Theatre Of The Oppressed Research Articles

Os Métodos Artísticos como Forma de Olhar as Possibilidades de Construção do Género e suas Relações

ABSTRACT The Artistic Methods as a Way to Look at the Possibilities of Construction of Gender and its Relations – Based on a collaborative action-research project with a high school class, we discuss the possibilities that artistic methodologies bring to collective analysis and reflec-tions in order to promote youth political consciousness. Through moments of aesthetic-political exploration, in which the Theatre of the Oppressed and Photovoice were mobilised, the young people reflected on their everyday experiences and problems, with dating violence emerging as the most significant theme. Local actors were added to the joint reflection between the young people, and visual narratives made by two groups were discussed. This article recognises the potential of the arts to problematise gender relations and constructions, to emotionally and subjectively involve par-ticipants, and as a way of politicising an ‘apparent’ individual problem.

Towards the Post-Modern Art Week: Anthropophagic Reflexes in the Brazilian Larp Scenes

The Brazilian Modern Art Week of 1922, a milestone in the Brazilian artistic avant-garde, completed its centenary last year. The intention of this text is to reflect on larp using the concept of anthropophagy: a cultural metaphor created by Oswald de Andrade, one of the members of the Art Week. Anthropophagy is characterized by the de-hierarchization of the hegemonic places of culture and by the critical digestion of the Other. Andrade’s reflections crossed time: they influenced literature, theater, painting, cinema and music, to name a few. Applied to larps, the concept of anthropophagy is discussed from the point of view of the communicology of Vilém Flusser, who was also influenced by Andrade’s thought. Finally, this essay seeks to reveal larp’s resonance with the Theatre of the Oppressed, proposed by Augusto Boal – also one of those influenced by anthropophagic thinking. With this resonance, I seek to highlight the transformative potential of anthropophagy, here considered inherent to larps, interpreting one Brazilian larp as a case study. Although this essay does not commit the naivety of treating larp as a panacea, its ultimate intention is to highlight the dialogical and social character of larps, as well as their potential to challenge power structures.

Research on the Theater of Absurd

This essay aims to do research on one of the most important modern drama movements in Europe — the Theater of Absurd, through doing the background research at first and then comparing works of the same type and period including Nobel Prize work. The authors want more people to get to appreciate the art form of Absurd Drama which precisely reveals very serious social issues fundamentally but through vivid and very comic form. That’s quite novel and classic! After researching on the wide ranges of drama movements in the same period like Environmental Theater, Theater of the Oppressed (TO), Epic Theater, and even Music theater like Off-Off Broadway, the authors finally chose to conduct in-depth research on the Absurd Theater. The background research includes but not limited to the period from1950s to the late 1980s in Europe, and elaborates the development of absurd theory in detail. This paper is represented by Ionesco’s famous drama — Rhinoceros, conducting research from the perspectives of forms, themes, literature technologies and moral to show readers what absurd drama is and its characteristics. Different histories can lead to different forms of literary works including drama. We should always constantly explore new forms of Drama which is extremely interesting and challenging!

Exploring heterosexism through participatory theater: An experiment

AbstractUsing Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed (1985) playmaking structures, students in an undergraduate education course, Educating for Social Justice, developed forum plays—brief improvisational scenes designed to provoke discussions of power imbalances. The plays focused on “gay rights,” a topic the participants self‐selected through guided discussions about injustice. The plays were performed for an English class of tenth‐grade high school students. As a mode of investigating the efficacy of this instructional strategy to spur self‐reflexivity, data about the college students' experiences were collected during each class session and in subsequent semi‐structured group interviews. This article describes the project and the participants' reactions to the invitation to step into the role of ensemble member and play‐maker, as well as the development of their critical consciousness about the effects of cultural bias.

The Madalenas Laboratory – Theater of the Oppressed and the contributions of Lev Vygotsky and Augusto Boal: intertwining art and life

Resumo Este artigo tem por objetivo estabelecer diálogos entre o Laboratório Madalenas - Teatro das Oprimidas (LM-T@) e os escritos sobre arte desenvolvidos por Lev S. Vygotsky e Augusto Boal. Compreende-se que processos de criação são fundamentais para as práticas do Teatro das Oprimidas, na medida em que incentivam vivenciar cenicamente e imaginar possibilidades de mudanças em situações opressivas, aumentando o repertório de ação das participantes e convocando-os para a criação de relações sociais transformadoras. A participação em atividades do LM-T@ foi a estratégia metodológica utilizada para a produção de informações para a pesquisa, as quais foram registradas em diário de campo e analisadas em diálogo com publicações de participantes desses grupos e os escritos de Vygotsky e Boal.

The Ethics of Care in Pedagogy and Performance: Intersections with Disability Justice, Intimacy Work, and Theatre of the Oppressed

This article argues that an applied ethics of care practice is central to the work of addressing the patriarchal and racist practices embedded within both professional and educational theatre spaces and their protocols and policies. Many theatre faculty in both the classroom and in rehearsal spaces encounter students' trauma(s), but often lack the tools to adequately guide students down from that trauma once it has been activated. In this article, Kate Busselle, Erin Kaplan, and Samuel Yates theorize what ethics of care in theatre and performances spaces might look like when creating systems and structures to protect students from future harm, address potential trauma in the moment, and mitigate the damage incurred from past experiences. Building from the foundations of feminist ethics of care theorists such as Virginia Held, Lisa Tessman, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, the authors share strategies for establishing ethical care processes to safeguard students in the classroom and in rehearsal spaces.

Theatre of the Oppressed for Critical Peace Education Practice: Difficult Dialogues in the Turkish University Classroom

This article emphasizes the urgent need for critical peace education practice in Turkish educational settings. The traditional teacher-centred pedagogies dominant in Turkish higher education make it difficult to employ critical pedagogies in ways relevant to students. This study proposes Theatre of the Oppressed as an invaluable instrument and medium to effectively employ critical peace education and investigates different sociological perspectives of societies, cultures and institutions. Towards this end, I first explain that educating for peace has to be a critical initiative due to its inherently controversial and challenging nature. Theatre of the Oppressed is then explored in detail as an inspiring tool for the aspirations and challenges of critical peace education practice. Finally, an example from a Turkish university classroom is presented in order to illustrate the affordances and limitations of employing Theatre of the Oppressed in similar higher education contexts.

Therapeutic Spaces in Public Places

Abstract. The effectiveness of both mental health education and clinical practices is often limited by an overemphasis on US perspectives and approaches. Based on a lens and practice of reflexivity within international community psychology, this article describes a theater-based practice that is both an educational tool for training mental health providers and a community mental health intervention. This practice is based on an integration of the work of three Latin American theorists: Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed, Ignacio Martín-Baró’s liberation psychology, and Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy. The approach we will describe integrates these Latin American originating theories with the practical and pragmatic clinical and theoretical assumptions of walk-in/single-session therapy. This mental health perspective addresses many of the barriers to services faced by underserved and international populations. We will discuss how we have utilized these ideas and practices by developing a form of street theater that provides educational opportunities for future mental health providers and creates community dialogues about common clinical concerns in Mexico City.

Theatre of the Oppressed for Critical Peace Education Practice: Difficult Dialogues in the Turkish University Classroom

This article emphasizes the urgent need for critical peace education practice in Turkish educational settings. The traditional teacher-centred pedagogies dominant in Turkish higher education make it difficult to employ critical pedagogies in ways relevant to students. This study proposes Theatre of the Oppressed as an invaluable instrument and medium to effectively employ critical peace education and investigates different sociological perspectives of societies, cultures and institutions. Towards this end, I first explain that educating for peace has to be a critical initiative due to its inherently controversial and challenging nature. Theatre of the Oppressed is then explored in detail as an inspiring tool for the aspirations and challenges of critical peace education practice. Finally, an example from a Turkish university classroom is presented in order to illustrate the affordances and limitations of employing Theatre of the Oppressed in similar higher education contexts.

Theater of the Oppressed and Human Rights: Pedagogical Strategy for (Trans)Formation

Nosso objetivo é discutir o Teatro do Oprimido como ferramenta pedagógica para a defesa dos Direitos Humanos e da Justiça Social. Fundamentados no Multiletramento Engajado e em propostas desencapsuladoras, analisamos como o Teatro do Oprimido contribui para a criação de engajamento dos participantes. Para tal, selecionamos episódios de dois projetos para comprender como possibilitar, por meio da criação intencional de eventos dramáticos, o entrelaçamento dos patrimônios vivenciais dos participantes à vivência (perejivanie) de situações de opressão da vida cotidiana. A discussão aponta para a expansão de recursos simbólicos e criação de novas possibilidades de mobilidade e de transformação da realidade.

Can a Circle of Oppression Be Broken? An Experiment of an Educator with Theatre of the Oppressed

As a teacher educator, I often use experiential pedagogies that I believe enhance student teachers’ reflective “muscle,” creativity, social responsibility, and overall pedagogical understanding, as I believe these assets advance their agentic professional identity, which in turn affects their teaching quality. While studying students’ reactions to Augusto Boal’s technique of Invisible Theater, I found myself engaged in a self-study concerned with my role and disposition as a teacher educator in terms of preparations for class discussions, questioning of dispositions, and experiences of oppression. After introducing the key concept and setting of this study, I discuss my experience and role with two groups of Israeli student teachers and the lessons I learned about my practice and professional identity in the process. I conclude this paper by suggesting conditions to be taken into consideration for Invisible Theater to be an effective pedagogical tool for social awareness and responsibility.

Performance as transformation / transformative: problematizing performance in PAR

ABSTRACT In participatory action research (PAR), university-based researchers often take foundational concepts such as transformation, empowerment, critical consciousness, and mutual understanding for granted as desirable or necessary outcomes or achievements. We discuss the danger of this and suggest that researchers recognize these as processes that participants may or may not experience, achieve, or even desire. In this manuscript, four members of a long-term research collective engage in reflexive practice to problematize notions of transformation and empowerment in PAR, with the aim of pushing ourselves to align our epistemological commitments with our practice of participatory inquiry. We focus on whether, and to what extent, high school co-researchers considered the performative components of a PAR project – such as Theatre of the Oppressed and spoken word poetry – to be transformative experiences and what, in fact, transformation means to them. As we explore our various experiences with and perspectives on performance in the context of PAR, we question and problematize its use, and call on other participatory inquirers to no longer take for granted its purpose or outcomes.

The language of the art of music: an overview of its history in Brazil

This study sought to re-visit the two conceptions of Art – pedagogical and reflective - forged throughout history and its relationship with the Brazilian aesthetic thought of resistance. From the 60's, such thinking has given a pedagogical purpose to art, charged with the task of social criticism and political engagement human emancipatory: in this scenario mainly determined by the Theater of the Oppressed, the new movies and the protest song by Milton Nascimento, , Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, among many others.

Shifting to Critical Medical Humanities With the Theatre of the Oppressed.

Shifting to Critical Medical Humanities With the Theatre of the Oppressed.

Transformational Power of Theatre of the Opressed with Marginalized Students

A reflective essay on how I came to find Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed and how it transformed me, my theatre program and ultimately, my students. I introduce how I came to this practice and how I use Boal's techniques and practices in combination with others to create my own theatre pedagogy. I discuss assessments based on a non-traditional rubrics such as self-worth, vulnerability, adaptability, collaboration, creativity, empathy and unity. Finally, I believe this collaborative theatre is a type of social justice in and of itself; it offers a way to radicalize and liberate ourselves from oppressive systems which most of us are constantly boxed into.

The Language of the Art of Music: An Overview of Its History in Brazil

This study sought to re-visit the two conceptions of Art – pedagogical and reflective - forged throughout history and its relationship with the Brazilian aesthetic thought of resistance. From the 60's, such thinking has given a pedagogical purpose to art, charged with the task of social criticism and political engagement human emancipatory: In this scenario mainly determined by the Theater of the Oppressed, the new movies and the protest song by Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, among many others.

Exploring Theatre of the Oppressed and Forum Theatre as pedagogies in nursing education

BackgroundConcepts such as racism, oppression and social justice are critical curricular inclusions in nursing education. However, traditional approaches to nursing education often fail to produce the desired reflection and change amongst students. There is an urgent need to develop nursing educators that can step outside the rigidity of the curricular status quo and engage students with pedagogies that support critical reflection, analysis and action. Participatory, experiential and interactive theatrical methods rooted in critical pedagogy, such as Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) and Forum Theatre (FT) may prove more effective at engendering reflection, analysis and action. ObjectivesThe study explores health care providers' (including nurses, nurse educators and allied health professionals) and nursing students' experiences, reflections and usefulness of TO and FT as nursing pedagogies. DesignInfluenced by Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, this study was conducted on a Western Canadian university campus. Two groups participated: one that included health care providers (HCP) (n = 8) and the second that included an audience of nursing educators and students (n = 7). HCPs participated in a two-day TO workshop, while nursing students participated as audience members in the FT performance. The data were drawn from sharing circles and group discussions and were analyzed using thematic analysis. ResultsThe findings from HCPs revealed that TO represents an opportunity for reflection and growth; strengthening relationships; and practicing vulnerability. Given that students only participated as audience members, they described practical applications for using TO and FT as pedagogies in nursing education including in simulation and in theory-based courses. ConclusionThis study demonstrates that TO and FT can play an important role in supporting HCPs' development as critical educators through embodied and reflective practice and that nursing students endorse the application of TO and FT in a broad range of learning contexts.

The reflective lenses on forum theatre about marriage—negotiation of identities within multicultural community practice

ABSTRACT This paper is a reflective journal of a university drama teacher’s practice. The author tries to find out the details of communal learning in two pieces of devised forum theatre under the concept of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). The group projects described here show the tutor’s facilitation in harnessing the group toward a consensus on an agreed theme, followed by interesting interactive forum sessions within the multicultural community. With the view of harnessing students toward the use of their own daily life experience, the author reflects on his policy of promoting participants’ use of first languages and cultural capitals. He arrives at the conclusion that such language policy, as opposed to the official policy of the university he serves, actually enhanced negotiation and formation of identities. Such enhancement was also a key factor in the success of this institutionalized group’s learning through forum theatres. In a word, the author has demonstrated his reflective practitioner’s lenses of teacher-as-administrator, teacher-as-participant, and teacher-as-artist.

Análise da pertinência do teatro do oprimido para a extensão universitária: perspectivas de jovens residentes em Crato, Ceará

Esse artigo tem por objetivo avaliar a pertinência da metodologia Teatro do Oprimido para a promoção de ações de extensão universitária em contextos periférico-urbanos por meio da análise dos discursos dos jovens participantes das ações de extensão do Laurbs no bairro Alto da Penha, em Crato - CE. Mediante isso, realizou-se uma pesquisa exploratória, cuja coleta dos dados se deu a partir de um questionário semiestruturado aplicado com jovens residentes na comunidade. O tratamento dos dados qualitativos se deu por meio da técnica análise de conteúdo, já os quantitativos foram tratados com base na estatística descritiva. Os resultados apontam que os participantes enxergam a pertinência do Teatro do Oprimido, avaliando-o positivamente. Conclui-se que metodologias lúdicas como o Teatro do Oprimido são importantes para impactar positivamente a consciência dos jovens sobre o seu território e os seus papéis nele, provocando, assim, o despertar à participação social e cidadania.

Staging Stories that Heal: Boal and Freire in Engaged Composition

This article discusses the successes and vulnerabilities associated with combining the pedagogical methods of Theater, Composition, and Community Literacy in the Composition classroom. It examines how the ideas of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed can be combined to support an innovative approach to Composition teaching, one that additionally employs engaged scholarship and service learning. The essay describes how methods and cycles of story gathering, playwriting, and rhetorical analysis have been used with various community partners, including an adult day care for dementia patients, an HIV/AIDs clinic, and Public Health outreach programs that address Health Disparities. The article explains how the ready audience of community-written plays and the inherent characteristics of theatrical production enable finite and clearly definable communication moments and products—especially in the autobiography-fantasy fused genre I have termed magical memoir—while engaging and empowering the voices of students, teachers, community partners, and audience members alike. All human beings are actors (they act!) and spectators (they observe!) They are spect-actors. … Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, instead of just waiting for it. –Augusto Boal, Games for Actors and Non-Actors