Printemps 2024

What can we do to address racism at UNIGE? We could talk about it during yet another conference or training day... or we could put our ideas into practice with the help of theatre-forum, an interactive theatrical approach used to address societal issues of all kinds. Join us on stage, and together, let’s explore this topic. No acting experience required!

Theatre forum and Theatre of the Oppressed more broadly are interactive forms of theatre originally conceptualised by Augusto Boal in communities facing oppression in rural areas of Brazil and subsequently developed by other practitioners worldwide. Unlike traditional theatre, the audience in theatre forum has the opportunity to intervene, thus transforming its members into "specta(c)tors" (hence the name of our association).

In the workshops, we use the definition of racism from the Encyclopedia Britannica: racism is the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others.

Programme

We will organise two workshop cycles: one cycle in English and one cycle in French. Each cycle consists of three workshops:

1. Workshop 1 (Sharing our experiences): Specta(c)tor will use theatre facilitation tools, especially those used in the Theatre of the Oppressed, to create spaces in which we can share our experiences related to racism that we have experienced or witnessed.

2.These collected testimonies allow the troupe to create scenes, which are presented during workshop 2, entitled “forum in construction”. This is a tailor-made theatre-forum based on the testimonies of participants during the research workshop of the same cycle.

3. The third workshop consists of activities aimed at debriefing together the scenes created in workshop 2 and the interactions that they inspired on stage. This encounter also allows for further refinement of the scenes, making them even more representative of participants' experiences.

Objectives and skills

• Shared exploration of the different forms that racism can take by showing various situations in which it manifests.
• Awareness-raising among participants: have I ever been a victim or witness of such a situation? How did I (not) react? Have I ever unconsciously behaved like characters displaying racism?
• Implementation of various strategies to combat racism. After each participant's intervention, we proceed together with a debrief: what were the results of the intervention? In what kind of situations can the proposed tools be used? What could we have done differently?
• Development of theatrical skills: practising and improving verbal and nonverbal communication, stage presence, spatial perception, public speaking, teamwork, and creativity.