Forumtheater Leipzig - Making Encounter happen

Mirjam Born

Organization and country: Forumtheater Leipzig, Germany Target group: Everybody Age group: ages 14 to 99 Context / Learning environment: Any given context where people use to congregate Both formal or non-formal education References, Link to the practices: forumtheater-leipzig.de Short description of method

Our work is based on the “Theater of the Oppressed”, a body of theater methods developed in the mid-twentieth-century by Brazilian theater practitioner and drama theorist Augusto Boal. These methods serve as tools to show, explore and transform the social reality of participants.

Following the influx of refugees into Europe and Germany in 2015 unexpected conflicts became visible in German society, which seemed (and often still seem) difficult to bridge.

This sparked our desire for dialogue and democratic process. Theatre of the oppressed and more precisely forum theater has given us the means to achieve this conversation. Forum theater can be practised with any given set of people, preferably in places where people gather on a regular basis, e. g. schools, congregations, youth and community centers etc. It uses any given reality of its participants, thereby being mostly focussed on the reality(ies) at hand locally, but could be adapted for more national and international settings as well.

How does the theatre engage citizens?

Forumtheater Leipzig mostly visits audiences with our play “Voigtweine - Tradition mit Zukunft”, that focuses on problems such as the growing divide of society, the rise of right wing ideology, inter-generational conflict and economic stress. The play ends in open conflict and audience members are encouraged to step into the roles on stage and explore their own ways to deal with the issues at hand. In doing so, not only do they experience and explore new tactics of problem solving, they also spark a conversation with other members of the audience not based on fundamental ideological divides but a tangible present situation instead.

By such means citizens are presented with a familiar reality in society, which they then can explore and analyze communally in order to find ways to change it.

Which co-creation moments are included?

Firstly the audience gets together to find solutions to a given problem by means of a collaborative process. New solutions are being tried and then given back to the audience to be discussed and refined together. In a more extensive workshop-format it’s also possible for learners/citizens to develop short forum theater scenes based on their own experiences and present them to an audience. Pedagogic/methodological aspects

There are really no needed materials other than a space and a group of five to fifty people. Forum theater plays can be very short, ours lasts approximately 40 minutes. If you want to develop your own scene, please read up in Augusto Boals 1979 book “Theater of the Oppressed” or any other guide to forum theater.

After the scene is being shown, a so-called joker interrogates the audience and encourages them to present their own solutions to the problems seen on stage. It is important to note that participants should come on stage to show their idea rather than just verbally express it. The joker then would let each change play out for a while, before stopping the scene and interviewing both the audience, the participant and the actors on their impressions. Ideas then can be adjusted accordingly or the stage may be opened to another participant. This can be repeated for up to two hours, depending on the audience’s engagement.

Further workshops to ensure sustainability of the experience are desirable, but not necessary. They could focus both on topics of the scene given or new scenes developed by participants themselves.

SWOT

Strength Working on an external issue together instead of opposite one another proves far more successful and sustainable. Solutions can be shown and felt rather than just thought and spoken. Weakness Forum theater requires at least basic knowledge of the method and a minimum amount of time for preparation of a play/workshop, as well as a certain sensitivity towards perspectives and experiences of members of the audience. Opportunities Forum theater is universally applicable and offers a unique way to bring people together regardless of their backgrounds. It enables a change in perspectives, values the individual’s experience and starts a process of democratic exchange, necessary in and demanded by our contemporary society(ies). Threats Very homogenous audiences can pose the “threat” of sabotage, in that they might find no need to act in a given situation. It is therefore advisable to try and mix audiences.

Which aspects are transferable?

The method of forum theater certainly can (and has been) adapted for all types of settings. The issues at hand will very much vary depending of the individual and overall situation of learners.

What kind of change is created?

The practice both empowers participants by valuing their perspective and encourages and trains them to approach conflict differently in the future, both on a personal and political level.

Moving Generation

Many small stories come to mind and illustrate the effect of the method: the old lady who is moved to tears by the inter-generational conflict in our story and starts to share in a long after-talk. The teenage boy, who rather than trying to “solve” the presented crisis acts out even more aggressively, thus adding the surprising question of the balance necessary within a structure of power. And finally the diverse voices of visitors to a homeless people’s café spanning every political affiliations engaging in passionate yet peaceful discussion of the story told on stage.

Conclusion

To me personally forum theater has opened an extraordinary possibility to use and transform diversity and conflict in a society rather than to fight and cease encounter of political adversaries altogether. I know of no other method that can bring people together in any way comparable.The current economy is largely linear: raw materials such as oil, minerals and metals are extracted and used to make products that are thrown away after use. This approach - which has a high cost from an economic, social and environmental point of view - can be replaced by the circular economy, in which products, components and materials are designed for reuse and reuse