Capitalist society propagates the idea that each person is responsible for their successes and failures, which are considered the direct consequence of personal choices and decisions. Merit and individual effort, at most the effort of one’s family, are the parameters for analysing privileges and social disadvantages. This individualistic perspective of understanding society has the ability to camouflage structural issues, leaving the impression that private life has autonomy in relation to social structures. When private facts are not related to social phenomena, those who experience them have few resources to understand and name them. Theatre can ratify this narrative or question it.
In 1990, I got to know the Theatre of the Oppressed and the playwright Augusto Boal, the man who systematised this theatrical method and proposes opening spaces for dialogue between stage and audience. It is one of the most practised theatre methods in the world. I worked with Boal at the Centre of Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro until his death in 2009. I coordinated national and international projects, directed and acted in artistic productions, and was co-author of innovative techniques such as the Legislative Theatre (1993/96, law proposals and political actions were created out of the audience’s interaction with theatrical plays), and Aesthetics of the Oppressed (1999/2009, activities aimed at developing the aesthetic senses – sound, image, word – for oppressed groups). The Theatre of the Oppressed provides a meeting point between art and activism, articulating artistic production and political and social awareness.
In Brazil, as in dozens of other countries, we developed collective aesthetic processes for the creation of plays about different aspects of reality: sexist violence, racism, gender inequality, youth issues, labour rights, discrimination, failures in the prison system, among many other themes. This experience gave us the impression of being people aware of the evils of patriarchy and capitalism, as well as being trained to identify and willing to confront the resulting injustices.
In 2009, at international Theatre of the Oppressed events, the criticism of theatre productions whose female protagonists were blamed for the oppression they face and humiliated for the weakness of their individual reactions and lack of strategies was intensified. As women practitioners of the method, our challenge was to find ways to problematize the fact that this kind of narrative was often directed by cis, white, middle-class and heteronormative men, who represented the majority of facilitators of artistic creation processes and of the dialogue with the audience in public events. As in other fields, also in the Theatre of the Oppressed, male, white, privileged bodies occupied almost all the spaces of visibility, prestige and power. Despite calling for political awareness, enabling new perspectives on ourselves and a critical view on the world in front of us, the Theatre of the Oppressed lacked effective anti-patriarchal antidotes.
Beyond elaborating an effective critique of macho representations of the oppression faced by women for being women, we wanted to investigate how to create feminist narratives capable of addressing the complexity of these experiences without blaming the protagonist, categorising her as victim or normalising patriarchal violence. We asked ourselves how to value subjective perspectives and, at the same time, overcome the individualism of the approach, taking the impact of social structures on personal relationships into account.
As women practitioners of the method, our challenge was to find ways to problematize the fact that this kind of narrative was often directed by cis, white, middle-class and heteronormative men, who represented the majority of facilitators of artistic creation processes and of the dialogue with the audience in public events.
In 2010, we created the Magdalena Laboratory, an aesthetic research space exclusively for women (cis and trans) for the artistic production of narratives and the development of a feminist perspective on the Theatre of the Oppressed. We had the ambition to advance both methodologically and in the training process of female facilitators, as we understood that our bodies, voices and perspectives should be present and influence everything from the creative process to the dialogue with the audience. Between 2010 and 2013, I personally facilitated dozens of Magdalena Laboratories in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Since then, we have networked collaboratively through international meetings to support female facilitators in training, strengthen political articulations and systematize methodological advances. Our goal was to create an operational structure that moved away from the centre/peripheries format, towards the idea of rhizome1
We have become the Ma(g)dalena International Network (https://teatrodelasoprimidas.org), a feminist, anti-racist network of artistic and activist expression, which aims to develop and disseminate aesthetic tools for the production of anti-patriarchal narratives, stimulating a horizontal and transversal dialogue that activates and commits the audience to the search for collective strategies to overcome the oppressions represented.
The Feminist Theatre of the Oppressed (Teatro de las Oprimidas) emerged from that experience, which seeks to overcome the individualist approach in theatrical representation by including the social context that limits (and often prevents) the personal choices of the oppressed subject. As an aesthetic and political work process, it sheds light on the variables that interfere with a given situation, to reveal the mechanisms of oppression that support the patriarchal system behind it. Through this approach, oppressions are represented as collective problems that involve different groups and social actors and not as a particular failure. Therefore, in forum sessions2, the audience is encouraged to consider both the complexity of the staged problem and the possible collective interventions available to them from their social position (race, social class, gender, profession, etc.). This methodology values the artistic perspective and the structural approach of theatrical productions, through feminist aesthetics, and – since it is equipped with a comprehensive set of methods, which we teach and spread – it is available to anyone interested in overcoming patriarchy.
However, we do not expect people to declare themselves feminists in order to participate in the aesthetic processes that we develop at Magdalena Laboratories. We understand that the patriarchal system criminalizes social movements, delegitimizes feminism and uses all means available, especially aesthetic ones, to create moralistic and anti-feminist imaginaries in order to convince women that their bodies do not belong to them, because they carry guilt and shame for an alleged “original sin” that will always be used to justify the tragedies they experience.
The starting point of this aesthetic approach should always be the place where the participants are: trajectories, traumas, knowledge, cultures, work, racial and class issues, etc., that match their life experiences. Experiences that are often understood as personal failure or individual destiny, and for this reason are silenced by the isolation of their protagonists. When someone believes that their story is an isolated fact, they tend to imagine themselves responsible for what happened and to doubt the possibility of transformation.
Through feminist aesthetics, we seek to create possibilities to face and demystify taboos, and to encourage breaking out of “isolation”. Our goal is to build bridges that connect “isolated subjects”, in order to enable establishing common territories. We encourage perceiving the “coincidences” between different life experiences, so that the silenced themes can be identified and named.
Naming the social phenomenon that circumscribes the specific fact experienced by the protagonist can free her from the belief that she has provoked it. When the private experience becomes socially meaningful, it is understood that there is a conjunction of variables at the root of its occurrence, beyond the individuals directly involved. This means that situations of violence, for instance, are not caused by the victim’s inappropriate behaviours, but are related to structural issues such as machismo, racism, sexism, misogyny, etc.
Becoming aware of the mechanisms that sustain the oppressions that affect us and the prejudices and ideologies that we internalize and that act against our own existence is a process that is both liberating and painful. Recognising oneself as a victim is part of the process of discovering oneself as a survivor. Being aware of who we are and where we are helps us to discover who we want to be and where we want to go. Going through the pain of recognition and awareness is part of the journey that allows us to move forward and overcome our own pain, understand its impact, to be able to re-signify it as a collective experience in artistic productions.
As feminism is not a magic formula that frees us from contradictions, we seek to exercise criticism, self-criticism, collective care and dialogue to repair injustices. In our network we demand an anti-racist, anti-capitalist, communitarian, ecological and decolonial feminist practice. Even so, we continue with the challenge of ensuring equity: for black and indigenous women, facing a majority of white women; for trans women, in a mostly cis environment; and the complexity deepens when we also consider sexuality, social class, employment status and territory.
We fight to avoid the reproduction of patriarchal and capitalist evils through concrete actions, such as the dissemination of the means of theatrical production, so that more people can use aesthetic tools to create their own narratives. We make use of all possible spaces so that these narratives can be shared and discussed. Our actions aim to overcome the elitist idea that both access to and production of art is a privilege of the few.
Dramaturge, theatre director, actor, author and feminist-antiracist activist, Bárbara Santos is artistic director of KURINGA kuringa.de – a theatre space in Berlin, founder of the Ma(g)dalena International Network – composed of groups from Latin America, Africa and Europe – and creator of the Feminist Theatre of the Oppressed methodology. She has developed innovative lines of aesthetic investigation focused on gender as a social construction and race as a social organization in intersection with social class through a feminist perspective. As a performer, she explores the conversion of the performative body into a political body. As an actress she has been nominated for the Brazilian Academy of Cinema National Award 2020 for best Supporting Actress for her performance in “The Invisible Life”, a film by Karim Aïnouz, which won the grand prix at “Un Certain Regard” at Cannes Festival 2019. She is author of “Roots and Wings” (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and English); "Aesthetic Paths" (Portuguese) and “Feminist Theatre of the Oppressed” (Portuguese and Spanish). barbarasantos@kuringa.org / @barbara.kuringa.
