Summary of Week 1

Theatre of the Oppressed - Week 1

Name Game in fishbowl 

• Our name + gesture, what we do + gesture
• folx in the circle make eye contact with the person whose turn it is and repeat back the name and gestures that person offered, in unison

Group Agreements

Our current agreements* as follows:

• Stay Engaged (remaining emotionally, physically, intellectually involved)
• Experience Discomfort
• Speak Your Truth - while keeping power dynamics in mind
• Heavy Lifting (responsibilities of participants with privilege to listen, ask open questions, and believe the experiences of others)
• Expect and Accept Non-Closure
• Confidentiality – what happens here stays between the participants (do not share names, personal stories, or other’s personal information with folx outside of class)

*the first 5 Agreements are used by T.O. Philly and are based on the “Agreements for Courageous Conversation” from Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools by Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton (Corwin Press, 2006).

The final agreement came from our class. We can continue to add to these and reword 

these throughout the weeks as we see fit.

Continuums (scale 1 – 10 using different sides of the room)

• How much energy do I have today?
• How comfortable am I with “performance”?
• How comfortable am I with activist spaces?
• How enthusiastic am I feeling about starting T.O.?
• How much do I want to stretch myself over these 5 weeks?

Power Shuffle

• Using Agent categories first, then Target categories, then whatever categories the group decides, participants claim a space in the room and invite others to stand by them if they also identify with the idea/experience being offered; can stand near or far on a spectrum – not either/or

Personal Geography/ Naming Our Issues

• We named on paper issues that affect us on varying levels (Personal, Communal, and Societal)
• This paper will stay with us in class to add to and draw from as needed

Consent Game

• In a fishbowl, one person begins by making eye contact with and saying the name of the person across the circle. That person must say “yes” before the person who requested can begin moving towards them to take their spot in the circle. While that person walks, the person who said “yes” must make eye contact with and say the name of someone else in the circle, who must then give a “yes,” and so on.
• In the Consent version of this game, each person can say “no” as well as “yes” in response to a request to have their place in the circle taken. In this, we practice both telling others “no” and hearing a “no.” We practice disrupting the flow without apologizing and letting rejection land on us with a sense of acceptance and ease. 

Human Clay

• Groups of 2 take turns being the sculptor and being the human clay.
• There are three methods of sculpting our partner non-verbally: touch, mirroring, and movement suggestion (no touch)
• The sculptor molds the clay into part of the image, the sculptor then joins the “molded clay” as the final part of the image

Intro to Image Theatre

• We got into 2 groups of 4 and practiced making larger a clay sculpture, with a theme chosen by each group, with each member of the group taking a turn sculpting their own image they then add themselves to at the end.
• After each group finishes, the other group relays what they noticed (objective noticings like who was in what position, where eyes are looking, stature, levels, foreground, etc) and then what they felt (subjective noticings: projections of relationships, emotion, context, ets)

Follow the Hand/ “Columbian Hypnosis” (Games for Actors and Non-Actors p.51)

• In groups of 2 one person is the “leader” and one person is the “follower”; the follower lets the leader know how they do and don’t prefer to move today
• The leader holds their hand in front of the follower; follower must maintain orientation and distance between their face and their leader’s hand
• The leader first gently leads their follower, making it easy to adjust to their hand movements; THEN the leader makes it more difficult, caring more about how their own motion and choices than the follower (but still maintain the agreement to not move their partner in ways they asked not to be – e.g. not onto their knees or back)
• The partners switch and the same exercise plays out

Intro to Forum Theatre using Follow the Hand

• In a fishbowl, one person volunteers to be the leader, another the follower.
• This convention must stay the same: when the hand is up, the follower must obey its movements – but now, the follower can also attempt different tactics to try and break free from this dynamic
• We had three different volunteers try and break free from the hypnosis; there can be as many as there is time for
• This exercise is less about “winning” and more about exploring tactics; when the group responds vocally to a tactic, explore what happened in that moment (what came up in our bodies/in their body during the moment of reaction? How was the tactic effective? Is it sustainable?); one purpose of this game is finding connections to the metaphor of this game and real-life attempts to disrupt Power

Closing and Farewell

• Three claps: two that hit and one that doesn’t! In practicing our commitment to accepting non-closure