HowlRound Theatre Commons: “Now let’s create an image of exclusion,” I explained to the classroom of young Czech teens. Silently, they arranged themselves into a landscape of frozen poses, working together to create a tableau based on their personal understanding of the word. Some students crowded around a kneeling student, trapping him as he reached out towards the others. A young man held another boy’s hands tightly behind his back while another student covered his mouth. A girl sat with her back to the rest of the group, eyes cast downward, utterly isolated. Then I asked them how they might change the image from one of exclusion to one of inclusion.
2 comments:
I love the concept of the social change coming from within the schools starting at the youth of a nation. Growing up you are often told by adults that you are too young to make a change or you are just a kid that you can’t do anything that will really make a difference, but I don’t think that is true. We are seeing that this rhetoric about the weakness of children is completely false. This is being illustrated trough the Never Again movement that is being led by teenagers. The idea that theater is the cartelist to inspires change sprouting in youth is remarkable and something that I wish I could see more. Working in youth theater in high school I got to see how theater changed individual kids. Some kids came in super shy and in their shell and by the end they were lively and loved being on stage and made a family with their cast mates. This societal change though theater is taking this concept one step further, past the individual and into the greater world and the teachings and practices of Boal are a great channel for social change through performance.
This was a really cool article to read! I always love hearing about arts education, particularly when it is about a country abroad because it gives such a good insight into how arts are viewed in different parts of the world. In the United States, I think that kids are often told that art is possible to put into your everyday life, and though it is encouraged to be creative on a regular basis, the arts are often not thought of as career possibilities. I believe that kids can learn more that ever by working together on something creative, and theatre is the greatest example of that kind of communal work. It is really cool to see that countries like the Czech Republic are making the same kind of movements that many school in the United States are trying to make with arts education at the same time as us. I hope that kids across the world are feeling more confident in their achievements in arts along with achievements in academics.
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