Workshopping the revolution? On the phenomenon of joker training in the Theatre of the Oppressed

Abstract

The article brings together observations and insights on the emerging phenomenon of training the trainers, also known as joker training in the Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). The concerns raised in this article are twofold: first, how does the modularised, workshop format of joker training affect the core principles of TO? Second, what are the implications of professionalising the work of the joker? These questions relate to the critique of ‘creative industries’ and debates around precarisation that profoundly impact arts and humanities education in contemporary Europe. They also serve as a call to interrogate concepts central to TO, such as participation, empowerment and community, in terms of how these concepts are appropriated and made docile in the increasingly neoliberal environment of European cultural and educational policies. The article proposes that a training in TO must view the dissemination of techniques and methods of joker practice as inseparable from a deep commitment to a ‘conscientised’ understanding of the complex social problems that the theatre seeks to address. The focus on a technical training alone bears the danger of reinforcing Freire's ‘banking method’ of pedagogy, which is counterproductive to the political objectives of TO. The article observes that professional jokers work in precarious conditions far removed from the promises of the economic rewards of creative enterprise. The proliferation of project-based freelance work creates a situation where jokers tend to become de-territorialised and alienated from actual problems, thus propagating biographic and short-term approaches to systemic contradictions. The study aims to problematise these issues and contribute to a debate that might lead to politically and professionally viable paths for the future of TO.

¿Taller de revolución? Sobre el fenómeno del entrenamiento del Joker en el Teatro del Oprimido

El artículo reúne observaciones y puntos de vista sobre el fenómeno emergente de formar a los entrenadores, también conocido como formación del joker en el Teatro del Oprimido (TO). Las preocupaciones expresadas en este artículo son de dos tipos: primero, ¿cómo afecta el modulado formato de taller de formación del joker a los principios básico del TO? Segundo, ¿cuáles son las implicaciones de profesionalizar el trabajo del joker? Estas cuestiones se refieren a la crítica de ‘industrias creativas’ y debates sobre la precariedad que afectan profundamente a la educación en artes y humanidades en la Europa contemporánea. También sirven como una llamada a cuestionar conceptos centrales para el TO, tales como la participación, la potenciación y la comunidad, en términos de cómo estos conceptos son apropiados y se hacen dóciles en el creciente ambiente neoliberal de políticas culturales y educativas Europeas. El artículo propone que un entrenamiento en TO debe considerar la diseminación de técnicas y métodos de práctica del joker como inseparables de un profundo compromiso para una comprensión ‘minuciosa’ de los complejos problemas sociales que el teatro pretende abordar. El foco en un entrenamiento técnico sin más acarrea el peligro de reforzar el ‘método de banca’ de pedagogía de Freire, que es contraproducente a los objetivos políticos de TO. El artículo observa que los jokers profesionales trabajan en condiciones precarias, muy lejos de las promesas de recompensas económicas de las industrias creativas. La proliferación del trabajo autónomo basado en proyectos crea una situación en la que los jokers tienden a ser desterrados y alienados de los problemas actúales, de este modo propagando puntos de vista biográficos y a corto plazo a las contradicciones sistémicas. El estudio trata de problematizar estas cuestiones y contribuir a un debate que pueda llevar hacia caminos políticos y profesionales viables para el futuro del TO.

工作坊中的革命

關於被壓迫者劇場的醜客訓練

本文對於新興的培訓者訓練，即被壓迫者劇場中的醜客訓練進行了觀察與反思。本文關注以下兩點：首先，這種課程化的、工作坊形式的醜客訓練會如何影響被壓迫者劇場的中心原則？其次，將醜客的職責專業化有何深意？這些問題涉及到“創意產業“批評以及不穩定就業的討論，二者對當代歐洲藝術與人文教育皆影響頗深；於此同時，這些疑問就如何在日益新自由主義化的歐洲社會恰當運用被壓迫劇場的中心命題，比如參與，民眾充權與社區等概念，也進行了深入探討。本文表示被壓迫者劇場的訓練須正視：傳播醜客訓練方法技巧需要對劇場所針對的複雜社會問題有深入細緻的理解，因為二者的關係密不可分。僅著眼於訓練本身很容易淪為Freire所說的”囤積式教學法“，而這恰恰與被壓迫者劇場的政治初衷背道而馳。本文觀察到專業醜客的工作多不穩定，他們的創意性事業並沒有帶給他們經濟保障。這種以項目為基礎的自由職業者工作日益發展，導致了醜客逐漸被疏離於真正的問題之外，而長久發展與短期項目也因此形成了自相矛盾的局面。本研究就這些論題提出了質疑，並引發討論，旨在為被壓迫者劇場的未來探尋一條政治與專業上皆可行的道路。

Keywords:

• Theatre of the Oppressed
• joker training
• facilitation
• creative industries
• precarity

Notes on contributors

Sruti Bala is an assistant professor in Theatre Studies at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her current research interests are in the fields of participatory art, theatre and conflict, feminist performance and pedagogy. Following her doctoral study on The Performativity of Nonviolent Protest in South Asia (2009), her essays have appeared in the journals Theatre Research International, Peace & Change and the Dutch Yearbook for Women's History, as well as in anthologies in German and English. She is presently working on a monograph on participatory art.

Aristita I. Albacan is a lecturer in Theatre and Performance at School of Arts and New Media, the University of Hull at Scarborough, where she also acts as Director of Studies for Theatre and Performance. She is an initiator and a co-coordinator of the Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Practices Cluster (www.icpcluster.org). Her current research is concerned with notions of intermediality, spectatorship, contemporary performance making processes, applied theatre and the Theatre of Robert Lepage. As a theatre director, she has developed performance work in various settings in Romania, Germany, the USA and the UK in the past 15 years.

Notes

1. The terms ‘joker’ (‘coringa’ in Portuguese) and ‘jokering’ in this essay refer to the facilitator and the practice of facilitation, respectively. This is distinct from the ‘system of the joker’ in Boalian theory, which refers to a specific process of play and analysis, involving one or more jokers (‘coringas’) as intermediary figures (Boal 1998, 174–5). Boal preferred the term joker over facilitator, quipping that the task of the joker was to be more of a ‘difficultator’ than a facilitator, ‘undermining easy judgments, reinforcing our grasp of the complexity of a situation, but not letting that complexity get in the way of action’ (Jackson 1994, xix). The term ‘joker training’ is also a generic term we use in the article, referring to what does not have a unified terminology in practice, and is variously called multiplier training, training of trainers or advanced TO training.

2. Recent studies in English that specifically address the question of impact and assessment in applied theatre are Eisner (2007), Kuppers (2007), Prendergast and Saxton (2009) and Anheier and Isar (2007, 281–332). While these studies recognise that the demands of efficacy and impact that outside agencies place on applied theatre and performance may not necessarily be consonant with or able to capture the aesthetics of these practices, they do not specifically offer an analysis of how applied theatre is impacted by cultural policies in terms of changes in its aesthetics, beyond a general acknowledgement of issues such as funding cuts.

3. Boal characterises this in his drawing ‘What is an Actor?’, which shows the image of a person in the form of a pot boiling on the fire of theatre, releasing a number of uncontrolled and wild dramatis personae, very different from the angelic personalities that emerge from the nozzle of the pressure cooker, symbolising fear and morality (1995, 33).

4. We express our gratitude to Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn from Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization for detailed feedback on the article. Thanks also to Roberto Mazzini from Giolli Cooperativa Sociale in Italy; Petia Tzanova from Cardboard Citizens, UK; Dr Radha Ramaswamy and P.S. Ramaswamy from Centre for Community Dialogue and Change, India; and Luc Opdebeek from Formaat, Netherlands, for responding to our questions and sharing with us their insights on their experiences with TO joker training. Although their expertise is not specific to Europe in all cases, their experiences allow for testing and contesting the claims of this study.

5. This was confirmed by all TO facilitators we contacted.

6. The term limit-situation in Freire's (1970, 83) usage refers to boundaries that serve as obstacles but are not insurmountable. The process of recognition is the step towards overcoming them.

7. This directive role of the educator is eloquently articulated in an interview with Freire, cited in Gadotti (1994, 56).

8. For a fuller elaboration of the parallel between teaching/learning and acting/spectatorship (see Bala 2012).

9. The incubator policy was first promoted in the late 1990s by the World Bank and other national financial agencies. The name refers to incubators for baby chickens initially kept under protection and then let out to fend for themselves. In business terms, it seeks to provide start-up support and resources to those enterprises who demonstrate financially promising potentials (Lovink and Rossiter 2007, 169ff.).

10. The term bullying is known in other parts of the world as mobbing, ragging or teasing. We use the term with reference to the UK educational context.

11. We mention four examples here, indicating the TO training options currently available in Europe: Cardboard Citizens, a London-based group, with a long-standing engagement with TO and Boal, offers workshops for young people facing homelessness or at-risk, under a scheme for youth and employability. It offers the prospect of gaining ‘work placements with a wide range of exciting organisations whatever your interests are, and access support to find work’ (Cardboard Citizens 2013). The Dutch TO group Formaat offers what they call ‘prevention workshops’, using Rainbow of Desire methods, whereby problems related to ‘undesirable social behaviour’ are enacted and potential solutions proposed by workshop participants (Formaat 2013). Giolli Cooperativa Sociale runs an EU-funded Grundtvig programme with TO, aiming to provide opportunities to gain a qualification that will allow for work in informal and formal educational sectors (Giolli Cooperative Sociale 2013). Kuringa, a Berlin-based initiative for research, production and qualification in TO, offers several qualification modules for people interested in teaching or employing TO in diverse contexts (Kuringa) (!20!2013).