Active Inquiry

Divided We Fall? – Daily Rituals and Defining Oppression

1st March, 2013 - Posted by Gavin - 1 Comment

Another great week which started with it being light outside when we started – summer is on it’s way! In a very hot Thomas Morton Hall we managed to race through a number of practical exercises.

Karen and Catie finding their rhythm!

After some rhythmical warm-ups which were fun and confusing in equal measure we moved onto developing rhythms of our daily routines. Everybody developed three daily rhythms and shared with the group. Then came the tricky part – in a group using these rhythms to create a group choreography.

The Daily Grind

We watched making tea, buttering toast, opening curtains, travelling, working, speaking on the telephone and then wrote text for each rhythmical performance!

Creating text

So from acting out our everyday routines we began to create pieces of theatre. This led onto a discussion about everyday rituals and how these can be used as coping mechanisms. When living in a society with oppressive structures in what ways do we use rituals as coping mechanisms? In what ways are rituals used as the vehicle for oppression?

Creating images of Oppression

After the break we played around with creating images of oppression and asked how “oppressed” is different from “victim” or “alienated”. Through creating images of times when we felt oppressed we began to move the notion of oppression from individual hardship to shared stories of injustice. We ended by improvising potential ways of challenging and fighting the oppressions that came up. In Forum Theatre the “Oppressed” needs to be someone who has some fight about them, who is not merely a “victim”. In this way we can ensure that the strategies for overcoming oppression will not just be about “standing up for yourself more” and be much more concerned with the oppressive structures in society.

1 Comment

Sophie

March 2nd, 2013 at 11:48 am    

Last wednesday when we were doing this exercice about creating an image of the oppresed and the oppresor based on an injustice we, as individual, faced one day, I realised that my oppresor could not be represented by movements or words. I just picture the main oppresor as an individual standing in front of you. Not doing anything. Not saying anything. Just looking at you. He or she will be even smiling. The oppresor will know that he is right and that his authority cannot be questionned. So he will not be aggresive. No need for it. His oppression is invisible and inside each of us. And it is so deep down that we won’t question it. But….I think that what I thought was oppression was instead authority. Oppression is something else, a little bit different. Oppression and authority differs in the relationship between the one with power and the have nots. So one day, you realise this unbalanced relationship based on nothing, and then the so called authority becomes oppression. Indeed, I think that oppression is a form of authority that people have started to question, to suffer from, and to fight back.

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