Image theatre – Let’s understand oppression a bit more

Inspired from Augusto Boal’s methodology of image theatre in ‘Theatre of the Oppressed^[1]’

Duration of activity: 45 min

Learning objectives:

Consolidate the knowledge learnt from the previous activity on social inequality, male privilege, patriarchy and oppression.
Consolidate the knowledge on how patriarchy and oppression could be challenged.

Materials needed:

A room with enough space so young people can move around freely when forming the sculptures.

Step by step process of the activity:

Complete the image: 5 min

Ask young people to break into pars. Start with a warm-up. Ask person A to form a statue with their body (anything), then person B positions themselves in relation to person A so as to complete that image in some way. After a few seconds, person A leaves the image, looks at how person B is positioned and now person A tries to complete the image otherwise and so on. Person A and Person B keep leaving the image and completing it.
After a few warm-ups, you can give themes for the images. Clarify that these images may not necessarily reflect young people’s own beliefs but they could show how society defines certain of these themes. Some examples of themes could be: diversity, bullying, harassment, discrimination, power, equality, justice.

Conducting the images: 10 min
Ask the group to come together and stand in a circle but facing outwards so they don’t see each other.
Explain “ I will give you a statement and for which you will need to prepare an individual sculpture. I will say the statement, give you a few seconds to think of your sculpture and once I clap my hands, prepare your sculpture and turn so you face inwards within the group.’
When everybody is ready, tell the group that the statement is ‘This is how oppression looks like’. Wait for few seconds and then clap your hands, inviting the group to present their sculptures.
Ask them to remain as they are and when you clap your hands, they need to add a single movement to their sculpture answering the question: what would that image do if they the chance to make one movement? (1^st dynamization)
Now ask the sculptures to add not only the motion but also a sound or word or phrase to the sculpture answering the question: what would the sculpture do if they had the chance to make a sound or say a word? (2^nddynamization). Clap your hands and ask the sculptures to make a movement and say a word, all at the same time.
Ask young people to form smaller groups of 5 people and to stand presenting their different sculptures. Whenever you go around the groups and touch a member of the group, they need to perform their small act.
In this way, the facilitator acts as a conductor to this orchestra of performances.
After a few sessions, ask some of the young people to become conductors themselves. During their conducting, invite them to also take a role related to the sculpture: that of the oppressor, oppressed, ally etc. The conductor can talk or move related to the image but the image cannot break its routine (in terms of movement and sound).

The oppressive image: 15 min
Ask one of the groups to create a sculpture representing a scene of person being bullied or excluded or oppressed etc. Then they use their bodies to depict a scene of this story (or an abstract picture of it) through a still image. One of the group members acts as a narrator, explaining who the characters are and what the scene is about.
Ask for one person from the audience to replace one statue so as to break the cycle of oppression shown in the image (preferably the oppressed character(s) or the bystanders). Then ask another person to come and replace another character.
The interventions take place one by one and they are followed by a discussion about their effectiveness.
During the intervention the image has to remain still but small dynamizations are allowed as in previous exercise.
Wrap up the discussion by holding a discussion on how we can challenge and break oppression.

Facilitation questions for reflection and debriefing: 15-20 min

How was this activity for you?
What really made stood out for you during this exercise?
What realizations did you make during the enactment of the images?
Looking at the interventions in the end, what do you think needs to be done to challenge the dynamics of patriarchy and oppression? Let’s try to create a list together.

Take home messages and activity wrap up:

Wrap up the activity using the suggestions provided in the previous activity ‘Male privilege and power’.

Tips for facilitators:

The activity may create some intense emotions in young people because, even though they are not directly asked to think of their own experiences of oppression, discrimination or marginalization, it is very natural that they may display images that ‘hit too close to home’ for them. If you have time during the debriefing, allow young people to talk so they express their emotions. Validate that experiencing oppression, discrimination, harassment, violence are very difficult experiences for anyone. Remind them that we are conducting these workshops to help people take a stand against oppression and violence and explore various ways that this can be done. Reflect on what they came up with during the improvisations of the image theatre and the list that you created with possible interventions. Remind them that we should not be alone in this: when we join others in our opposition to oppression, violence, discrimination and marginalization, our voices and actions become stronger.

Adapting the activity for online implementation

● Image theatre is more complicated to be implemented online and requires some more specific expertise.

● However you don’t have to forgo the creative character of this activity. You can adapt it by replacing the first part of the image theatre (‘this is how oppression looks like’) with a creative interpretation of oppression. Toward this end, you can ask participants to create a drawing, a collage of pictures, a handicraft, write a poem, find a video, a quote or a song or use any other creative form they want to employ to represent oppression.

● Ask participants who are willing to share their creation/poem/quote/song etc in plenary in front of the camera.

● Once the participants have presented in plenary, you can hold a brainstorming session on a digital board like the ‘Whiteboard’ in Zoom, or on Padlet, Slido, Mentimeter, Scrumblr etc about what oppression is.

● You can proceed to the next part of the activity (the dynamics of oppression) by asking young people to recall an incidence of oppression, domination, discrimination or abuse and write it down in the form of a theatrical improvisation. They don’t have to act the theatrical improvisation, but they can describe the scene, the characters, how each person reacted, what they said, what was the outcome. This last activity can either take place individually (where each participant recalls their own memory of an incidence) or in small groups (breakout rooms)

● Complete the activity with a wrap up in plenary using the questions for reflection and the key messages.

Augusto Boal (1993). Theatre of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre Communications Group.