Human Body Theater: A Non-Fiction Revue

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Forum Theatre works from rehearsal improvisation to create a scene of a specific oppression. Using the Greek terms “protagonist” and “antagonist,” Forum Theatre seeks to show a person (the protagonist) who is trying to deal with an oppression and failing because of the resistance of one or more obstacles (the antagonists). The most important part of the Aesthetics of the Oppressed is the Aesthetic Process. The process develops the ability to experience things in a sensory way. It expands people’s expressive and perceptual potential. The main role of artistic products (or works of art) is to amplify this process socially. A participant in Theatre of the Oppressed is said, paradoxically, to become her or himself. What Boal seems to mean here is that the participant is formerly submerged in an alien culture. By forming her/his own perspective, s/he becomes an autonomous subject.

More broadly, oppression undermines the artistic capabilities of the oppressed. Oppressors generally seek to pare down the symbolic life of the oppressed, reducing them to mechanised work and numerical representation. For instance, workers’ capacity to produce art was partly taken away when artisans were turned into workers. In contrast, Aesthetics of the Oppressed seeks to expand metaphoric activity, symbolic languages, and sensitivity. Forum Theatre seeks to create actions which project one’s values into the future, rather than simply reacting to situations.

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All topics were handled gracefully and educationally, making this a graphic novel that even the most strict parents can't say no to! Design will be by Fly Davis, with Lighting design by Joshua Pharo, Sound design by Ben and Max Ringham, the Fight director is Kate Waters, and Casting is by Anna Cooper CDG. This theory of hearing/seeing is central to the concept of oppression. Oppression entails an absence of dialogue. It involves a monological relation in which only one of the terms can speak. It also implies a basically conflictual relation in which both sides, but especially the oppressed, are victims. Dialogue is impossible until people recognise each other as different.

What I thought was done exceptionally well, however, were the bits on reproductive organs. It wasn't super cutesy or too clinical--just perfect, in my opinion, for not being too embarrassing for the younger reader to read or see. This chapter discusses the different ways in which female and male bodies grow through puberty, what to expect when you're older, how a fetus is made, and how that fetus is born.

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Culture of all forms (not only theatre) emerges from this aesthetic nature. We are all cultural producers, in that we produce our own lives, and produce things we need to live. Culture is necessarily diverse, because it is a set of ‘ways of doing’, which in turn are ways to reach different dreams. Hence, while the essence is in a sense common, it manifests in ways which produce diversity and difference. This is because the essence is a creative force, rather than a fixed type of being.