Theatre of the Oppressed Workshops
Photo by Whitney Sherman
From 2003-2008, I facilitated Theatre of the Oppressed workshops as part of the Bay Area Theatre of the Oppressed Collective. This work included utilizing Theatre of the Oppressed tools and techniques to work with the Instituto Sanchez-Mendoza (addressing gender issues in the community), SEIU Local 1021 (supporting adjunct art professors in their negotiations with trustees), and NASCO (anti-oppression training), among others.
In 2008, I received a Theatre Communications Group Future Collaborations grant to do an international creative exchange centered on interactive theater for social change. I traveled to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for the Festival International de Theatre pour le Developpement, and co-facilitated a Forum Theatre workshop for theater artists from all over West Africa, Canada, and the United States. I then traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, to work with Themba Interactive, an organization that uses interactive theater for HIV awareness. We created a play about the invisibility of LGBT people in the education system, both students and teachers. Lastly, I facilitated a Forum Theatre workshop for the Reseau Arts Vivants in Niamey, Niger, where we created and performed a play about gender dynamics in the workplace.