Developing New Theatre of the Oppressed Techniques
As our work evolved at Changing Ways, it became very clear to me that neither Forum Theatre nor Rainbow of Desire work would satisfy the needs of the community. Through many dialogues about where they wanted to go with the work and what they wanted out of the partnership with USC, we can to the conclusion that they wanted do do both Forum theatre and Rainbow of Desire at the same time. In order to accommodate the desire of the gentlemen at Changing Ways to both do internal work to continue their own healing process as they continue down the path of reintegration as well as working with youth, we developed some new TO techniques that involved elements of Rainbow of Desire and Forum Theatre.
So, the process we went through was to start a scene using Rainbow of Desire techniques, to focus on whatever was going on with the individual. After going through that process, we opened it up to the group. Is this a problem that affects the community at large? If so, how? From there, if it was relevant to the larger community, we would look at how to create and aesthetic distance so that whoever brought the story felt safe being replaced, we changed names and some specifics so that it was able to intervened in at a forum theatre event.
However, we did not necessarily have distinct power relationships in play. Even though they were problems affecting the community, we didn’t necessarily have antagonists who were people in positions of power; sometimes they were people caught in the same system.
Out of this work, came and idea for a technique I called “Cop in the Mirror.” Similar to Boal’s Cops in the Head, This came out of looking at the big questions, Who are you? Is the man you see in the mirror the same man your community sees? Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
We used this as an exercise to address the cops in the head before each of the forumable scenes we did as way to express that even though there are systemic problems that these men are facing, there are also a lot of internal battles that come from long term incarceration that make fighting the systems that much more difficult.
I gave the option of the Cops in the Mirror to be very personal or specific cops or, if that was too close to do in front of an audience, we could use collective cops that the community shares. As always in our work, the gentlemen had the choice about how far they wanted to go and where the draw the line so that they feel safe in the work.
However, we did not necessarily have distinct power relationships in play. Even though they were problems affecting the community, we didn’t necessarily have antagonists who were people in positions of power; sometimes they were people caught in the same system.
Out of this work, came and idea for a technique I called “Cop in the Mirror.” Similar to Boal’s Cops in the Head, This came out of looking at the big questions, Who are you? Is the man you see in the mirror the same man your community sees? Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
We used this as an exercise to address the cops in the head before each of the forumable scenes we did as way to express that even though there are systemic problems that these men are facing, there are also a lot of internal battles that come from long term incarceration that make fighting the systems that much more difficult.
I gave the option of the Cops in the Mirror to be very personal or specific cops or, if that was too close to do in front of an audience, we could use collective cops that the community shares. As always in our work, the gentlemen had the choice about how far they wanted to go and where the draw the line so that they feel safe in the work.
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