Theatre of the Oppressed

Theatrical methods as an efficient tool for a social inclusion of youth with fewer opportunities.There are lots of purposes of theatre: sharing the human experience, passing on tradition and culture (narratives, storytelling, folktales, religious ritual), recreation, entertainment that diverts our attention from our every day lives and artistic expression.

Theatre's way of examining dialogue, monologue and character allows us to learn a lot about different topics, and social inclusion of youth with fewer opportunities is the one that we gonna talk about in the next slide

One of the important theatrical methods is Theatre of the Oppressed.Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of popular community-based education that uses theatre as a tool for transformation. Originally developed out of Boal’s work with peasant and worker populations, it is now used all over the world for social and political activism, conflict resolution, community building, therapy, and government legislation. Inspired by the vision of Paulo Freire and his landmark treatise on education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Theatre of the Oppressed invites critical thinking. It is about analyzing rather than accepting, questioning rather than giving answers. It is also about “acting” rather than just talking.

In Theatre of the Oppressed the audience is not made of spectators but “spect-actors”.

Through the evocative language of theater, everyone is invited to share their opinion on the issues at hand. It is also practiced on a grassroots level by teachers, social workers, therapists, and activists all over the world.

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.