NEWSLETTER SPRING 2004
Melissa Stevenson
BIOLOGUES, WOMEN IN HISTORY
The Public Historian Tries Theatre for Social Change
Gerda Lerner says in Why History Matters , "History is MEMORY, formed and shaped in our time to have meaning" for the living. The Greeks and Romans, for instance, told myths and historical stories to cleanse themselves and to explain and define a sometimes hostile natural world. Heroes were considered "everyman" and a robed chorus of many would set the moral tone with song and repetition. They made uses of masks to be seen from a distance and of tall shoes called clothari to make their performers larger than real life; to make an impression, to remove the actor himself from the heroic character and archetypal gods. They created catharsis with the tragedies and relief with comedy, pointing up human flaws.
James Douglas
THE BARKERVILLE TEA PARTY
I am a professional actor/interpreter from Barkerville Historic Town in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. Between off-season, theatre-related activities (I am currently taking a Master's degree in Theatre History at the University of Victoria), I write, produce and perform first-person, in-character, interactive theatre in a fully-functioning restoration (not recreation as some have misreported) of over 100 original buildings that comprise the 19th-century Cariboo Gold Rush town of Barkerville, BC.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Drama as Social Intervention: The fifth
international research conference at the University of Exeter, Devon,
England
12-16 April 2005 [More Info]
* * * * *
About 150 people gathered in Omaha, Nebraska, from April
18th through the 24th for the 10th Annual Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed
Conference. The event featured a 3-day Forum Theatre workshop given by TO
founder Augusto Boal in which he asked participants to bring to the workshop
a poem they'd written, photos of their hands doing activities important to
them, statements of identity written to three people, and description of a
time of great importance in their lives. The Forum itself featured scenarios
on discrimination, children's voices, cross-cultural
education, and the war in Iraq.
The Conference also featured Boal as well as a remarkable "dialogue"
between Boal and liberatory educator Herb Kohl. Rudolfo Chavez Chavez presented
a performance-style All-Conference session on collaborative learning, while
Antonia Darder thrilled participants with her discussions of why she and we
do pedagogy. Over eighty other presenters were featured
in breakout sessions during the Conference.
Those interested in Boal's work should know he developed an infection in his
left knee during the following San Francisco residency, had successful surgery
there, and decided to postpone his scheduled residencies there and in Seattle,
Montreal, and New York until he recovered fully.
* * * * *
Doug Paterson spent two weeks in Liberia, Africa, in February doing Theatre
of the Oppressed workshkops with 32 Liberians. The result was four Forum scenes
presented in two rural villages. Doug hopes a Center for the Theatre of the
Oppressed will result from his residency. Any TASC'ers or other ATHE people
interested in learning more about this project should
contact Doug: dpaterson@mail.unomaha.edu
* * * * *
Curriculum Work as a Public Moral Enterprise, edited by Ruben A. Gaztambide-Fernandez
& James T. Sears, will be officially published in May by Rowman &
Littlefield and is available to pre-order online at Amazon and Barnes &
Noble (ISBN: 0742526402). This work is primarily about curriculum work in
community contexts, and contains a couple of different chapters that relate
to socially active theatre
* * * * *
Dr. Katherine Liepe-Levinson will be presenting a workshop for The Peace Summit
at St. John's University New York City on May 27 for public school educators
and staff. Her presentation is entitled: "Toward a Civil Society: Anger
Management for the 21st Century Using the Techniques of the Actor."
Liepe-Levinson
will be presenting a shorter version of this workshop in Toronto for a TASC
panel.
