THE THEATER OF THE OPPRESSED ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
by Carmelina Cartei and Marie-Claire Picher
The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory proposes the use of specialized theater techniques in the classroom across the liberal arts and social sciences curriculum as a means of bridging the polarities that define the current academic achievement vs. social skills debate.
What Type of Curriculum Does the Theater of the Oppressed Promote?
The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory supports a curriculum that:
-recognizes the advancement of critical thinking as a fundamental objective of the educational process, and supplies practical structures for its development in the classroom;
-defines critical thinking in terms of the interdependency of literacy and social skills;
-promotes a politics of inclusion both in terms of the composition of the student body and of pedagogy inclusion of students' experience as an integral component of the educational process, as well as an interdisciplinary approach to course content;
-is rooted in a social ethic that values human solidarity, tolerance and cooperation.
The Theater of the Oppressed and Critical Thinking
1. Theater in the Service of Literacy
a. The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory emphasizes the need to understand and challenge the assumptions that are at the root of dominant educational practices. We pose the question: What values are being transmitted in the classroom that impede critical thinking?
b. The pedagogical objective of the Theater of the Oppressed is to increase literacy. It implements a three-fold strategy for achieving this:
-minimizing alienation (student/student, student/teacher and student/text) through interactive approaches to teaching;
-placing dialogue at the center of the learning process;
-viewing the integration of practical social skills, such as self-organization and cooperation, as an inherent component of literacy.
2. Critical Thinking as Theatrical Practice
In the Theater of the Oppressed, critical thinking takes the form of a general shift away from abstract to more concrete modes of thought, from subjective to more objective modes of perception, from monologue to dialogue. More specifically, in order to develop in participants powers of critical distance, the entire body is mobilized: emphasis is placed on the body in context.
a) Games and techniques highlight the process of self-awareness and self-empowerment as the interplay of individual and collective modes of experience. The point of departure is always individual experience that progressively becomes amplified to the point of reflecting and containing within itself the diversity of a shared group experience. Thus, individual experience is valued both for itself and as a means of reinforcing the main focus of the process: the gradual
construction of a shared group experience.
b) The techniques of Image Theater, based on the use of living body imagery, are designed to strengthen in each individual the skills of observation and dialogue required for effective group
interaction. Rejecting interpretation as a search for truth that impoverishes the connotative potential of each image, Image Theater stresses: a) descriptions of concrete phenomena that occur in the here-and-now, and can be corroborated by others; and
c) subjective impressions, prefaced by words such as "it seems to me" and "it appears that" that relativize their content.
3) In order to increase the powers of observation of participants, games and exercises are designed to stimulate the senses (looking at what we see, listening to what we hear, feeling what we touch) and break patterns of mechanized physical movement and perception.
4) Dialogue is promoted at all levels of exchange in the group. All games and techniques are designed to develop the social skills of cooperation and consensus-building along with those of
observation and analysis. Games are also generated as interactive structures that allow spect-actors to physically intervene in open-ended dramatic action. The goal is not necessarily to find the correct solution to particular problems of oppression, but rather to explore and rehearse a multiplicity of possible solutions.
What Are the Practical Applications of Theater of the
Oppressed Techniques across the Curriculum?
Theater of the Oppressed techniques are practical pedagogical tools that can be integrated into the framework of any humanities or social science program. They are easy to learn and complement existing course material. The techniques directly address the problem of student motivation and passivity. By enabling students to create parallel physical and verbal texts based on their own experience, the techniques both validate students' lives and skills and help create new structures of interaction among students, as well as between students and teachers, and students and course texts.
With its emphasis on physical dialogue, Image Theater can be advantageously used in a sociology, anthropology, psychology, peace studies or ethics courses, for example, to explore problems related to external or internalized forms of oppression, power relations, prejudices and stereotypes. The non-verbal imagery stimulates individual expression even among the most timid, and gives rise to perspectives that can greatly enrich writing, language and literature courses. Due to the fact that the images evoke subconscious thought processes, they have proven especially useful in initiating insightful discussions on complex topics such as racism, gender issues, alienation, ageing and the family. Indeed, living body imagery can function as a powerful springboard for in-depth critical analyses across the curriculum.
Carmelina Cartei and Marie-Claire Picher are founders of the
Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory.
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The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) has worked with
Augusto Boal and has been presenting training workshops in New
York City and elsewhere since 1990.
TOPLAB can be contacted at
c/o The Brecht Forum,
122 West 27 Street 10 floor, New York, NewYork 10001
Phone: (212) 924-1858; fax (212) 674-6506;
http://www.toplab.org