You are an educator, a community activist, a labor
organizer, a human service or mental health worker.
You deal with problems in the workplace, school or
community, such as AIDS, substance abuse, family violence,
homelessness, unemployment, racism or sexism.
TOPLAB's Aim Is To...
Collaborate with other groups and individuals to promote
social action for social and economic justice through the
practice of participatory democracy.
We Offer...
* Theater techniques designed to explore oppression in
everyday life and solutions to oppressive situations to help
groups clarify their objectives, build leadership skills,
and rehearse practical action;
* Commitment to creating long-term working relations with
groups in a spirit of solidarity.
What Is the Theater of the Oppressed?
The Theater of the Oppressed is a form of participatory
theater developed in the 1970s by Brazilian director and
political activist Augusto Boal, and rooted in the Latin
American popular education movements of the two previous
decades.
Its problem-posing techniques have been used by labor and
community organizers and educators in all five continents as
efficient tools for democratizing their own organizations,
analyzing problems and transforming reality through direct
action.
In the Theater of the Oppressed, participants dramatize
their own stories of oppression and propose alternative
solutions to given situations.
Training Workshops
TOPLAB conducts workshops of varied lengths specified to the
needs of groups, both in Image Theater and in Forum Theater.
Image Theater consists of exercises and games that explore
relations of power and group solutions to concrete problems
through living body imagery.
In Forum Theater, a skit depicting an unresolved social
conflict actually experienced by a participant is improvised
and presented. The scene is performed once more; but now,
any spectator, in order to affect a better solution, can
stop the action at any time and replace the protagonist. The
aim of the forum is not to find an ideal solution, but to
invent new ways of confronting oppression.
Workshops can be given in English or Spanish, or in a
bilingual format.
Who We Are
The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB), founded in
1990, is...
...a New York City-based group of educators who have trained
and collaborated with Augusto Boal since 1990;
...a founding member of the Institute for Popular Education
at the Brecht Forum;
...an arts partner with the Renaissance School, a K-12 New
Visions school in Jackson Heights, Queens.
TOPLAB has participated in...
* International Festivals of the Theater of the Oppressed in
France and Brazil, and the 1997 International Festival of
Alternative Theater in Mexico City;
* The Pedagogy of the Oppressed Conference (Omaha, 1996).
TOPLAB has conducted workshops. . .
...at conferences, including:
* the North Star Fund Conference on Organizing for Social
Change (1993);
* Out from under the Bell Curve: A Teach-in on Confronting
Right-wing Ideology and Social Policy (1995);
* annual New York State Theatre Education State Conferences;
* the annual Socialist Scholars Conference;
* Imagination and Social Action (Center for Social
Imagination, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1997);
...with neighborhood, community, youth, peace and ecology
organizations, including:
* Women's shelters at the Travelers' Hotel (New York) and in
Burlington, Vermont;
* the Foundation for Research on Sexually Transmitted
Diseases (New York);
* Action for Community Empowerment (East Harlem);
* University Settlement House (Lower East Side);
* The Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas (Chiapas,
Mexico);
* El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Ecosur) (Chiapas);
* Teatro Callejero (Mexico City)
* Caritas-Quiche (Guatemala);
...with adult literacy centers;
...with peace and justice-oriented religious organizations,
such as the Sisters of Mercy;
...in indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico;
...with an experimental youth community in the state of
Tabasco, Mexico;
...at New York City public schools;
...at colleges and universities, including Hunter College
(CUNY), SUNY at Utica, Hofstra University, Manhattan
College, College of Mount Saint Vincent and Columbia
University.
TOPLAB has developed ongoing collaborative projects with...
* Action for Community Empowerment
* Columbia University School of Social Work
* Stanley Isaacs Adult Literacy Center
* Youth Organizers Television
* The Renaissance School, Jackson Heights, New York
* a network of Mexican peace, justice and youth educators
TOPLAB offers ongoing week-end Intensives, open to the
general public, at The Brecht Forum.
Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory
Interactive Theater Workshops for Social Change
122 West 27 Street, 10 Floor
New York, New York 10001-6281
(212)924-1858
(212)674-6506 (fax)
http://www.toplab.org