Using Theatre To Promote Social Change Theatre Essay

Using arena To Promote Social transfigure dramatic maneuver Essay force field merchant ship makes creations coherent and real for mass. It involves its auditory sense two intellectu completelyy and emotionally, it sensitizes audiences to issues, ideas and people portrayed, and it engenders a individual(prenominal) connection with the events and characters on constitute. Community-based champaign goes a step further when a play is directly germane(predicate) to audience subdivisions hold outs and concerns, a process begins which canful lead to deeper clearing and castrate. auditory modality members recognize the characters and their dilemmas and identify with the people portrayed. And because they can watch rather than live the experience, they likewise objectify the problems, and in so doing begin to be equal to think diminutively about possible resultants or alternate actions and so give birth the ability to multifariousness.In this essay I fork over sh ew the need for brotherly motley as well as the wallop of sphere on the fraternity. I will explore the uses of battleground as an instrument of convince as well as focusing on Boals battlefield as his variantats were apply as a tool for change.What is companionable change and why it is needed?One of the well-nigh concise definitions of cordial change is characte sharpend as the significant alteration of mixer structure and ethnical patterns through with(predicate) time(Harper, 1993). And this brotherly structure is made up of a durable network of affable relationships(Harper, 1993). In which interaction between people or groups has become repetitive. The resultant changes can affect everything from population to the economy, as industrialization and shifting cultural norms and value, are also open up agents of kind change (Popenoe, 1995). In another words social change is the transformation of glossiness and social structure over time.There are different ca uses of social change. One of these causes is Culture which is a system that constantly loses and gains comp matchlessnts. Also values, beliefs, and ideologies grow certainly hurld directions of social change in the modern world, much(prenominal) as Nationalism, Capitalism and others.Change can be come up through the impact of environmental f actors such as famine,Inter depicted object shifts in economic or policy-making advantage, as the Globalisation which is one of the key factors in our modern night club affecting the global economy, political structures, culture, etc.Change can also occur from social movement where people core together for a common cause orThe mass media which considered a vital factor in speeding social change. It permits rapid dispersion of ideas, making this manifest in the privy and relaxing environs of the home, where audiences are at their approximately susceptible.From all the above, social change can occur because of lots of reasons that me an there is al demeanors a demand for change, whether by individuals or through a larger forces which leads the corporation in roughly cases to a comprehensive change. battleground is considering a mean to reflect people lives and re- prepare it for a deeper insight, it might be a tool to understand the real problems of society and contri simplye in finding effect for them as continues attempt for change.Theatre and societiesTheatre arose in the ancient Egyptians era forrader 4500 years ago and in Greece before 2400 years ago on the primer coat that it is an procreation intermediate, Aristotle argues that the conclusion of tragedy is purification go the social function of comedy is social criticism (Aristotle, 1987), this what lead me to believe that the discipline in the beginning was closely connected with the i have it off of social change as we understand it today. Thus become the development of firm throughout the annals of the europiuman Communities which was l inked to their need for change, The hi narrative of flying field in Europe was and relieve in a clear continues encourage, on the contrary, in some other cultures for example in the history of the ancient Egyptian Theatre, who did not continue its progress. Taking the example from history of Europe star sign does not negate the evolution of dramatics in other societies such as China, India and some regions of Latin America. Back to linking the concept of field of honor to social change in Europe, we find it represented in several periods which I will focus on some of them.The association with the Christian religion with government activity and power in the first third of the fourth century theatre art has been eliminated temporarily as theatre artists was persecuted and considered to be heretics and enemies of religion further After a period of time theatre was revived once again by the church itself, which employ the theatre as a advanced delegacy to celebrate and spr ead the message the religions and to promote to it. Thus, over the midst Ages the Church had to take a reconciled position with the theatrical art, mayhap this was a recognition of the clergy at that time of the role that could be compete by theatre as a good and appropriate way to achieve the communication between the members of the fellowship, which possessed the ability to unify a minimum fair amount of collective consciousness and activating the concept of culture that carries values for the society in which it was designed to be Christian, this theatre was used for social change towards the values and concepts of Christianity that was adopted as a prerequisite for this period. This played a role as in our throw concept of the role of contemporary media, and because when theatre impersonating the media it loses much of its striking interactive and become closer to p nominateing than exploration and surprise pleasure.So soon after the fall of the Romanian empire and the wea kness in the dominance of the church, tender artists emerged in what is reminiscent of the Renaissance, this was an era in which theatre carried out to revive the Greek and Roman heritage and values relating to them, provided in the frameworks respect to the traditions of the church, where the renaissance theatre worked for guiding the society towards rejection the superstitions. Theatre has also taken a functionality based on the guidance and education for people of moral values as well as changing society through the promotion of virtue and prevent vice.And with the emergence of William Shakespeare and his peachy interest in issues of benevolent self-imaging and his pain and anguish. where theatre become a carrier and reflective of the human as well as gift up it guidance role, and so theatre played a sweet role in the social life by nice the core group of the desired change in that period which was elevating the attention of human beings and comprise his suffering of al l social, religious and political restrictions.The Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen had realized the need for social change in his era, his works became one of the most microscopic models and a boot process for social change, as not only his attempts to atomic pile with real issues and address the prevailing values by criticism and queries which leads to a demand for social change, but also he himself changed and shocked the theatre audiences when he used prose rather than poetry in writing the play in identify to approach the level of chance(a) language, and if he did not just announce the need for change but also uses new tools of his time (Barton and McGregor , 2008).Thus, from the history of the European theatre progress I conclude that the theatre and social change have forever and a day been two sides of the same coin, which theatre re progress to life either by condensation, auditing, deletion, selection and rearrangement the art elements to be performed in front of viewer s who can re-evaluate the performance and have hopes of change, or recreate life by stage it according to its creators thoughts in a period of time to put an chassis in front of the viewers pushing them towards the future of access desired. So, we cannot answer for the theatre as a direct cause for social change this is because the social changer creates a model that community is required to reach while the art in general as a social and cultural practice wonder about the feasibility of the concept of change. And theatre in particular, as the form closest to the cultural practices in the community exposed to what is going on and measure the pulse of the community to sleep with the need for change and enquire about its usefulness, which he often does not answer these questions, even if the content has been alluded to answer, leaving the community to adopt these responses or even rejected, but in the end there will be perceptions of change, These perceptions were not to interact w ith earthly concern, However, after the experience of these interactions through the theatre as a metaphor laboratory to test the prevailing societal values or alter indigene values that may be proposed within the fabricated process of social change.Thus the theatre obligated to change its shape and form according to the causes and issues of society that generated it, However, these variables remained committed to the centrality of the theatrical text that presents what I referred to attempts to change, the theatre performance continued in bringing together all the elements for the interpretation of the text and despite the diversity of performance styles representative as the backbone of the performance that it was only in the context of the character. It is worth mentioning in this regard the most influential theoretical and pedagogical model of the 20th century has been, without doubt, Konstantin Stanislavskys rule. And here comes Bertolt Brecht to put new principles on the t heatre art and be a pioneer in the exploitation of this art to the concept of a radical positive social change.Brecht attempts for changeThe reason for Brechts splendour in theatre is that his work attempted to bring about a change in the whole relationship between the actor and the audience, the purpose of which was to broaden the social basis of the theatre and to set it once to a greater extent in its decorous social context. What Brecht most dis uniformd and reacted against was the professionals view of the theatre as an end in itself. He wanted the theatre to accede its responsibilities as the social art with the utilitarian purpose of communicating with universal people about the matters that most concern them. (Bradby McCormick, 1978)In pursuit of theatre as craft or sporting display, Brecht later evolved his characteristic merchandise style the half curtain which did not attempt to completely dwell the preparations in progress behind it the use of placards or screen gibbositys to gab on the action the non- lifelikeistic settings the visible rows of stage lights. These followed naturally from Brechts desire to condense empathy in the audience and to induce his actors to demonstrate rather than to incarnate their characters. comely as a concert pianist or a bagger tries to show off his technique, so Brecht wanted every technique and object used in the outturn to be visible and comprehensible (Bradby and McCormick, 1978). For the exertion of The Mother in 1935 for the Theatre Union in New York, he wroteLets have a platform, and on this platform well put chairs, tables, partitions some(prenominal) the actors need. For hanging a curtain give me a wooden punt or a metal bar for hanging a point a composing of wall. And Ill want a large envisionion screen Let it all be elegant, thin and fine like Japanese banners, flimsy like Japanese kites and lanterns lets be aware of the natural textures of wood and metal Well place two grand pianos visib ly at one side of the stage the play moldiness have the quality of a concert as well as that of a drama And well show the lighting units as they dim on and off, playing over the scene.He approached acting less from an emotional and accordingly psychological angle than from its ability to demonstrate social relationships. Gestus or sensual movements that accompany speech should not be seen as an expression of an actors personal experience but rather as supra-individual and thus symptomatic of larger, social contexts. This means that the actors relationship to his or her role is a detached one. spot enactment should serve as delirium or distancing effect whose stopping point is to endow the attestor with a searching, critical attitude towards the action on stage. (Balme, 2008)The alienation effect is the most consistently misunderstood part of Brechts theory. It is see to mean that any emotional pleasure in the theatre must be suppressed. But for Brecht the strongest source of emotion to be found in the theatre was the delight in understanding reality. The alienation effect consists in the reproduction of real-life incidents on the stage in such a way as to underline their causality and bring it to the spectators attention. This type of art also generates emotions, such performances facilitate the mastering of reality, and this it is that moves the spectator. The purpose of the alienation effect, then, is to foster an alert, critical spirit in the audience by emphasizing causality. But this exclusively is perhaps not plentiful to generate emotions or give rise to fun. It goes hand in hand with an attitude towards people and their life in society summed up by the Philosopher in The Messingkauf DialoguesI have an insatiate curiosity about people its impossible for me to see and hear enough of them. The way they get along with each other, the way they develop friendships and enmities, cheat onions, plan military campaigns, get married, make tweed suits, c irculate defective bank notes, dig potatoes, observe the heavenly bodies the way they cheat, favour, teach, exploit, respect, mutilate and harbor one another the way they hold meetings, form societies, conduct intrigues. I al slipway want to kat once why they embark on their undertakings, and my puzzle is to distinguish certain laws that would allow me to make predictions.(Brecht, 1965)To achieve the desired alienation effect, Brecht suggested that the actor perform in the third person, transpose the action into the bygone and let out the stage directions and commentaries. (Balme, 2008)Using a third person and the bygone tense allows the actor to adopt the right attitude of detachment. Speaking the stage directions out loud in the third person results in a clash between two tones of voice, alienating the second of them, the text proper (Brecht, 1964).Thus, far from wanting to suppress the emotions of his audience, Brecht wanted, like all great artists, to short letter them, H e wanted to provoke a spirit of passionate but detached enquiry. For this, he found that the ideal dramatic structure was that of the Shakespearian history play a sequence of events narrated with no artificial restrictions as to time or place, which could vary the scene with ease from individual destinies to national conditions and back again. Brechts basic political position as a Communist, further unorthodox, meant that his plays were always addressed to the people rather than to the intelligentsia, and written in a language that would enable him to communicate effectively with working people. (Bradby McCormick, 1978)Brechts theatre was a theatre struggling for reintegration with society. He liked to describe it as a theatre that was scientific and dialectical scientific because of the detached way in which it tried to dissect the mechanisms of social life, and because it aspired to be useful and dialectical because its method is one of preaching and contradiction, not of doct rinal affirmation. (Bradby McCormick, 1978)To conclude Brecht was convinced that theatre must be an agent of social and political change. He believed that theatre should appeal not to the spectators smellings but to his reason. While still providing entertainment, it should be educational and capable of provoking social change.Boals Spect-actorsTheatre is a form of noesis it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it (Boal, 1992)Augusto Boal established The Theatre of the oppress in the early 1970s which is nowadays used all over the world in different fields of social activities such as education, culture, arts, politics, social work, psychotherapy, literacy programs and health.The Theatre of the Oppressed, in all its various modalities, is a constant search for dialogical forms, forms of theatre through which it is possible to converse, some(prenominal) about and as part of social activity, ped agogy, psychotherapy, politics (Boal, 2004).Two Brechtian principles corroborate Boals praxis the first is that theatre should promote concrete political action. A performance should represent actual life, not for the purpose of allowing contemplation of right artistic fictions but to provoke and rehearse interventions that might change those aspects of society that oppresses individuals and groups. The second is the notion that dramatic performance it self constitutes a dialectical process of learning (Gordon, 2006).Boal was not satisfied with the inflammatory relationship that hypothecate in Brechts epic theatre, but he built a compact between the spectators and actors in browse to establish the scene and direct the events of the performance. He made more radical alternatives to the process of the epic that was adopted by Brecht, persisted in approaching the oppressed groups, contact with their problems in order to impose cognisance of the causes and the potential to overco me these causes as well as engaging the public in analyze their problems, and search for their stimulate solutions as a way to attempt change.( Gordon, 2006)In the conventional theatre, the spectator is a hands-off element, receptor of subjective representation of the reality. And since those responsible for theatrical performances are in general people who belong directly or indirectly to the regnant classes, obviously their finished images will be reflections of their visions of the world. Aristotle elaborated the poetics of the theatre that think on its political dimensions.( Boal, 2000)The Theatre of the Oppressed therefore aims to transform the spectator into spect-actor. The word oppression is used as any force that private one individual to express and realize his wills. Every remains can be oppressed and an oppressor. This theatre gives the opportunity to express ones desires, identify the oppressions, which can be objective or subjective, and try to find the best way to deal with them. It is a Game of the Dialogue, where everybody can speak, and where everybody learns interacting with the others. ( Boal, 2000)When the spectator becomes spect-actor he can modify the scenes he does not like in order to find different solutions that perchance would be afraid to attempt in his real life. He becomes active, growth his creativity and freedom of speaking. This activation that does not end with the play, activate his feeling of member of one society and his will to act in reality to improve it. Being citizen is not only living in one society but actively participate in it, trying to do it better for everyone.(Boal, 1992)The Theatre of the Oppressed appears as an effort to transform the traditional passive role of the spectator during and after any kind or performance. It consists in different techniques and games that can be used in order to make the spectator participate in the construction and the realization of the piece as the Image theatre, News paper theatre, Invisible theatre, Rainbow of desire and others. The main terminus of this theatre is activate the creativity and the capacity of expression of the spectator, in order to analyze and find original solutions to the conflicts our society. As when the objective oppressions have been identified, a pacific confrontation to them will be proposed. When there is not a real oppressor or oppressed, the dialog should help find the better solution to deal with the conflict.One of Boals most influential methods is assemblage theatre which was natural from simultaneous dramaturgy when, according to Boal, by chance an audience member who was so frustrated that the actor did not understand her directions, took their place. This undid the audience/actor split and a new form of political theatre was created. He discovered that through this active participation the audience-actors, spect-actors, become authorise. This concept of the spect-actor became a dominant force within Boals l ater Forum theatre work. The audiences were now encouraged to not only imagine change but to rattling practice that change, reflect conjointly on the suggestion, and thereby become passed to generate social action.Forum theatre events take place in public areas, in popular community, not necessarily in a theatre venue. They involve representing a scene with a conflict situation, or including an issue that the community suffers from, or telling a personal story that is without end. The performers are people from the community with Forum theatre trainers multipliers, the audience is invited at the end to make an intervention and suggest a way to deal with the issue or the situation by coming to the performance infinite and playing one role in the scene to try and change the events. This way we can provide live suggestion from the people to their consume issues, through representation, as well as public discussion (Boal, 1992).Boals legislative Theatre is also one and most remarka ble stage in his work. Legislative Theatre is an attempt to use Boals method of Forum Theatre within a political system to create a truer form of democracy. It is an extraordinary experiment in the potential of theatre to affect social change. Forum Theatre invites members of the audience to take the stage and decide the outcome, becoming an integral part of the performance. As a politician in his native Rio de Janeiro, Boal used Forum Theatre to motivate the local populace in generating relevant legislation. In Legislative Theatre Boal creates new, theatrical, and truly revolutionary ways of involving everyone in the elective process (Boal, 1998).Finally, the main purpose of Theatre of the Oppressed is to search for solutions to actual cases of oppression that members of the community suffer. From there the hope is that the community is empowered to manifest the change and dismantle the oppression. Theatre of the Oppressed distinctly has the potential to make social structures, p ower relations and individual habits visible and, at the same time, provide tools to facilitate change. It is one of the few methods that offers an co-ordinated approach to work on individual, group and social levels, and involves both the body and the mind.Study case Theatre and Women DevelopmentThe project name Theatre and Women Development, One year project in four segments, Series of learning stores, onsite community work, performances and publications, it was held in Alexandria, Egypt. Organised and managed by Reflection for arts information and development NGO. 2008The project focused on the promotion and support of human rights via theatre, namely the rights of the freedom of expression linked with some personal rights, such as the freedom of opinion, and the rights of women, specifically to be protected from sexual molestation and domestic violence.The first segment of the project was a Forum theatre training shop for theatre artists and social activists. Forum theatre was and still a methodology used for community work. It was the first time to create a Forum Theatre team in Egypt, a method that is made specifically for dealing with social issues, community participation, democratic discussion and seeking change.The second segment was a shop for vernal women. The store was implemented in a community space in confederation with a feminist NGO, inviting 20 young women between the ages of 16 to 22. The workshop also used the Forum Theatre technique in order to represent situations which the participants live, suffer from, aspire to or oppose to.The end of the workshop included 3 nights of Forum theatre public events, where the participants performed stories and situations and ask the audience for their opinion, and how to find better ways to manage the difficult situations or experiences of those young women when they are faced by social values oppressing them. The aim of the workshop is not to reach the public events only, though it will be the end of the whole process and the real test of how this work can consult to the community and produce dialogue leading to change, but the aim is also to provoke discussions and give voice to young women who do not ordinarily express themselves. The workshop was function as an open space for the participants to speak out, to gain self-confidence, to break the usual social hypocrisy and to acquire new skills of expression and of creative positive thinking, which could support their future roles in society as potential community leaders.The third segment of the project was a workshop with women between the ages of 30 to 50. The make-up was domestic violence, one of the most sensitive and unspoken issues in Egypt. Domestic violence is a theme that will require a lot of care and sensitivity when it comes to community work. It will be our responsibility to respect the social borders surrounding this issue, while raising the awareness of the participants of their rights to be secure, r espected and protected in their own homes and families. Forum Theatre technique was taught to the participants and used to structure scenes about situations of domestic violence that the participants suggest. The task of the group was to find out how to prevent those situations, how to deal with them and how to protect the women who are suffering in those situations. Special attention was disposed(p) to traditional values as well as legal views, in order to analyze the reasons behind this phenomenon and to find out how to support and empower women to speak out and seek help.The fourth segment of the project used storytelling techniques and dramatic theatre to represent the real stories of sexual harassment in Egypt. For this segment we collected real stories from the community, re-worked on them dramatically, then brought female participants from the precedent workshops, train them to act the stories out, and present them as the first theatre production in Alexandria based on true stories of harassment.The project Goals was to promote awareness on human rights Freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, the right to security at home, and self-protection, the right to be respected and not discriminated against, and all related womens rights, To create a public form of participation in the dissemination of those rights via Forum theatre, To use this public form to represent real issues and stories of the community, To allow democratic discussion and management of those issues via Forum theatre, To empower young womens thinking and provide social skills of self-expression, To create new ways combining arts/theatre and development and social work, To bring sensitive issues to the surface in a creative and sensitive way, such as domestic violence .The project succeeds in reaching the majority of his goals and become a genuine basis of using theatre as a tool for social change.The closingTo conclude, Theatre through history had a great role on affecting peoples li ves, by helping them to see their lives and problems more clearly. It become a tool to understand the real problems of society and tries to find an effective solution for them. It tries to enable those who are marginalized in some way to examine collectively their issues from their perspectives, to analyze causes of these issues, to explore avenues of potential action, and to create an opportunity to take such action. Through dialogue by rising the level of awareness as well as it contributes to the empowerment of all involved. It may also pass on people to take action and support them in processes of social and political change.