[PEN-L:1708] Cop-in-the-Head

[nyms1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bill Koehnlein)]

The Brecht Forum

The New York Marxist School &
The Institute for Popular Education
122 West 27 Street, 10 floor
New York, New York 10001
(212) 242-4201
(212) 741-4563 (fax)
nyms1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (e-mail)


Cop-in-the-Head: An Image Theater Workshop

presented for The Brecht Forum by
The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)

Friday, December 15 from 6 to 9 pm and
Saturday, December 16 from 11 am to 4 pm

An eight-hour introductory workshop based on the work of Brazilian
director and Workers' Party activist Augusto Boal. "Cop-in-the-
Head" is an introspective technique used to recognize and confront
internalized forms of oppression. Objective: To explore relations
of power and collective solutions to concrete, individual problems.
We begin with someone recounting a personal experience of
oppression, then gradually go from the particular to the general.
In the end, the group, and not the original story-teller, has
become the protagonist. No prior theater experience is necessary,
but workshops are strictly limited to thirty people. Pre-
registration is required.

Tuition is $50.

*****


WHAT IS THE THEATER OF THE OPPRESSED?

"The Marxist poetics of Bertolt Brecht does not stand opposed to
one or another formal aspect of the Hegelian idealist poetics but
rather denies its very essence, asserting that the character _is
not absolute subject_ but the object of economic or social forces
to which he responds and in virtue of which he acts...

"In Brecht's objection [to idealist poetics], as well as in any
other Marxist objection, what is at stake is who, or which term,
precedes the other: the subjective or the objective. For idealist
poetics, social thought conditions social being; for Marxist
poetics, social being conditions social thought. In Hegel's view,
the spirit creates the dramatic action; for Brecht, the character's
social relations create the dramatic action....

"Brecht was a Marxist; therefore, for him, a theatrical work cannot
end in repose, in equilibrium. It must, on the contrary, show the
ways in which society loses its equilibrium, which way society is
moving, and how to hasten that transition.

"Brecht contends that the popular artist must abandon the downtown
stages and go to the neighborhoods, because only there will he find
people who are truly interested in changing society: in the
neighborhoods he should show his images of social life to the
workers who are interested in changing that social life, since they
are its victims. A theater that attempts to change the changers of
society cannot lead to repose, cannot re-establish equilibrium. The
bourgeois police tries to re-establish equilibrium, to enforce
repose: a Marxist artist, on the other hand, must promote the
movement toward national liberation and toward the liberation of
classes oppressed by capital...[Hegel and Aristotle] desire a quiet
somnolence at the end of the spectacle; Brecht wants the theatrical
spectacle to be the beginning of action: the equilibrium should be
sought by transforming society, and not by purging the individual
of his just demands and needs....

"I believe that all the truly revolutionary theatrical groups
should transfer to the people the means of production in the
theater so that the people themselves may utilize them. The theater
is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it."

--Augusto Boal, _Theater of the Oppressed_

The Theater of the Oppressed, established in the early 1970s by
Brazilian director and Workers' Party (PT) activist Augusto Boal,
is a form of popular theater, of, by, and for people engaged in the
struggle for liberation. More specifically, it is a rehearsal
theater designed for people who want to learn ways of fighting back
against oppression in their daily lives. In the Theater of the
Oppressed, oppression is defined, in part, as a power dynamic based
on monologue rather than dialogue; a relation of domination and
command that prohibits the oppressed from being who they are and
from exercising their basic human rights. Accordingly, the Theater
of the Oppressed is a participatory theater that fosters democratic
and cooperative forms of interaction among participants. Theater is
emphasized not as a spectacle but rather as a language designed to:
1) analyze and discuss problems of oppression and power; and 2)
explore group solutions to these problems. This language is
accessible to all.

Bridging the separation between actor (the one who acts) and
spectator (the one who observes but is not permitted to intervene
in the theatrical situation), the Theater of the Oppressed is
practiced by "spect-actors" who have the opportunity to both act
and observe, and who engage in self-empowering processes of
dialogue that help foster critical thinking. The theatrical act is
thus experienced as conscious intervention, as a rehearsal for
social action rooted in a collective analysis of shared problems
of oppression. This particular type of interactive theater is
rooted in the pedagogical and political principles specific to the
popular education method developed by Brazilian educator Paulo
Freire: 1) to see the situation lived by the participants; 2) to
analyze the root causes of the situation; and 3) to act to change
the situation following the precepts of social justice.


THE THEATER OF THE OPPRESSED LABORATORY

The purpose of the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, founded in
New York City in July 1990, is to provide a forum for the practice,
performance and dissemination of the techniques of the Theater of
the Oppressed. We work with educators, human service and mental
health workers, union organizers, and community activists who are
interested in using interactive theater as a tool for analyzing and
exploring solutions to problems of oppression and power that arise
in the workplace, school, and community--problems connected to
AIDS, substance abuse, family violence, homelessness, unemployment,
racism and sexism.

Just as the principal goal of popular education is to change the
power relations in our society and to create mechanisms of
collective power over all the structures of society, so too the
principal goal of the Laboratory is to help groups explore and
transform power relations of domination and subjugation that give
rise to oppression. Within this learning process: 1) all
participants are learners; 2) all participate in and contribute
equally to the production of knowledge, which is a continuous
dialogue; 3) the learners are the subject and not the object of the
process; 4) the objective of the process is to liberate
participants from both internal and external oppression, so as to
make them capable of changing their reality, their lives, and the
society they live in.

Since 1990, through the auspices of The Brecht Forum, the
Laboratory has initiated and organized intensive workshops led by
Augusto Boal in New York City--the latest were held May 18-23,
1995. It has also planned and led more than sixty public training
workshops in the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed. In
this capacity, the Laboratory has brought together people from
diverse backgrounds, occupations, and organizations, and functioned
as a resource, information, and networking center serving
individuals and groups interested in theater for social change.

In the past years, the Laboratory has given workshops in the New
York City public schools, and has developed and conducted on-site
workshops with different community organizations to explore
problems specific to their particular work: the role of the arts in
the struggle against racism, at the North Star Conference; building
solidarity among women, at the Urban Pathways/Travelers Hotel
Women's Shelter; AIDS prevention, with the Shaman
Theater-Pregones-ASPIRA coalition; and promoting health among
homeless people with HIV/AIDS, at the Foundation for Research on
Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The Laboratory also led a workshop
at the April 1995 teach-in in New York, "Out from under the Bell
Curve: A Teach-in on Confronting Right-wing Ideology and Social
Policy." Members of the Laboratory attended the International
Festivals of the Theater of the Oppressed held in France in 1991
and in Rio de Janeiro in 1993, strengthening relations with theater
activists from twenty-two different countries, while planning the
creation of an International Association of the Theater of the
Oppressed.

The Laboratory also gives advice and support to individuals and
groups who use the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed in
their particular field (education, social work, community
organizing, the arts). The Images Theater Collective, for instance,
grew out of the meetings and study sessions led by the Laboratory
on the political potential of interactive theater. In 1992, as part
of the movement to counter the official Columbus Quincentennial
celebrations, the Collective wrote and performed a play, based on
Image Theater techniques, on colonial oppression and resistance in
Latin America. In addition, as a result of Laboratory activity,
Theater of the Oppressed theory and techniques have been integrated
into the basic curriculum of both the Puerto Rican Traveling
Theatre Training Unit and the Education Program of the Shaman
Repertory Theater. Finally, in 1993, the Laboratory became an
independent affiliate of the Institute for Popular Education at The
Brecht Forum, established to promote the Paulo Freire approach to
popular education.

*****

"We must emphasize: What Brecht does _not_ want is that the
spectators continue to leave their brains with their hats upon
entering the theater, as do bourgeois spectators."

--Augusto Boal

For more information, or for workshop schedules, please
contact The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, 122 West
27 Street 10 floor, New York, New York 10001 or call
(212) 924-1858 or fax (212) 741-4563, or respond by email to
nyms1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or toplab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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