Active Inquiry

New European Forum Theatre Project

19th February, 2011 - Posted by Gavin - Comments Off on New European Forum Theatre Project

I am very lucky to have just spent a few days in Lisbon in Portugal courtesy of the European Union! Following on from a meeting in Italy last May, representatives from different Theatre of the Oppressed companies from Germany, Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Scotland (me!) met to spend a few days writing a joint funding application to the EU. We find out if we get the money in the summer so keep your fingers crossed!

Gavin from Active Inquiry meeting with representatives from Theatre Companies across Europe

If successful we will be hosting community groups who use Forum Theatre from lots of different EU countries as well as hosting  meeting in Edinburgh in 2013. We will also get the opportunity to work with Barbara Santos who worked with Augusto Boal for many years at CTO Rio.

Whilst in Lisbon i also got the chance to see three of the local community groups supported by Group of the Theatre of the Oppressed (GTO) Lisbon presenting their Forum Theatre Plays. All of these took place away from the City Centre where the immigrant communities had settled as Portugal’s Empire began to shrink. Unfortunately my Portuguese is very rusty so I could not understand the dialogue but was really impressed by some of the images and the energy and acting ability of the young people I saw perform. Even more impressive were the confident young community Jokers who facilitated proceedings. I cam away determined to ensure that we encourage people and groups we work with to be able to feel confident to continue to use theatre to explore problems and issues and to look to encourage community Jokers to be able to facilitate this. We will look to start with the second stage of our Power to the People? project (see below)