Lecture
Theatre as a rehearsal for revolution | Lecture about Augusto Boal by Suzanne Prak
How can bottom-up change be created by theatre? Inspringtheater & Otherwise organise a unique lecture on the work of theatre visionary and Brazilian political activist Augusto Boal.
In this lecture Suzanne Prak will take you along to understand how the legacy of Augusto Boal can be put to personal and political use. Once created out revolutionary work with peasants in Brasil, it is now used all over the world for social and political activism, conflict resolution, community building, therapy and government legislation and address power issues. Suzanne Prak has directed several Forum Theatre projects and is a trainer in Stichting Inspringtheater. Join us at the event to find out more and get inspired.
Boal developed his methodology Theatre of the oppressed as a set of tools for social change and empowerment. It begins with the idea that everyone has the capacity to act in the “theatre” of their own lives; everybody is at once an actor and a spectator. We are “spect-actors!” — a term which Boal coined. The journey of Augusto Boal is very diverse, including working in the favela’s in Brasil, being exiled from his country, pursuing a political career, and working in Europe. He integrated his experiences with (in)justice an politics into theatre methods. This is how Theatre of the Oppressed grew out to a groundbreaking methodology including Forum theatre, invisible theatre, newspaper theatre, rainbow of desire, and legislative theatre.
In Forum Theatre real-life issues are replayed and the ''spect-actors" have the chance to speak up for themselves and rehearse for real life action in a safe environment. Theatre plays would be done for example in favela’s and those theatre plays informed local legislation.