Theatre of the Oppressed: Johannesburg
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On the 18th and 19th November, Geo Britto from Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro, hosted a workshop for a group of 15 participants on CTO methodology in Johannesburg.
His visit has inspired a group of individuals to meet on a regular basis to explore these techniques further, and there is a possibility of more workshops in both Johannesburg and Cape Town for 2006.
Louise Denysschen, a participant in the workshop, contributed the following:
'The workshop was hosted be Geo Britto who has worked extensively with the Centre of The Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio for the last 15 years. He’s been using the methods in communities, schools, prisons, to mention a few.
I had attended a few workshops exploring some of the techniques, but it was excellent to be guided by someone with so much experience and who is working at the heart of it, with the man who developed it.
The workshops explored specifically Forum Theatre. You will come to understand what it is and how it works as I explain the process.
Firstly we played games. These games all promote self expression and exploring your physical, vocal and sensory possibilities. It gets you warmed up to the techniques. We also played games which challenge the way you look at things, for instance we would take an object, imagine it to be something entirely different and then demonstrate this, through silent movement.
Almost all activities are conducted in silent, placing emphasis on the image, as images are often universal and have the ability to depict what words sometimes fail to.
At one point we created a machine, using our bodies and sounds to represent South Africa now and the old South Africa. This was very revelatory and created discussion.
We then played games, which dealt more directly to the theme of oppression.
For example, there would be four people who would march from one side of the room to the other, while a lone person would dance and sing behind them.
When the ‘soldiers’ reached the wall and turned around, they would ‘beat’
the dancing one. The idea was for the dancing person to find a way to continue dancing and for the marching people, to continue marching. This was a very interesting exercise and proved the power of metaphor.
We then began (without knowing it) creating a forum theatre piece. Firstly we found a story of oppression. This story was found by sharing your own experience of oppression with a partner, deciding on which was strongest story(or combining them) and then sharing it with another group, until there were two groups, each with one story. We were then given the task, using only our bodies, objects and costume, to relay this story to the other group(the audience). Later we refined and modified this until we had a short scene with words and action.
This was the product which we would forum. We explored different ways of doing this and different techniques of developing the play. We then presented it once more to the audience, who were invited to take the role of the protagonist and try fight the oppression, searching, through actions, alternatives to the current situation.
This method is extremely powerful and what’s better is anyone can do it.
In conclusion the workshop gave us a firm understanding of Forum theatre and the possibilities of Theatre of the Oppressed.'
If you would like more information about future meetings and workshops, please contact Louise on ashanta_@hotmail.com, and if you would like to be added to the Arts for Social change mailing list, please send a blank email to
arts-join@lists.pioneersofchange.net and you will automatically be added.
Many thanks for your contributions over the last year!
Peace
Nicole
Nicole Antonie
Pioneers of Change
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