Day 2 at the Theatre of the Oppressed in Xela

This is going to be one whirlwind post peeps. I'm afraid that I was way too tired yesterday from all the exertions so you get an abridged post today.

After a little debried yesterday on how our first day had gone, Olivier, our facilitator, took us through some basic stretches. Then we got into the theatre games. Oh joy! No irony here. First one was called "casa,terremoto, morador" (meaning house, earthquake, inhabitant). I'm not kidding. In a land where earthquakes reign, we played a game with it. Two people are the house, one is the inhabitant. When the facilitator says house, the people who comprise the house run around seeking a new partner and a new dweller. When the facilitator yells dweller, the inhabitant runs around looking for a new house. When he yells earthquake! we all run around like chooks with our heads cut off.

Fun and games I tell ya.

The next one is more of a physical theatre exercise. We stand in a circle, and the first person becomes a cog in a machine that fabricates one emotion, eg: hate. Every other participant then joins in, making a sound and an action in that same vein. In the end you have a machine that makes hate noises and movements. The interesting part was when we became the opinion machine, on the subject of life in Latin America. I jumped in and swam upstream. Other people became working peasants on the land. Others dancers, others cooks, others paramilitary troops, others politicians. It was a sight to behold, but we couldn't see it ourselves. You can watch parts of it on Ustream at the conference website.

The next game was to pair up and lead our partner through an imaginary trip, using our imaginations. My partner led me on a mountain climb up the Everest. This wasn't entirely clear to me. I just knew I was walking, I was holding onto a surface and I couldn't let go. That part was interesting. It had become clear that I had to hold on or perish.

The next one was an exercise in semiotics: giving banale objects a new meaning or context. We were given a bottle, an orange cloth, a table and a chair. My partner and I enacted a kidnapping. Yes, a bit drastic, but we our task was to show a social issue current in Latin America. Two girls enacted a birth, they started out the traditional, horizontal position for birthing, and ended up in the indigenous style: standing up.

Forum Theatre was up next. We had an example of it, by putting four actos up who were marching in unison and a fifth actor dancing and singing. The marchers then tried to pummel the dancer into submission. The group was then asked to give several alternatives to what had happened. What could the dancer do to achieve their desire to dance and sing? Some people came up with mass demonstrations of dancing and singing, others tried to make the marchers dance and sing and I pulled in two members of the audience after pretending to cower from the pummeling to help me divide and conquer.

Following that we worked on the dramaturgy of Theatre of the Oppressed. It works slightly differently to the usual 3 act structure. Although we begin from the protagonist - antagonist conflict, the narrative arc begins by establishing the backstory with the unfulfilled desire of the protagonist. This then escalates into a Chinese Crisis (danger coupled with opportunity), where the protagonist has the chance to turn things around, but the eventual ending is failure. The audience then has to provide alternatives.

Stay tuned, up next is my review of a one man show from Colombia on torture in the eighties and a Mexican Forum Theatre performance called 3000 women.

Day One at Theatre of the Oppressed in Xela Pt 2

Okay, so I skipped a few things before, like giving you a bit more info on Theatre of the Oppressed and on the Forum itself. Well, it's been in the pipeline for a while, the first one was in Buenos Aires and it took roughly 3 years to organise. You heard right. Or rather, you read right. In 2006 there were only 5 or 6 practitioners of Theatre of the Oppressed in Argentina and the easiest way they saw to network with other theatremakers around the continent was by email. Eventually, they all went for labs, workshops, internships or residencies in Rio de Janeiro and came out fully versed in the mysteries of Theatre of the Oppressed. That's the long and the short of it.

Then came the others, the Bolivians, the Peruvians, the Colombians, the Costa Ricans, and somewhere in there, the Salvadoreans and the Guatemalans. Today there are 60 + participants from Central America, when in 2009 there were only 2. The power of ideas huh? This is one powerful medium. Particularly when it comes to Forum Theatre.

That's what you've been waiting to hear all about. Especially after the last teaser in the last post. What is Forum Theatre you ask? I found out today for the first time. We worked up to it, too... and so shall you, so sit back, relax and grab a martini. Shaken, not stirred. Nick Cave in the background would make a great soundtrack to the explanation. I'm listening to him as I write. So here we go.

The fabulous gentlemen from the Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed took us through this step by step, starting with an exercise in which we all pair off and look like we're frozen as we shake hands. Then, one of the pair breaks off, looks at the alternative stories that can be told by their counterpart's body language and embody a new story, taking on a new position. Their partner waits for them to settle into position, then moves away, checks out their body language and responds accordingly. Repeat ad infinitum. Once we got that right, our facilitators or Kuringas, took us through the next stage, of trios doing this exercise. Once we had mastered that stage, all of us joined into one mass frozen scene, slowly joining into a scene after watching it and making sense of it in our heads. Once we were all into position, our facilitators went around asking us who we were and what we were doing. It was very interesting. The Spaniards all thought they were part of a demonstration in which the police was manhandling the protesters. The Central Americans all thought it was an indigenous village that was being raided and its villagers killed because they were unjustly accused of crimes. Our collective histories reflect our points of view and how we interpret actions, obviously.

The next step was to start weeding out personal stories to create a piece of theatre collectively. Oh how I love ensemble work, when done properly and guided by professionals. We listened to each others' stories of personal oppression until we settled on the most urgent one. It happened to be a Guatemalan man of K'iche origin who is HIV positive, a single father and suffering discrimination from every sector. Although it was moving to listen to other's stories, his carried such a systematic abuse of human rights that we could not ignore it. We get to turn it into theatre tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I went to two works in that vein:  La Petaca, from El Salvador [based on the short stoy by Sallarue] and Coisas de Genero from Brasil. Although they were both fantastic, there was an immediacy and realism to La Petaca that I recognised the scene they set immediately. A physically deformed girl in her teens suffers from beatings and verbal lashings at the hands of her family, who want to rid her of her hump so they can marry her off, as her mental retardation prevents her from helping effectively around the house. The way they speak is vintage farmer Salvadorean Spanish. It touched a chord deep inside me. Sometimes it was almost comical, if it weren't so true. A Guatemalan lady didn't seem amused by the expressions that caused me a bit of mirth, as opposed to the situations. The Kuringa then went through the whole of the work and deconstructed it with the audience's assistance. Between the subtle performances of the actors and the incisive analysis of the various types of violence and discrimination perpetrated, it was a highly effective piece of applied theatre. It made me proud to be these actors' countrywoman.

Coisas de Genero was grander. It took place in the Municipal Theatre, a Neoclassical jewel, that has European style wooden booths. It had lighting and stage design. It had a live Bossa Nova orchestra, that also dabbled in Brasilian indigeous and candomble rhythms. The scenario was one well known around the world: boy and girl are born without prejudices. Their parents then condition them into wearing certain clothes, playing with certain toys, getting married and dividing tasks by gender. Of couse, this turns into bitter war right at the end, with the wife getting the short end of the stick. The dancing and choreography were superb. Corporal expression through movement was beautiful. The costumes were breathtaking and imaginative. It was just a little too long for my taste. The point had been made 10 minutes before the ending. No matter, after that it was time for the Forum. Eh? What? Yeah, you'd forgotten that's what I started with: Forum Theatre. This was definitely an example of that and so was La Petaca. In both cases, audience members who suggested alternative courses of action for the oppressed character were invited to come onto the stage and perform their suggestions. Each performance was then deconstructed again from various perspectives, until either a solution was found or conciousness about the issue was raised.

Don't think it was all academic blah blah though. Real people with real opinions and examples would stand up to speak. And to top it all off... we all danced to Bossa Nova afterwards. I kid you not. The live orchestra kept playing and invited the audience to come up and dance. Truly magical stuff.

Theatre of the Oppressed in Xela Pt 1

Bit of a jump from last post innit guv? Well, it's just a quickie, to let all of you know a bit about today's happenings at the Theatre of the Oppressed Forum happening right here, right now, in Xela. The day started cold, foggy and bloody cold, and we didn't start warming up til 10 am, when the actual workshops began. 

After a bit of a slow start, with people eating their breakfast while they listened to the plenary, we all found our classrooms and got stuck into one of the most fascinating genres of applied theatre I've seen in a while. No, I'm not an expert. No, I have not been through an Applied Theatre degree [ I leave that to the Griffith University kids back in BrisVegas] but I've dipped my foot in Theatre of the Oppressed once before and trained in Playback for a year and half, so I kinda think I know the lay of the land, even if I still take the odd wrong turn. 

We began by trying to demechanise our bodies, which required us to do opposing actions with each limb, not always successfully. Then we had to pair up, follow our partner's hand around the room, and viceversa. Then - this I had never seen before - we had to lead and follow at the same time. Bedlam did not ensue, thank God, as everyone had some theatre background to carry them through. 

Our facilitators were the real deal, Brazilians from the Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro. Their creative and artistic director had been none other than Augusto Boal for 20 years. What a score!! At $5 US a day to participate, I can see scores of Aussies getting on the next plane for the next forum. That includes all our meals, by the way. BYO plates and cutlery though, we might be poor, but we're green. 

After that we did a rhythm and sound game, where we paired off again, the counted to three  between two of us, then had to substitute the numbers for a sound and an action, which the other would replicate when it was their turn to do the number. Confused yet? We were. It took a while to get a rhythm going. 

Then came the trust exercise, we had to lead our counterparts around the room with a sound only while they kept their eyes closed. I bumped into half the world coz my partner had chosen a sound 3 other people liked as well. 

Finally, we began working on Forum Theatre, which I had not yet explored in my first foray into Theatre of the Oppressed but which I had learned in Playback in pair work. 

But more of that later tonight, after La Petaca, a salvadoran work that goes on stage in 5 minutes. 

Quetzaltenango Pt 1

Ok, so here I am. Finally. In Quetzaltenango, otherwise known as Xelaju. It didn't take this long to get here, no. In fact, since my last post, it was another two weeks of waiting for the weather to subside before I came to the place I was meant to be working in. And the words "meant to be" are not by chance.

Where do I begin? Xela, the other moniker Quetzaltenango goes by, is an awesome place to live. It is in the safest corner of Guatemala. It nestles comfortably in a highland, surrounded by mountains, at 2500 m above sea level. It is cobbled. I kid you not. Really, truly, the streets are cobbled. It's amazing, though it's a killer on a pushbike. I don't even have my trusty old mountain bike with me. I'm borrowing a second hand racer that the project officer for Cultural Survival lent me. On occasion. To go further than the 15 minute distances of the huge La Democracia market. Scoff at me will ya? Have you tried walking long distances at high altitude? It's exhausting.

Back to the wonders of Xela though. It's a city that charms you slowly, beckoning to its heart with small, cozy, funky cafes. Try and ignore the grandiose buildings in Neoclassical style and the interspersed ArtDeco bits and pieces and you will fail. Terribly. Its central plaza houses something like Roman amphitheatre, except that is fully round with no atrium. The Cathedral overlooking the plaza is like something out of a Baroque fantasy. Surrounding it are homes from colonial, post colonial and German plantation days. Excuse me? German plantation days? Yep. At one point, one of the presidents of Guatemala gave away large tracts of land to German settlers who married local indigenous women and set up house here. There are now a bunch of kids who can trace their ancestors to Germany. Very very weird.

Back to the funky cafes, coz that's where the city pulses. At places like El Cuartito, Cafe Baviera and Artesano, NGO workers and backpackers studying spanish huddle over their laptops, making use of the free WiFi. At less foreigner-oriented places like Cafe RED and Tilde, you find the artsy types of Quetzaltenango. They organise festivals. They play music. They do hip hop. They graffiti. They write poems. They do murals. And they are, almost all of them, Guatemalan. If you want to hang with the heavies in Guatemala's cultural capital, this is where they are. My first month in Quetzaltenango I spent every late afternoon and evening there, getting to know the heavyweights for future reference and boy, did that come in handy!

I bet you wanna know what happened with ArtCorps and Cultural Survival and the mayan kids that want video skills. All in good time. Tune in for the next post, which will have a mixture of that and the 2nd Latin American Conference on Theatre of the Oppressed, coming live to you from Xela. In the meantime, I leave you with the videos I took of the 12 of October march in the capital.