Theatre for Living

This past week I participated in a 6-day Headlines Theatre, Theatre for Living train-the-trainer workshop lead by David Diamond.

Founded in 1981, Vancouver's Headlines Theatre, directed by David Diamond, uses THEATRE FOR LIVING to help living communities tell their stories. THEATRE FOR LIVING has evolved from Augusto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppressed". Since 1989 Headlines' work has slowly moved away from the binary language and model of "oppressor/oppressed" and now approaches community-based cultural work from a systems-based perspective; understanding that a community is a complexly integrated, living organism.

I took this training in preparation for the new Diversity Education project in Abbotsford that will involve theater workshops with community groups to encourage discussion around the struggles of diversity.

I did not enjoy this training. I entered the week-long workshop exhausted from my previous full work week, I was missing out on a weekend surf trip with my friends (that I helped to plan!!) in order to attend, the days were long and we were never able to go home on time, heaps of energy was spent every time I put myself on stage and the content we dealt with (our struggles in the social justice arena) and techniques we practiced were grey, uncomfortable, and overwhelming. 

But now that I have had two days off and received a massage that has allowed my shoulders to return to their place beneath my ears, I have been able to reflect on the training and find some gold within it.

This workshop gave me a huge piece of meat to chew on, the binary of the oppressor and the oppressed. Diamond constantly repeated in this workshop that there is no oppressor or oppressed, there is only us. There is no “them”, there is only us. We were forbidden to make plays about people outside the room. We were only allowed to act based on direct experience or experience through close friends or family. For example, I could not play a meth addict because I have no experience directly or indirectly with meth addiction. But I could play a person who faces discrimination based on class, appearance, sexual orientation, or religion. I could also play the person who discriminates based on these aspects of diversity because I understand the struggles on both sides. Diamond emphasized that we were to put characters on stage as human beings, with as much dignity as possible. We did work around discussing the fears and desires of the characters on stage and it became apparent to me that the lines of oppressor and oppressed are not a clear as I once thought. I can identify with both sides. I can identify with the abuser and the abused because I have been both, I am both. Every character embodies both. In the same way that the oppressors/abusers are responsible for their choices so are the oppressed/abused. This lens, this model, is incredibly empowering. It highlights the fact that the “oppressed” are not powerless but have choice.

Since returning from Africa, I have labeled the church the oppressor and I have distanced myself from them. The lens of “no them, only us” demands responsibility. If there is no oppressor and no oppressed, only us, change can only take place by adjusting our behaviour. My church will not change as I sit and complain about it from the outside, as I talk about them, and as I use the word Christian pejoratively. I must change my behavior.