had been killing trespassers. Analytical Theatre: -Story is told by participant and improvised by actors. ` -Each character is then broken down into their social roles. -Each social role is assigned a physical object to symbolize each role. -These objects are removed and/or switched to see how it affects the story. -Result: Human action are not exclusive results of individual psychology, rather the individual usually speaks his class. Spect-actor Boal says that “spectator” is a “BAD WORD.” -A spectator is less than man, Theatre of the Oppressed humanizes him -Makes him a subject, thereby equalizing the theatrical experience JANA SANSKRITI Est: 1985 by Sanjoy Ganguly and Sima Ganguly Rural India Largest TO group in the world: Something Boal thought he could only dream about. -Actually works from the bottom against the oppression of women and political parties -Gangulys moved from Calcutta to the villages 30 years ago to work against the top down model of treatment in rural villages. -Festival in Badu outside Calcutta, KELLY, workshops and performances. -Kelly Howe is on the board of Jana Sanskriti’s research institute. - Mission on website: “In order to construct a relationship with others, this website is created. Relation means freedom, therefore relation means construction of power.

Dialogue in a relation creates a pedagogy where we learn together and the same relation inspires us to go for an inward journey where we discover ourselves. This discovery is what is called an internal revolution, which inspires an external revolution. OUr theatre, discovered by Augusto Boal is therefore a rehearsal and the performance of a total revolution. Movie: Jana Sanskriti, A Theatre on the Field -Participant’s reasons for joining: -Would have ended up working in someone’s house, being ordered and scolded. -Found a safe space to discuss her alcoholic father -Wasn’t allowed to perform in public because she’s a woman -”It changes your attitude toward people...they felt empowered when they found TO.” -Golden Girl -Performed all over the world, Paris, Rio… -Transition play about a woman before marriage, during, and after -Gave spectactors in villages opportunities to stand up for themselves in situations of domestic violence -”Safe” play for local governments to not get too worried about performances - Video example- Forum Theatre: “Stop. Who wants to interven here? Is it her problem but isn’t her problem also mine? Who’s ready to help this woman?” - “Women have some rights too!” - “I’m sure that when she gets married, she’ll be able to defend herself!” Works Cited Boal, Augusto (1974,1979) ‘Poetics of the Oppressed: Fourth Stage: The Theatre as Discourse’, Theatre of the Oppressed, trans. C.A. and M.O.L. McBride, London: Pluto: 142-156. Howe, Kelly. Personal Interview. 31 January 2017. Jana Sanskriti: A Theatre on the Field. Dir. Jeanne Dosse. Memoire Magnetique, 2006. DVD. Kapoor, Aditi. "::JANASANSKRITI::." ::JANASANSKRITI::. Jana Sanskriti Center for Theater of the Oppressed, n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. janasanskriti.org...