Teatro Forum na FLUP

First play (police interfering with a late gathering and laying at the beach):



Second play (night club security choosing who gets to enter or not):


Third play (complaints about charging bus tickets wrong and not being able to solve it):


Third situation elected by the audience, and played by spectactors:


Audience very interested in the solutions:


Joker confronts the spectactors for new different solutions and possibilities, generating discussion:


Joker confronts the whole audience, generating the debate:

European Youth Meeting, Berlin, 24th – 29th June, 2007

We organized ourselves and applied with the Forum Theatre Project to the European Youth Meeting, in Berlin, in response to the invitation by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel's, for young people from the 27 European Union countries to contribute to the artistic presentation and workshop discussion of the meeting’s theme: On the road in Europe: opportunities for young people to study, work and live in Europe.


We believe that through Forum Theater we could explore the encompassing theme of “ On the road in Europe: opportunities for young people to study, work and live in Europe” in productive ways. We hope to tackle generic issues but addressing their specificities as they are experienced and relevant for the participants of this meeting. As observers of the current dynamics for youngsters in Europe we find that there are some relevant current issues we would like to engage in by preparing them theoretically and artistically among ourselves and proposing them for discussion in June. Tolerance and resistence in the encounter of different cultures due to migration are among such problematics. These could be further explored, depending on the audience, through topics such as: national policies of migration and the actual social dynamics they regulate (i.e. integration vs assimilation); the role of languages (in particular English) in daily and work life; social and economic realities as new countries are included; religious freedom of European and non-European residents, or others.

Forum Theatre in Argoncilhe Feedbacks

Debriefing after the day in Argoncilhe was over

Testimonies about the experience:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

1. "We got to know ourselves a little better. We identified with what we saw in the plays as they were very objective... It was a nice day!"

2. "A communication platform was created here, non burocratic, non boring, amusing, that changed things".

3. " Working on problems that concern the whole community, controversial and conflitual, works well as the Oppressed Theatre is really that. It's about awarness of our everyday oppressions, because they're presented to us from the outside and we identify, which leads us to fight back. that's what I like about the Oppressed Theatre. I've never met medium so effective. There's no burocracy, no individual interests, it's only about changing and overcoming barriers. That's why it works."

4. " In the soap operas the script is done, right? In the Forum Theatre, we do something but we have the chance of going back and doing it again, considering the inputs of spectators. And they also get to participate playing it as they would like it to be".

5. " It gets everyone to open their eyes, when things are put in front of you just like that."

6. " That issue arises from the lack of power that reality imposes to people. Here, we face a situation that you can play any other way you feel like, so, by conforming your reality you can make things really right, because you can pick the elements and connect them in different ways until you're satisfied with the result... You're not limited to the moves imposed by pre-existing situations."

Doing Forum Theatre in Argoncilhe

Argoncilhe is a small village in the north of Portugal, nearby Porto. The youth organization Argoncilhe Jovem learned about Theatre of the Oppressed and the work some of us were doing already through some of Argoncilhe Jovem's own members. They took the initiative of organizing a Forum Theatre workshop among other activities they were promoting. Through word of mouth, Argoncilhe Jovem could invite a group of people to facilitate the workshop in which Argoncilhe's community members participated. To be sure, even though there is no organization doing Forum Theatre in Porto, there have been many people involved frequently in various Forum theatre workshops and activities entities such as municipalities, NGOs and universities have organized. Among the group of people guiding and participating in the workshop were some of the spect-actors.

1. The Group dynamics

Playing fun games

2. Coming up with themes for discussion

Small groups discussing their own personal stories:

Sharing our stories with the larger group:

A generic situation: teachers abusing their power in the classroom…

And a situation specific to Argoncilhe: the problem caused by a large cow-shed (or herd-house) with a particular strong stench felt by a large part of the community of Argoncilhe. And with a particular owner: the current mayor...

Among the 5 stories shared we chose the one with most relevance to the local context: the cow-shed. The whole group prepared the play further by developing the characters: through a discussion mediated by the curinga (on the right) we discussed the motivations and personalities of the characters.

3. The performance

In the case of Argoncilhe, the performance was meant to be included in a local event. After a cake competition to raise funds for the village’s center, we presented our short play to approximately 50 members of the community of Argoncilhe.

And the audience reacted really well! They expressed how they felt about the situation and what should happen with the characters.

Replaced some of the characters in order to present a different (and transformative) approach.

Forum Theatre in Argoncilhe

Video of the workshop of Forum Thatre that was held in Argoncilhe (promoted by Associação Argoncilhe Jovem), edited to enlighten about its processes.

Next Theatre Forum Workshop

Organized by the Post-Graduations Department of Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto

How does Forum theatre work?

Goals
- raising awareness about situations of inequality that permeate everyday life.
- transform such oppressive realities through a collective search for pragmatic solutions rather than looking for ideal situations per se.

Elements
- Curinga/joker – The curinga or joker is a person who acts as a facilitator. Not only does s/he guide the initial games and group dynamics but s/he also assists the group in the following processes of discussion. To be specific, the curinga poses questions and encourages the group to participate while the participants determine how to represent the issues they want to discuss. In a similar fashion, during the performance of a short play (and of its various re-runs), s/he takes note of any spectator that has an opinion about what is being performed. S/he invites that person to replace one of the actors and share with everyone how s/he would change the dynamics at stake.

- Spect-actors – The participants are both audience and actors. First in small groups and later in a larger one, the participants discuss issues they find relevant through theatre. Role-playing serves as a vehicle for analyzing power, stimulating public debate and searching for solutions. Participants explore the complexity of the individual/group relation at a variety of levels of human exchange. They are invited to map out: a) the dynamics of power within and between groups; b) the experience and the fear of powerlessness within the individual; and c) rigid patterns of perception that generate miscommunication and conflict, as well as ways of transforming them.

The process
1. Group dynamics: The group dynamics build on a series of games that participants engage in. Such games serve to loosen body, mind and spirit, awaken the senses as well as helping participants to feel and act as a group. In other words, the games allow participants to break from the almost mechanical way in which we use our bodies and senses in everyday life.

2. Devising a bottom line for discussion: participants are divided in smaller groups and create a play, an image or a skit depicting a situation in which there is unfairness based on their own life experiences. Either choosing one person’s story or combining stories of different members, they pick a theme they want to explore and represent it. Groups present their short plays, images or skits to each other. Depending on time constraints, one or more of them are explored as put forth in step 3.

3. Performance(s): the plays, images or skits are performed at least two times. The first time serves to introduce the audience to the theme in question through the presentation of a real situation. As such situations are controversial spectators are likely to feel strongly about them. Because of siding with some character, finding the situation is not truly representative or other, the audience is called upon to replace some of the actors and present their own take on the situation. In this way, passive spectators become active in the play – they become spect-actors. Following each intervention, audience members discuss the solution offered. The aim of the forum is not to find an ideal solution, but to invent new ways of confronting problems.

Implementation of Forum Theatre in Workshops

This is an example of a workshop organized by Junta de Freguesia de Vale de Prados (Macedo de Cavaleiros), with a group that included kids, teenagers and old adults, mainly women, trained by José Soeiro. The public presentation was about difficulties for youngsters living in rural areas, as you can see in this news article broadcasted by Portuguese Television Public Service, RTP1.

How can Forum Theatre change anything?

“Hamlet says in his famous speech to the actors that theatre is a mirror in which may be seen the true image of nature, of reality. I wanted to penetrate this mirror, to transform the image I saw in it and to bring that transformed image back to reality (…) I wanted for the spectators in Forum Theatre to transgress, to break the conventions, to enter the mirror of a theatrical fiction, rehearse forms of struggle and then return to reality with the images of their desires”

Augusto Boal

Theatre of the Oppressed and some other techniques

picture taken from the international website of theater of the oppressed: www.theatreoftheoppressed.org

Theater of the Oppressed (T.O.) is the designation for theatre techniques that compose a style developed by Brazillian director Augusto Boal since the late 1960s. Based on the theories of the Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire, T.O. aims at unraveling and promoting debate about situations of oppression that affect people’s daily lives through an informal and playful means. In T.O., oppression is defined as a power dynamic based on monologue rather than dialogue; hence, it results in unequal relationships that are prevalent in everyone’s everyday life. Accordingly, the goal of T.O. is to explore relations of power and oppression while promoting a way to transform them through a participatory debate between its participants.


The various techniques used in Theatre of the Oppressed have been developed since the 60s in different places. (for a brief history see (http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/en/index.php?nodeID=3). Among these techniques are:

# Newspaper theatre: This technique reverses the artistic process to the extent it provides participants with the means of production rather than a finished product. People are provided with newspaper and magazine articles (or other written materials, such as reports, manifestos, constitutions, meeting minutes…) and create theatre scenes or plays based on what they read.
# Image Theatre: As the name suggests, this technique is based on priming image as a means of communication. One of the ways to play with image and space so as to discuss something is for the participants to engage in making human sculptures representing their points of view. Not surprisingly, it was developed to establish a dialogue between people whose different spoken languages hindered communication: Indigenous Peoples and Spanish descendants in several countries in Latin America.

# Invisible theatre: This technique’s essence is provocation. Invisible theatre (similar to what is known as guerrilla theatre) can be said to be a direct intervention in society to the extent it uses non-conventional spaces for theatre (i.e. a subway station, a sidewalk, a cafeteria) and surprises the audience that passers by become. A previously rehearsed play is performed without informing the audience that it is a play. The goal is to represent a situation in which some sort of violence is exerted, to clarify it and, by merely happening in a public space “calling” passers by to re-act. To be sure, the plays are based on themes of general interest and are never violent, as the aim is to promote discussion of the issue at hand rather than to reproduce violence.
Notably, in “re-act” the hyphenation is significant: first, people are compelled to not only observe a situation but also to take action on the matter and take a step to transform society. Second, people end up acting as actual actors in a theatre play, even though they are not aware of it. In this way, Invisible Theatre (and T.O.) put in practice Shakespeare’s saying “All the world is a stage and people mere actors”.

# Legislative Theatre: At the core principle of TO is participatory debate, it suits ideals of democracy and can potentially be an enabling channel for them. With Legislative Theatre, TO has proved this to be possible. Legislative Theatre builds on Forum Theatre techniques, taking them a step further and applying them to law making. After Forum Theatre sessions the participants use the same public space to propose projects, adjustments to the law and so on based on the spect-actors interventions. Through a voting procedure it is decided which ideas will be asked to be approved by lawmakers.
Legislative theatre was an innovation in 1992, when Boal was elected on a Workers Party slate to the Chamber of Vereadores of Rio de Janeiro which is similar to a City Council in the United States. Once installed in office, he adapted his theatre techniques for use in city politics, with some hilarious--and sometimes rancorous-results. He hired his theatre group as his legislative staff and extended their methods of participatory theatre into the realm of government by creating seventeen companies of players in communities throughout the city. This method of governing came to be called legislative theatre in which ordinary people, usually restricted to the role of voters, were encouraged to become legislators. Brazil now has 13 laws that were created in legislative-theatre forums, and experiments in legislative theatre-type work have since taken place in London, Toronto, Munich, and Paris.

# Rainbow of Desire: Rainbow of Desire comprises some fifteen techniques so as to address the psychological aspects related to oppression. These techniques aim at visualizing theatrically and dealing with the oppression people undergo. Rather than interpreting, people in the group provide what would be the various regards of others. Techniques such as finding the “Cop in the head” (as opposed to the clearly visible cop in the street that was often present throughout Latin America) were developed in Boal’s trips to Europe.
Given the vast potential of T.O. and its techniques it has been used in various contexts such as prisons (namely in Rio de Janeiro), schools, churches, trade-unions, psychotherapists’ offices, streets … and the list keeps growing.

Forum Theatre: rehearsal for reality

FORUM-THEATRE — Music is the organization of sound in time; plastic arts, the organization of colors and lines in the space; theatre, the organization of human actions in time and space. Theatre is a representation and not a reproduction of social reality. FORUM-THEATRE presents a scene or a play that must necessarily show a situation of oppression that the Protagonist does not know how to fight against, and fails. The spect-actors are invited to replace this Protagonist, and act out - on stage and not from the audience - all possible solutions, ideas, strategies. The other actors improvise the reactions of their characters facing each new intervention, so as to allow a sincere analysis of the real possibilities of using those suggestions in real life. All spect-actors have the same right to intervene and play their ideas. FORUM-THEATRE is a collective rehearsal for reality.

Augusto Boal, Rio de Janeiro 2004