Boal & Freire

Over many years, Boal continued to strengthen his relationship with liberatory educator, Paulo Freire, author of the acclaimed Pedagogy of the Oppressed. At the Second Annual Pedagogy of the Oppressed Conference in Omaha in March 1996, both men appeared together on a public platform to reflect on liberatory education and to answer questions from an audience of around one thousand people. Because of their several necessary flights for personal and family safety during the 1960's - 1980's, this co-appearance was the first time Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire shared a common public stage.

Paulo Freire was a major influence on Boal’s teachings. He and Freire became close in later years. When Freire died, Boal said "I am very sad. I have lost my last father. Now all I have are brothers and sisters". Boal is also known to quote the famous play Hamlet by Shakespeare, in which the playwright explains (through Hamlet the character) that theater is like a mirror that reflects our virtues and defects equally. Although Boal find this quote beautiful, he likes to think of theater as a mirror in which one can reach in to change reality, to transform it.

Sadly, Paulo Freire passed away in early May, 1997. Said Boal:
"I am very sad. I have lost my last father. Now all I have are brothers and sisters."

Boal says

“..... its most archaic sense, theatre is the capacity possessed by human beings – and not by animals – to observe themselves in action. Humans are capable of seeing themselves in the act of seeing, of thinking their emotions, of being moved by their thoughts. They can see themselves here and imagine themselves there; they can see themselves today and imagine themselves tomorrow. This is why humans are able to identify (themselves and others) and not merely to recognise.”

“The Theatre of the Oppressed is theatre in this most archaic application of the word. In this usage, all human beings are Actors (they act!) and Spectators (they observe!).”

“Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.”

“When does a session of The Theatre of the Oppressed end? Never – since the objective is not to close a cycle, to generate a catharsis, or to end a development. On the contrary, its objective is to encourage autonomous activity, to set a process in motion, to stimulate transformative creativity, to change spectators into protagonists. And it is precisely for these reasons that the Theatre of the Oppressed should be the initiator of changes the culmination of which is not the aesthetic phenomenon but real life.”Page 245

“In truth the Theatre of the Oppressed has no end, because everything which happens in it must extend into life….The Theatre of the Oppressed is located precisely on the frontier between fiction and reality – and this border must be crossed. If the show starts in fiction, its objective is to become integrated into reality, into life.Now in 1992, when so many certainties have become so many doubts, when so many dreams have withered on exposure to sunlight, and so many hopes have become as many deceptions – now that we are living through times and situations of great perplexity, full of doubts and uncertainties, now more than ever I believe it is time for a theatre which, at its best, will ask the right questions at the right times. Let us be democratic and ask our audiences to tell us their desires, and let us show them alternatives. Let us hope that one day – please, not too far in the future – we’ll be able to convince or force our governments, our leaders, to do the same; to ask their audiences – us – what they should do, so as to make this world a place to live and be happy in – yes, it is possible – rather than just a vast market in which we sell our goods and our souls. Let’s hope. Let’s work for it!”Pages 246-247

External Link

International Theatre of the Oppressed Organization
http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/en/index.php?useFlash=0

Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed
http://www.ptoweb.org/

CTO-Rio International Exchange Program INFO
http://ctorio.org.br/novosite/

New York Times Obituary.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/theater/09boal.html?_r=2&ref=obituaries

workshop

Preemptive Education:Language, Identity & Power / Urban Word NYC's Annual Mentor. Teacher, Educator & Community Activist Traning. Oct.2, 3, 4, 2009.
read more at www.urbanwordnyc.org

TOPLAB: The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory(TOPLAB) was founded in 1990 and is the oldest organization in the United States dedicated to and offering ongoing training in the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed. Since its inception, TOPLAB has presented annual (and sometimes twice yearly) master workshops led by Augusto Boal, the founder of the Theater of the Oppressed, as well as monthly TO workshops presented by our core group of facilitators, all at the Brecht Forum. For the last several years Julian Boal has co-facilitated the NYC workshops with his father and we are honored to have him as a facilitator.
TOPLAB is a multiracial/multiethnic collective of ten women facilitators/trainers, based mostly in New York, but also from Boston, Toronto, Maine and Brazil, who are active as cultural workers, educators, organizers and health care professionals, as well as theater artists, and who have trained and worked extensively with Augusto Boal. /read more at http://brechtforum.org/

books

Theatre of the Oppressed
This is Augusto Boal's most academically influential work in which the reader follows Boal’s detailed analysis of the Poetics of Aristotle and the early history of western theatre. Therefore oppressive states, such as the Brazilian government of the time, from Boal's perspective, use theatre to propagate their oppressive system.

Games For Actors and Non-Actors (second edition 2002)
This is probably Augusto Boal's most practically influential book in which he sets down a brief explanation of his theories, mostly through stories and examples of his work in Europe, and then explains every drama exercise that he has found useful in his practice. In many ways it is everything that 'Theatre of the Oppressed' is not: it contains little academic theory, instead relying upon practical example. Therefore drama practitioners have found this to be a particularly useful reference book whether or not they are practicing theatre that is related to Boal's academic or political ideas.



The Rainbow of Desire
Ast the Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, this book re-evaluates the practices commonly associated with the Theatre of the Oppressed for a new purpose. It has been argued that Boal contradicts himself with this take on his work as it mostly concerns itself with creating harmony within society when his early work was concerned with rebellion and upheaval. However, Boal's works can be seen as a progression and exploration of a Left Wing world view rather than a unified theory.



Augusto Boal by Frances Babbage
This book is useful study of Augusto Boal that combines; a biographical and historical overview of Boal's career as playwright and director, in-depth analysis of Boal's classic text on radical theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, exploration of training and production techniques and practical guidance to the Theatre of the Oppressed workshop methods.
Frances Babbage is Lecturer in Theatre Studies at Leeds University. She has taught and practised Boal's methods, in a range of context, and i s the editor of Working Without Boal: Digressions and Developments in the Theatre of the Oppressed (1995)

Key Terms

Joker/ Facilitator
Much of Augusto Boal’s theatrical process requires a neutral party to be at the centre of proceedings, in most cases, but not all, this would be a Drama workshop leader.
In Western practice the name of this individual is usually the Facilitator, although in Boal’s literature this role is referred to as the Joker.

Spect-actor
This is a term created by Augusto Boal to describe those engaged in Forum Theater.
Equally, the term 'spect-actor' can be attributed to the participants in invisible theatre (who are unaware that they are part of a theatrical production, but nevertheless contribute to the discussion) and image theatre (who, upon viewing the image created, may alter it to reflect their own ideas).

Rainbow of Desire
Rainbow of Desire is a technique and also a family of techniques explanied by Boal in his book of the same name. Ranibow techniques stem from Image Theater and tend to focus on forms of internalized oppression played out by a protagonist in relation to an antagonist. Rainbow of Desire is often considered a form of drama therapy.

New Media Art
Boal's general framework can be productive adapted to discuss issues of participation in New Media Art, especailly where crowds and unknown users are concerned. The same ideas of audience participation and decision-making apply in many online works being created with the aid of modern technology.