Professional Development Offering: Theater of the Oppressed Intensive

08Sep10

Are you an artist, activist, or change-maker looking for new ways to change the world? Or are you a theater artist looking for new ways to really engage with the community? Either way, you’ve got to come to the Theater of the Oppressed Intensive!

This is the first of many professional development trainings that I’ll be offering in conjunction with One Forbidden Thing. These trainings will allow local artists, educators, and social justice workers to learn new tools to increase the efficacy and creativity of their work and will provide financial support for One Forbidden Thing. It’s a win-win!

Please feel free to email me with any questions you may have about the training and whether it’s right for you.

Theater of the Oppressed Intensive

Teaching Artist: Melanie St. Ours
Location: 610 2nd Ave in Pioneer Square
Seattle WA

This 1-day intensive will meet: September 19th from 9am-6pm

Description
The Theater of the Oppressed (TO) intensive is an in-depth, no-nonsense immersion into the theory and practice of Theater of the Oppressed. You’ll learn games, exercises, and many of Boal’s most often-used theater forms including Image Theater, Forum theater, and Rainbow of Desire. This training offers extensive content, lots of hands-on experience, and is lead by an experienced practitioner who can answer your practical questions about how to apply TO within the context of your own work.

In this workshop participants will explore Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed techniques. Augusto Boal worked most of his life to help individuals and societies to transform their realities through theater. Believing that everyone has the capacity to act—to take action and reflect on their conditions—Boal developed Theater of the Oppressed. These techniques were designed to raise consciousness and create action for individual and social change.

Who’s teaching?

Melanie St. Ours is a critically acclaimed theater artist whose work is grounded in the quest for social justice, transformation, and the healing of our communities. Her past work includes founding and directing Acting Up, a theatre company of homeless and formerly homeless performers (a partnership with Picture the Homeless: Bronx, NY), collaborations with the viBe Theater Experience, co-creating and co-directing How to Be a Human which was named a “Pick of the Fringe” by the Washington Post, and work with Michael Rohd on The Race. In 2007 she won an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Global Arts Village in New Delhi to develop and perform her first original work, The Rumi Project. Melanie directed the Washington DC production of The Vagina Monologues for V-Day 2009 and served as a teaching artist with the Young Women’s Drumming Empowerment Project. She has trained with the foremost practitioners of Theater of the Oppressed in the US, Canada, and the UK and was a featured presenter at the 2008 International Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed Conference. Melanie earned her BFA in Acting and Applied Theatre from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and her work has been supported by Alternate ROOTS and the Ford Foundation.

Participants
There are 20 slots available in this intensive. The training will be particularly beneficial for theater artists seeking strategies to develop their work to include deep community engagement and for organizers, educators, or individuals in the helping professions who are interested in utilizing arts-based interventions to increase the efficacy of their work. Participants of all experiences, identities, abilities and backgrounds are encouraged to join us.

Cost
The fee for this workshop is $200. A limited number of need-based partial scholarships are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please email oneforbiddenthing@gmail.com for more information on how to apply.

Register
To register please email us oneforbiddenthing@gmail.com and include the following:
• Name
• Email
• Phone number
• Organization or educational affiliation (if any)
• Community/ies you are part of
• Explanation of how you intend to use the information in this training
• Payment information: Will you pay via cash or check? 


What is Theater of the Oppressed?
Theater of the Oppressed (TO) was developed by Augusto Boal and is a form of popular education that uses theatrical language of the body and the word as tools for transformation. It uses are many: from community building to social activism; from conflict resolution to therapy; from entertainment to creating legislation. The process is rooted in dialogue, critical reflection, action, and a spirit of exploration and play.

Image Theater in rehearsal for The Vagina Monologues

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