TOgether Project, a community of practice for the development of the Theatre of the Oppressed in Europe. Evaluation of a research-action path.
Alessandro Tolomelli
Theatre of the Oppressed is an aesthetics approach aimed to use theatre as a tool to interpret and to transform reality, developed by Brazilian playwright and director Augusto Boal. Basing on this methodology, seven European partners have been working on the European research-action Project TOgether to achieve three main goals. The first regards the development of a curriculum for a qualified trainer of Theatre of the Oppressed. The second task is the experimentation of theatre for the community-based empowerment at local level and the third goal is the production of International Forum-theatre plays. The network is active since 2011, and with the performance of the piece Hotel Europa at the Fringe Festival (Edinburgh, 2016) has finished its first path. Such articulated project included an evaluation process with a qualitative and participatory approach in order to enlighten the connection between the three pillars. In fact, in a pedagogical perspective an educational process have to be address not only to the acknowledgement of the participant, but also to the social transformation, helping the people to become protagonists of their change itself.
This article has the aim to resume the evaluation process of TOgether Project and to describe the innovative outcomes of this partnership.
Keywords
Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal, Education