how to counter the culture of silent?

[Andy]

i have been practicing the approach in my country Malaysia, with the malay adolescents. The malay society has evolves around this social traditional system which known as `adat'. they are very reserved, and polite. Frankness is not part of the attitude. may be you will misunderstand me when i say that, but the truth is they will not express their emotions freely as the Westerners.

furthermore Malaysia is a multi-racial communities - to express our emotions freely is dangerous - sensitivity of others need to be considered. we do not want the bloody racial clashes occur again in the country.

instead of using forum as `a rehearsal for revolution' it is better to change it to `a rehearsal toward creative and critical engagement.

[Luc Opdebeeck]

Dear Andy,

Good to hear from you. I have worked in People Republic of Laos with Theatre of the Oppressed on the Ho Chi min Trail. I know and I fully understand what you mean. Ussing the word Oppression is all ready danger in some country's.
If you like can you read my rapport (in the library on this website called WE LIKE THE THINKING) it might give you some ideas how you can use TO under these circumstances. I
Wish you all the best with your work. Keep us informed will you? Tell us what you do more in deltail. I'm very interested

Luc

[julian]

Dear Andy,

I don't want to look like a defender of an "orthodoxy", I believe Theatre of the Oppressed has to develop, to adapt in order to be able to challenge whatever kind of oppression exists in the world. At the same time, for this very purpose, there is some ideas, practises and concepts that my father explored that are very useful. And, for me, the idea of "rehearsal for revolution" is one of them.
In which sense?
If I believed that the sense of revolution could be reducted to bloodshed, that would not be my opinion. Neither if the sense of revolution would be the one given by the marxist-leninist theory: the take over of power, in a period of social and political crisis, by a small minority that would take the charge of conducting humanity to a better tomorrow.
These are not the only meanings that revolution can have, and certainly they are not the ones I believe in. For me, revolution means the radical transformations, done by a an active majority, of certains structures of society that produces oppression. We do have to aim at giving the possibility of creative and critical engagement but in order to change the structures of society. I don't want only to raise the "level of awareness" about a certain problem, but, more than that, I want this problem to be solved. If I make a play on sexism, I want the patriarchy as a system to be diminish, to be abolished; if I make a play on workers 's exploitation, I want this system to be banned; etc.
This kind of revolution that I am talking about is not so frequent in history, maybe it never happened. It doesn't mean that I/we don't have to have as goal to try to open to the people the possibility of being actors, of acting in a conscious and collective manner in order to be able to create their lifes as they want and not as they have been told to.
The second idea of this sentence, "rehearsal of revolution", is for me the idea that the Theatre is not the revolution in itself, the transformation in itself. Theatre is just a step of the work that must keep going much further after performance is finished. Like my father says in one interview that is published in the french edition of the Theatre of the oppressed: "A forum theatre about a strike will teach you a lot of things, the strike itself will teach you more." That is one of the main question of Theatre of the oppressed: how to make a piece of art that would be not a catharsis, a substitution? The solution seems, for me, to link the acting and the action in a way it was never done before: one becomes a moment of the other, a preparation of the other.
And that's maybe a clue of how to try to break the culture of silence: to come over and over to the same audience to try to establish the confidence that is needed to have a real dialogue and to pay so much respect to what they have to say that, after the performance, you will have to keep on working in order to make those words, dreams and aspirations come true.
Dear Andy, sorry if my answer is too long. I hope we will be able to continue the dialog.