Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

12-10-2014

Faculty Advisor(s)

Jocelyn Buckner

Abstract

Theatre for social change has long relied on devising methods to create pieces reflecting current cultural and societal issues. Through exercises, games and workshops, theatre for social change devising practices are as distinct and numerous as the many different communities they work with. The leading pioneer, Augusto Boal, created Theatre of the Oppressed, which utilizes many kinds of practices meant to address local issues effecting a group of people who have suffered from repression or whose needs have been invisible from greater society.Since his initial groundbreaking theories and practices, many modern artists and groups have adapted and changed his methods to suit their unique local communities. Each has upheld the notion that theatre for social change must directly serve the needs of a specific community in order to affect any greater change. Theatre is utilized as a form of language to actively realize the humanity within all peoples and bring awareness. The Fringe Benefits Theatre guidelines for devising workshops will inform the parameters the group will function in to form scenes and improvised dialogue. After the Boal exercises and games where the troupe will realize their role as a member of Chapman and as an actor who must engage with these difficult subjects of oppression, we will build concrete aspects of performance: devised scenes and dialogue. I will construct and implement a devising methodology for the troupe in order to access critical social issues facing our immediate Chapman community; eventually leading to a performance piece. Employing effective devising practices will move the troupe towards focusing on an under-represented and mistreated population within our shared community; ultimately discovering a faction of our educational space that needs representation and disclosing it to our community through the devising process.

Comments

Presented at the Fall 2014 Undergraduate Student Research Day at Chapman University.

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