The Theater of the Oppressed Augusto Boal Brazil 1971 A coup d'état where a military gov’t backed by the Brazilian elite, the church, the middle class, as well as by the United States took power in Brazil. Boal was kidnapped, arrested, tortured, and eventually exiled to ArgenBna. Boal was exiled for 15 year unBl the military gov’t fell, where he came back to Rio De Janeiro to become a city councilman. Boal believed that only the oppressed are able to free the oppressed. Theater of the Oppressed More then just theater Theater of the Oppressed I would call it an “Embodied Research Methodology”. Theater of the Oppressed A series of techniques implemenBng experimental theatrical methods as a means to explore: The personal, collecBve, and societal psyche. Exploring shared percepBons, “the perceived situaBon”. Means of empowering the oppressed. Provoking a dialogue that leaps beyond words: dialogue that is tangible through innuendo’s and embodied communicaBon. Zizek’s Unknown Knowns. Theater as Language So Many Examples Simultaneous Dramaturgy: A theatre of forking paths or potenBal theatre A way of rapidly prototyping situaBons Image Theater: Breaks out of formal semanBc representaBon through constraints. A way of rapidly prototyping situaBoins Boal menBons a performance gaining what he calls theatricality through these experimental theatrical methods. Theatricality : A situated performance emphasizing parBcipaBon blurring the line between actor-­‐ spectator. Theater as Discourse Theater of the Oppressed These methods provoke parBcipants, actors, & spectators to emerge out of their tradiBonal roles within the theatre. These methods, through intervenBon, are successfully able to open the door of virtuality. These methods, in a way inBmately related to De Certeau's idea of intervenBon, delve deep into noBons of class. ASIDE: Marxism & The PracFce of Everyday Life “The bourgeoisie already knows what the world is like, their world, and is able to present images of this complete, finished world. On the other hand the proletariat and the oppressed classes do not yet know what their world is like…” Boal expresses how the Theater of the Oppressed reveals a way for the proliteriate to become literate and have a voice. De Certeau's idea of intervenBon as a form of everyday resistances to regimes of power through the unconscious navigaBon of the city. Liberate the Spectator! The spectator must become (an actor) part of the subject. The spectator must become accepted as part of the enBre situaBon. An actor must become spectator.