Interactive
Theatre Creative Practice Workshop
The Arts and
their intervention: Peacebuilding and reconciliation initiatives in
post-conflict situations.
CAP’s
Methodology is based on Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre and, more recently,
Theatre for a Change’s Touch Tag Theatre, our interactive and participatory
approach examines current behaviour and attempts to make positive changes where
it may be necessary.
Once the workshop participants
examine their own behaviour and practice their own personal behaviour change,
then the focus of the workshop will shift to how they can use the methodology
in their own work of advocating for changing social attitudes around
peacebuilding and reconciliation through dialogue.
The Common Air Project [CAP] equips participants with the
awareness, knowledge and communication skills to transform their own lives and
the lives of others - personally, socially and professionally. CAP
introduces participants to unique theatre-based tools that encourage positive
behaviour change in their own lives and those with whom they work /
interact. CAP uses a highly experiential form of learning which can be
described as a participatory approach to social change. It is via participation
that individuals generate the awareness and ability to implement practical and
positive changes in their own lives and gain a voice in society as a
whole. As well as exploring current behaviour, this methodology also
enables a group to find its own solutions to the issues raised within a community. It
is through genuine physical & emotional commitment that individual and/ or
group behaviours can be examined and, if need be, positively changed.
We aim to achieve a balance in the
relationship presented rather than, as in Forum Theatre, one side ‘winning’
over another [that of the ‘protagonist’ over the ‘antagonist’]. In conflict resolution, balance must be the
goal in order to make it sustainable as a reversal of power will only continue
the oppression of one side over another.
The
potential of the Methodology:
These
participatory approaches to social change offer a structure in which to examine
behaviour in a variety of contexts and settings. The participating community
provide the realistic content (based on their own experience) to be examined
and then discover and widen the possibilities of positive changes amongst
existing individual and institutional behaviours.
Participatory /
Interactive Theatre reveals to the participating audience, the main character
(protagonist) trying to deal with an obstacle, difficulty or breakdown in
communication and failing. This may be due to resistance in the other
characters (the antagonist/s) as well as behavioural patterns and dynamics
underlying their communication. The initial play ends ineffectively and the
audience (who face similar issues that are faced by the protagonist) is invited
to enter the world of the play to see if their interventions might improve the
final outcome. As a community, the actors and audiences ‘rehearse behaviour
change.
READING
LIST:
· Pedagogy
of the Oppressed – Paolo Freire
· Theatre
of the Oppressed – Augusto Boal
· Games
for Actors and Non Actors – Augusto Boal
-
Whose Reality Counts?: Putting the First Last - Robert Chambers
·
Theatre for a Change
(www.tfacafrica.com)
