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Boal Workshop Over the last two weeks, the Year 12 Drama students have been involved in a unique cross-generational Drama project with a small group of senior citizens from the Bathurst community. The project is part of a topic from the HSC Board of Studies called 'Approaches to Acting'. The students have been studying the work of the internationally renowned dramturg, Augusto Boal. Boal, born in 1931, was one of the most influential contemporary theatre practitioners, transforming peoples’ lives with his revolutionary methods of engaging ‘normal’ people with actor strategies that have the potential to enlighten them and enable them to speak out against the hypocrisies of the political & social climate, which they struggled against. He was a “visionary as well as a product of his times, which was the Brazil of military dictatorship and artistic and social repression. This political man of the theatre and very theatrical man of politics – once imprisoned for his subversive activities – was also a passionately creative force in contemporary cultural life…Boal’s’ story is a moving and memorable one. He has devised a unique way of using the stage to empower the disempowered, and taken his methods everywhere from the favelas of Rio to the rehearsal studios of the Royal Shakespeare Company…Boal’s’ warmth and humour…demonstrate[s] [his] commitment to his personal/ political slogan, Have the courage to be happy” (Boal, 2001, foreword). Zoe McGirr trained in the techniques of Boal at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, under the tutelage of Snr. Lecturer Jerry Boland. Since then, she has become a passionate exponent of the potential of this side of the art form. “Teaching a topic like this one out of context can be difficult”, says Zoe McGirr, the All Saints’ Drama teacher and creator of this unique project – “I have taught this topic before at university level and at another school and with some success, however, I always felt that the students needed to be encouraged to look further beyond their own lives about what is means to feel oppressed”. It was while attending a professional development study tour in Northern Thailand in 2011 that Zoe was inspired to make changes to the way this topic is delivered. “In Chiang Dao, Northern Thailand, I worked intensively with the Makhampom Living Theatre group…we worked with a community of Burmese refugees, using theatre as a tool to help them understand their lives; their struggles associated with displacement and lack of identity. Whilst not entirely Boal-esque in their approach, I felt a lot of the theatre company’s techniques mirrored his amazing work, and it gave me a hands-on approach that I could apply to my own teaching”, she explains, “The important thing about bringing two very different community groups together [there is 55 years between them] is that it must be in a spirit of mutual respect and shared learning, and both the Seniors (citizens) and the students both came out of the experience feeling they had learned a lot”. The first meeting was held at the home of Margaret Bacchus, one of the participating Seniors. The evening began with a sharing of ideas. The Seniors, who are part of a writing group, for which Jenny Maclennan is the tutor, kicked off the ‘Introductory Workshop’ by each reading a piece of creative writing entitled ‘My Life So Far’. Each personal story painted a picture of life growing up through the years since the 1930’s, through the Great Depression, what life was like living in Australia through WWII, what it meant to live under the threat of Communism through the Cold War years, and the struggles of women in Australian society. “Hearing about all the things they have lived through and experienced, especially hardships, made us feel our lives have been so short lived and our worries seem comparatively trivial” explained one of the students. The students came into the meeting hoping to gain some insight into the oppressions these Seniors might experience in their lives. They soon found out, that whilst the Seniors had lived through many trials and tribulations in the past, they felt very lucky to be living in this day and age and, despite some minor issues dealing with new and changing technologies, were mostly happy and comfortable with their lives. This is predominantly due to periods of great prosperity and the dramatic changes to the roles of women in Australian society. “It was pretty interesting”, says Zoe “on the one hand you had the students feeling really humbled by the Senior’s stories to the point where they actually vocalised with some embarrassment that they thought their complaints about their own oppressions seemed incomparable and insignificant… then the Seniors would be quick to reassure the students with their view that young people these days have much greater expectations placed on them, than what they had ever experienced – academically and socially.” The students then ran a fun workshop educating the Seniors about Gen ‘Y’, with topics such as text abbreviations, modern music and the importance that technology plays in their lives, for example, the students each admitted that the last thing they did before going to bed of a night and the first thing they did upon waking, was to check their ‘Facebook’ status. The project culminated in an ‘Assessment Workshop’, which was held in the Drama Room on the All Saints’ College campus. The workshop began with both groups presenting a theatrical performance. The Seniors play was set in a school and explored the issue of repression and the wearing of school uniforms. The students’ performance piece was a comic parody highlighting the first meeting between the two groups. The sharing of skills and ideas on the first night is an important and informal way of ’breaking the ice’ before the more serious forum discussion, which in this case, was on the topic of ‘Oppression’. When both groups perform for each other at the final meeting, it is seen as a ‘gift’ of gratitude and sharing. The intensive Drama workshop, which followed, was devised and lead by the Students as the formal part of their HSC assessment. In the spirit of Boal, participants were encouraged to explore their ‘memory of the senses’ through a sequence of activities – past oppressions were shared and re-enacted through Boal’s practices of ‘Image’ and ‘Forum’ theatre. ‘Image Theatre’ is developed using a modeling sequence where the groups are divided in sculptors and sculptures. These static tableaus are then dynamised in the ‘Forum Theatre’ sequence, where ‘real-life’ events are played out on the stage. The protagonists take on the role of Director for a play of their own life. A forum or discussion takes place where the group provides alternative outcomes for the event and finally, the protagonist is invited to take on the role on themselves in their own ‘memory drama’. The process is often transformative. “I wasn’t sure what to expect”, admits Zoe, “this kind of improvisational theatre depends on how willing the participants are to share their personal stories of conflict…sure, there are groups in our community with much bigger issues, like the indigenous community, the homeless, and the convicted, but I believe that this project successfully fulfilled it’s goal of allowing two different groups to put themselves in each others’ shoes, and in so doing, gain a deeper understanding of their own lives”.