For the last five weeks Act Out has been running a program with young women at Rangeview Juvenile Remand Centre. Over the last three years we have also conducted a number of one-off workshops at Banksia Hill Detention Centre with young men.
The program is using Boal’s participatory theatre games and techniques to engage the young [...]
Today’s organisations, institutions and businesses face the ongoing challenge of rapidly changing social and market forces. Similarly, communities throughout, are threatened by increasing exclusion, inequality and violence, in spite of escalated efforts to change this. Transforming existing situations, whether in communities, organisations, institutions or businesses, often encounter resistance and fail. Why? What are necessary components [...]
Every Christmas I cringe at the amount of wasted paper that lies around the Christmas tree after the opening of the presents. Over the years I have tried out different ways of wrapping presents so I don’t have to add to the waste. Here are some ideas:
- Cloth – use old scrap material, you can [...]
My New Year’s resolutions have always included plans to indulge myself in more creative activities. And I always do carry these through; I take up a dance class here, I write a poem there, I keep a diary for most of the year…and I give myself a big pat on the back. The challenge, or [...]
How can theatre for transformation help in the area of leadership in organisational development?
Bringing people together into a space where they are playful and safe is one first step. The space has to be safe enough for people to relax enough to laugh; to look at each other and see a person, not a [...]
1. At the recent Creative Communities conference in Queensland, Margret Meagher, the founder of the Arts and Health Organisation, presented a paper outlining the benefits of using arts in the healing professions. After a little research I was delighted to find that this is an area of huge growth, as government departments and organisations [...]
I wanted to share the following article about community theatre and arts practitioners who died for their work and their communities. It was written by a colleague theatre practitioner and academic from Texas University who was very close to the people in the article.
Regarding the recent assassination of Maya teacher and artist Lisandro Guarcax [...]
Would you ever send out half a football team or half a baseball team in a competition? Would you ever choose to play a game of chess using only the knights and the pawns? Would you ever dream of sending out a resume with only half your experience and qualifications?
Of course not!!
And yet most of [...]
Boal theatre techniques have conventionally been used to work with people that are struggling with certain obstacles, blocked or disenfranchised in some way. This may be through an external influence or by an internalised belief that limits action.
The aim is to bring the participants into a space where they can explore, identify and rehearse alternative [...]
… I cannot do it, I am too old, I don’t know enough, I don’t have a creative bone in my body, the man is the head of the family, drug addicts are weak, we must fight for democracy, I must own my home, this organisation does not value its workers, indigenous people are violent, [...]