FORUM THEATER

26 Plympton Street,Cambridge MA 02138

30 October, 2021

Description

FORUM THEATER Hosted by the Cultural Agents Initiative, Harvard University. During his exile from Brazil’s dictatorship (1969–1982) theater director Augusto Boal stopped dictating instructions to actors. Instead, he began to train facilitators who invite oppressed people to represent their worst problems. Then they cajole “spec-actors” to derail the tragic movement in replays of particular scenes. Aristotle, for Boal, is the apologist for “coercive” theater (in a failing democracy) where tragedy is inevitable. Tragedy is the beginning, not the end, in Forum Theater which explores conflicts and generates clever interventions. Boal became an international legend in his own lifetime, not only because his innovations are brilliant and useful, but also because he practically gave them away, welcoming replication, insisting on it. Facilitators don’t presume to know where the pressure points are, but only that crises exist and can be represented onstage. For Boal, the dynamism of the word “crisis” comes out best in his understanding of the Chinese ideogram; it juxtaposes danger with opportunity. Among participants: Tania Bruguera, Doris Sommer, Nathalie Tocci, Stephanie Noach, David Guerra, Martha Ellen Katz, Justin Hu, Dharma Seda González ,Riley Spieler, Anita Rivera Guerra, José Falconi, Kim Cordova, Carla Dirlikov Canales.