Theater of the opressed

This is an organization which runs in across the world. It specializes in breaking down the "oppression" or repression of audience/creator relationship.  It does this through all medium of arts, though specializes, or starts with theater, where it encourages the audience to come forward, create the scene, take the part of the protagonist, devise an outcome etc etc- the ultimate objective is to "eliminate the private property and characters and stories" and liberate acting by "tearing down the walls." The movement was started to teach people to recognize and react to the repression in their daily lives. "Recognizing that humans have a unique ability to take action in the world while simultaneously observing themselves in action, Boal believed that the human was a self-contained theatre, actor and spectator in one. Because we can observe ourselves in action, we can amend, adjust and alter our actions to have different impact and to change our world.

Theatre of the Oppressed engages people in discovery, critical reflection and dialogue and the process of liberation! Through Theatre of the Oppressed we can better understand ourselves, our communities and our world. There are several series of techniques, tools and expressions of Theatre of the Oppressed. Below are some The Forum Project uses regularly. "

The writer talks a lot about this sort of (in my words) communist drama. I like this idea- it's a totally new and engaging way to break down traditions and encourage participation, community story-telling, and cultural debate. The author writes a lot about how important media and arts is for cultural discussions- about repression, and feminism and such- as through art and debating on what goes where and what happens next, you create a dialogue which ends at a place where people are happy for it to be. It has also been shown to be helpful for literacy and non-verbal communication, as well as for learning to critique mass culture, and not just accept it as "truth"- as the project started in Brazil, this is very interesting and a good idea.
He writes quite a lot about how this might be done with photography. The people were given cameras and taught how to use them, (focus etc etc) and then given subjects to take. Then they would discuss why people might have taken the photos to represent something. The different ideas and views of people open debate and artistic thinking, as well as creating debate for representation and the world we create, the reality we exist in.
came up with the idea of "event theater", whereby an image starts a debate, and spectators can discuss their own interpretations of the picture.


Here is an example of NYC oppressed doing a piece. It is interestingly un-western and unconventional, and I imagine is very challenging to be part of as an audience used to  normal theater.

In relation to my work, this is very useful, and I like it as an idea a lot.