Using Augusto Boal’s Image Theatre in the Classroom
Annette Markham
Using image theatre to express affect without words. On request, sharing how I commonly use Boal in teaching
Techniques to address controversial issues where talking is ineffective or counter-productive; in educational environments where one might want to show a concept rather than talk about it; to use embodied positions to demonstrate feelings, showcase commonalities, juxtapositions, or differences of worldview.
Many years ago while teaching study abroad, my teaching colleague Elyzabeth Holford and I would regularly interject Image Theatre techniques on the road with BA level students. It became a way for students to address complicated situations arising from their experiences of cultural differences. When used to think about ideas, Image Theatre helped them consider concepts in nontraditional ways. And it also was a creative way to get students to express themselves and engage in learning experiences more playfully, in various contexts.
We began with the pedagogical desire to defamiliarize the students’ everyday ways of making sense of their contexts. We also wanted techniques to help build a practice of bringing more potentiality forward by embracing different ways of seeing and knowing. This meant building practice of learning how to learn, rather than being focused on concepts or theories, or tossing around ideas or explanations in abstract terms.
All of our techniques are based on Augusto Boal’s techniques and philosophies. Boal (1931-2009) was born in Brazil, studied in New York, was exiled to Argentina, lived for a time in Europe, and then in 1986 returned to Brazil. Boal drew upon fellow Brazilian Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed to create theatre with, rather than for audiences. notably in Theatre of the Oppressed (1979, Pluto). Techniques of image theatre, legislative theatre, and forum theatre are widely used. Here, we use Boal’s techniques to explore concepts, transgress the domination of verbal and cognitive sensemaking, and to ease groups into being more freely expressive and creative in their ways of approaching issues or challenges.
Boal’s techniques of forum theatre (image theatre) foreground the embodied sensibilities of knowing. Helps break frames of reference. Builds poignant and meaningful content without reading and writing, both of which are forms that privilege particular styles of argument and value explanation and conclusiveness. Boal’s techniques privilege everyone’s perspective and build knowing in a collaborative and communal way. The emotional reactions to the exercises help emphasize how different parts of the body ‘know’ in different ways; that culture is performed on a routine everyday basis through rituals, habits of action.
Techniques of Image Theatre vary widely, since they were developed and introduced by Augusto Boal as a part of a larger suite of practices for “Theatre of the Oppressed.” The techniques below are not focused on oppression in a classic sense, but on the idea that through nonverbal and embodied performance, people can theatrically demonstrate particular sensations and positionalities, which break down largescale “oppression” or “crisis” into localized everydayness, which is lived, experiential, expressive, felt, habitual, and so forth.
The basic idea: Make an image out of people in the room, to describe a feeling about something.
Technique 1: Joker builds a still image tableau
Working in silence, one person, called the joker –a label used deliberately by Boal—poses individuals and the group as a whole into a frozen sculpture, or image. This is viewed, considered in silence, and then tweaked and reconstructed if desired by participants who want to become the joker, or by onlookers.
Once the prompt or topic of focus is decided (and this could be uttered or not, as the joker or the group decides), the activity of building and being in the tableau is silent, unless the joker needs to whisper something to an individual to help with a pose or facial expression.
Once the tableau is finished, it is viewed by onlookers (not in the tableau). People in the scene may elect to exit their pose temporarily to walk around and look at the scene from different angles.
Anyone might feel the desire to tweak the image. Boal would call them “Spec-tactors.” This is done in silence, unless the spec-tactor needs to whisper something to an individual to help with a pose or facial expression.
At some point, there should be discussion. This can proceed in different ways, but is it suggested to initiate this by prompting a response by participants, and then follow with more open discussion about what it all might mean. Any prompt is fine, but it is suggested that this is mindfully phrased and not repeated. This technique of making a single and carefully worded prompt can limit the input information for participants, allowing them to think about what was prompted. Give people time to process. Allow the prompt to work, and it may elicit more affective potential without losing the sense of still being in a tableau, such as:
- “What do you think is being conveyed here? Does any word, idea, concept, or phrase come to mind?”
- “If you are tapped on the shoulder, please think of a single sentence you could say, to convey an emotion you are feeling right now.”
- “If anyone has an single word that is coming to mind, feel free to say this word aloud, not all at once, but one after another. You’re not limited to a contributing only one time; that is, everyone can take more than one turn. We will continue until there are no more words flowing.”
- “One person should start a narrative/story with a single sentence, based on what they think this tableau is about. Once they finish their sentence, another person should add another sentence, than another person and another sentence, and so on. Please be playful and don’t worry about it too much. We will continue until it comes to a natural stopping point.”
End the pose and invite broader discussion (if positions are uncomfortable, this may happen sooner).
Discuss: People will want to talk about what it all means. This can be facilitated by the overall lead of the workshop, or by the joker. Over time with the same group, the discussions will proceed more naturally.
Technique 2: all individuals are jokers
This exercise produces the same sort of silent, frozen, image as Technique 1, but in this situation, a prompt has been given by the facilitator and all the participants interpret this in their own way, by positioning their body in the space.
All individuals are then considered ‘jokers’ because they are each interpreting the prompt and creating an image.
Individuals may position themselves in relation to others, so that natural groupings occur. This should be in silence, although participants should seek permission (silent or verbal) to touch each other or to enter a pose together.
The exercise can proceed as described above, but the prompts may be more attuned to this individualized interpretation. Common prompts might include such simple phrases as:
- “What do you see when you look around?”
- “what do you feel in your own position?”
Letting these emerge slowly, without pressure to speak, enables more mindful practice.
The larger discussion might involve discovering what everyone was trying to convey. If the group is large or unfamiliar, this can be facilitated by tapping people on the shoulder to answer the question: “in a sentence, what were you trying to convey?”
Additional Tips:
- Make easier topics at the outset of the workshop/course and get more challenging over time.
- Record (document) if possible, for self-analysis by the participants. If filming, be sure to get approval from everyone or do not proceed. Delete recordings after the group has viewed!
- Build lifelong learning and community of practice by modelling: bring the topics yourself initially, and then encourage participants to tweak and give feedback as to what would be better or more nuanced topics of focus. Then, encourage participants to come to the next workshop/course with their own.
- Maintain respect: invite them to participate, welcome them to stretch their own boundaries.
- Make sure they know they need not have any experience.
- Build an experimental, playful, and critically exploratory approach: Ensure that the process is the most important thing, not the scenes themselves, or the concepts and outcomes that might emerge.
- Understand and acknowledge that boundaries exist all the time, and many are invisible and uniquely experienced. Encourage participants to be gentle with themselves and others. Invite them to also sometimes push against some of their own (fear) boundaries
- Don’t underestimate participants, who bring amazing creativity and rigor to this type of work.
References and Resources
Some great examples of other types of image theatre, used in different contexts:
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/transformingstoriesworkbook/chapter/image-theatre/
https://artmuseumteaching.com/2012/02/09/image-theatre-opening-a-dialogue-through-our-bodies/
Here are some very straightforward starting-point outlines or summaries of Boal’s approach, history of theatre of the oppressed, and main terms: https://www.nottinghamfreeschool.co.uk/data/uploads/homework/files/Drama_KOs/Theatre_In_Education_Augusto_Boal.pdf
https://www.participatorymethods.org/resource/summary-theatre-oppressed-and-participatory-research
Here’s a basic explanation of Boal’s ‘joker system’: https://www.idildergisi.com/makale/pdf/1408978761.pdf
For more reading:
Ali Campbell (2019). The Theatre of the Oppressed in Practice Today: An Introduction to the Work and Principles of Augusto Boal. Methuan Drama.
How has the work and legacy of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed been interpreted and practised around the world? What does it look like in practice in different contexts? This book provides an accessible introduction to the political and artistic principles Boal’s techniques are founded upon and traces their legacy today through examples of exemplary practice from around the globe. Authored by one of the key exponents of the Theatre of the Oppressed working today who was mentored by Boal, the volume equips readers with a clear grounding in the universal, transferable principles of Boal’s work, extrapolated from best practice across the field.
Kelly Howe; Julian Boal; José Soeiro (2019). The Routledge Companion To Theatre of the Oppressed. Routledge.
And of course, Boal’s original works are amazing as well:
Boal, A. (1994). The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy. Routledge.
Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the Oppressed. Pluto Press. [orig 1974, Teatro del oprimido y otras poéticas políticas, published by Ediciones de la Flor (Buenos Aires)]