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Rehearsals for revolution? Theatre of the Oppressed, dominant discourses, and democratic tensions.
- Source :
- Research in Drama Education; Feb2011, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p29-45, 17p
- Publication Year :
- 2011
-
Abstract
- Theatre of the Oppressed was conceived by Brazilian theatre director and theorist Augusto Boal as a 'rehearsal for revolution'; it hinges on participants' power to select material for inquiry and frame, shape, script, and perform stories of problems/oppressions in their own lives and communities. In a 12-week-long study I co-facilitated in the drama classroom of an urban charter school in the Autumn of 2007, six girls and two boys framed problems from their lives and communities, scripted and staged anti-model scenes, and performed a wide range of Forum interventions. As a facilitator, I struggled with the tension between my own desire to intervene in discourses in embedded assumptions I found problematic and my fears that by doing so, I would be colonising the workshop with my own privileged agenda. This article is about that struggle, and about the problem that popular positions and ideas are not necessarily progressive, and while Theatre of the Oppressed is usually utilised in support of politically progressive agendas, the work participants initiate and the choices they make do not automatically orient towards social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- THEATER
SOCIAL justice
PERFORMING arts
DRAMA
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 13569783
- Volume :
- 16
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Research in Drama Education
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 58144732
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2011.541600