Workshop with Adrian Jackson

Aim of Task: To learn about Adrian Jackson and the Theatre of the Oppressed. Have a workshop with the "Theatre God."

Description of Task: First Adrian Jackson came in and told us a little bit about who he is, the company he works for and his experience in Theatre and theatre of the a oppressed. He was the translator of plenty of Augusto Boal's books; Augusto Boal is the creator of theatre of the oppressed. The first thing that he asked us to do in our workshop was to stretch. Stretching is important for warming up before any kind of theatrical exercise.

The whole workshop was related to theatre of the oppressed. First, we did an exercise in partners. We started with both of our hands facing each other. One person would start moving his hands and the other person had to follow. That way, both persons would be moving their parts of the body like if it was a mirror. My partner was Prodhi. She first started leading and I had to follow her movements. When Adrian clapped, we had to change the lead to the other partner. When Adrian clapped, I started taking the lead and Prodhi had to mirror the movements I did. When I was leading, I tried to come up with funny movements, I tried to make her mirror my hands on the floor and then stretch them up to the top. When Prodhi was leading, it was interesting to just keep mirroring her hands, but as it lasted more, I started to feel it was more and more boring. When I was leading though, I felt the responsibility to make the exercise as interesting and fun as possible for her. I can see how this is related to theatre of the oppressed. When I was following Prodhi, I felt oppressed. She was leading me, and I had to regardless of everything. And as time passed, I felt oppression was not comfortable. I can imagine that is similar to how oppressed minorities feel. Finally, Adrian asked us to continue with the exercise, but he told us to not have a leader this time. Both of us had to mirror ourselves without anybody of us explicitly leading. It was interesting to see that even though there was not a clear leader, we could indeed mirror each other without any problems. However, I did notice that for brief periods of time somebody took the lead and then the other person would take the lead afterwards. It was very interesting because I can relate this to how positions of power work: In a group where nobody has an explicit position of power, somebody can take a little bit of leadership, then somebody else would have some leadership and so on.

The next exercise Adrian Jackson introduced us to had to do with improvisation. He called two people to make a scene in front of everybody but he very quickly told them to freeze. Then he asked the rest of the class to brainstorm about what the scene was, what they two were doing. We gave opinions on their body language, their expression, the position they held in respect to each other... After that, he asked one of the two people in front to seat down, and he asked a member of the class to go and complete the scene, with the other person that was frozen in front, in a different manner. Somebody went to the front, then, Adrian asked us to brainstorm about the scene again. After various opinions, he asked one person who was in front and asked somebody else in the audience to complete the scene. This way, an exercise about creativity and improvisation was created. Some very funny and creative scenes came out. I noticed that the person who last went into the frozen image would normally have the most predominant expression, the expression that would be essential to the meaning of the image. Still, it always depends on the perspective of the person who was watching it though.

Reflection: I enjoyed so much knowing about theatre of the oppressed because I found there were connections with oppressed groups in Guatemala. Theatre, in general, is a subject that has a lot of relationship with theory of knowledge. This workshop helped me understand a little bit more of what is oppression: It is the feeling of being led and not being able to get out of that leadership at all. Oppression is like the first exercise we did in the workshop: somebody else decides where you are going and you cannot change it. Oppression is also like the second exercise in some way: somebody else decides what the meaning of your actions are; and you are still and cannot change it.

Conclusion: Theatre can be used in a wide range of topics and environments. Theatre is about provoking thoughts in the audience, and these thoughts can end up being very TOK-like. The way theatre is able to provoke thoughts in other people makes it a great tool to influence others and to solve problems as it is being done with Theatre of the oppressed. I think this is an example of the true "power" of Theatre; it is an example of how much Theatre can do.