5th
Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning
“Love Journey: Community
Engagement through Service-Learning”
26th May to
29th May, 2015
Community Empowerment:
Interactive Theatre Production and Service Learning
Meilinda
Theatre as a medium of artistic expression
has been successful in providing space for actors, artistic team and spectators
to enjoy a work of art. However, in the case of Indonesia, theatre may have a
role for empowering people. Inspired by Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, in
this paper I propose a service learning program that involves theatrical
production. In this program, interactive theatrical method is used for writing
the script and staging the performance. Participants from the targeted
community and the students from my University will collaborate to brainstorm
the possible theme for their story. They identify essential problems or issues
that happened around them and may have a potential to be an interesting
performance that can create a discussion. The theatre performance will be a
collaborative work between the actors and spectators. Both sides will involve
inside and after the performance. In
this way, through the interactive theatrical production, that is, a combination
of artistic and social aspects, I would suggest that interactive theatre can be
an alternative for service learning program.
Keywords:
interactive theatre, community empowerment, collaborative work
Introduction
Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion mentions
that “Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to move remain in that
state of motion unless an external force is applied to it” (http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton 3laws.html).
This law holds as strongly when it comes to what university can do in helping
the disadvantaged and marginalized members of the public. They remain in their
disadvantageous position and marginalized by the society unless there are
others that lend them a hand. Because of this, Newton’s law inspires me to
initiate this project, namely, using theater as medium for community
empowerment.
Since 2002, I have been helping my students
to understand the literary aspects of the scripts and transform them into
theatre performances. We dealt with scripts from big names, real- published
writers whose works sometimes stands for more than 200 years. It was not until
2012 that I felt the need to do something more than just understanding the
scripts and producing them as theatrical performances. So far, I saw that
theater could help my students get good grades in Drama classes. Yet, it was
unable to transform their life. Whereas, I wanted that my students could gain something
useful from their engagement with theater.
My wish that I can use theater for community
empowerment project for my students finds support in the new trend in the art
world. Formerly, various artists subscribed to what Victor Cousin, a French
philosopher, said, “L’art pour l’art”
(art for art’s sake), which implies that art should be separated from life
(Comfort, 2011:5). However, contemporary art critics and theories propose what
so-called “relational aesthetics” (Bourriaud, 2002) and “from studio to
situation” (Doherty, 2004). This new trend leads artists to “deep immersion in
the social worlds where they find themselves in as the motivation for their
artistic production” (Ang et al.,2011:1).
In so doing, I was inspired by with Boal’s
concept of theatre of the oppressed. Boal believes that theatre can be a tool
to reflect, transform and educate people through his book Theatre of the
Oppressed (1979). I also use service learning method since the learning process
can bring more impacts toward the students understanding of theatre
performances and in the same time act as agent of change. This is in line with
the benefits of Service Learning (SL). Quoted from Carver (2009), “SL develops
student abilities as change agents, gives them a sense of belonging and foster
the development of competence” (p.149). Using grant from
UBCHEA I decided to start the project. This paper is examining theatre performances
project that involves University students, Senior High School students and drop
out youngsters who engage in a service learning program. The purpose of the
project is to enable the students to identify their challenges and try to come
up with a hypothetical solution. It will not solve the problem directly but at
least it will give opportunity for them to discuss and to realize the
challenges that they face.
Theoretical
Framework
Boal concept on Forum
Theatre that is trying to create actor and spec-actor who can work together in
creating a performance. Boal believe that everyone can be actors. Thus, in
Boal’s context, this method is used to explore social issues to marginalized
group in Brazil who faced military oppression. Jackson wrote in his preface for
Boal that actors will show unfinished story that invites spec-actor to get
involve, suggest and enact solutions (1991). Forum theatre is a “way of using theatre
to make sense of life and as a means of giving people the strength and confidence
to overcome their oppressions” (Boal, 2005, p.xxiv). His method is not only applicable
for Brazilians but also those who are in USA.
Michael Rohd, a theater
practitioner and a teacher in High school at New Hampshire, USA tried to engage
students who have social problems to get involve in a positive activity which
is theatre project. By using theatre of the oppressed method he tried to
reshape the teenagers mind and build their dignity to realize that they have
hope and opportunity in life. In his book Theatre for Community, Conflict and
Dialogue: the hope is Vital Training Manual (1998), he coined a phrase: “hope
is vital”. It is important to make the targeted teenagers to realize that
having hope is having possibilities for the future. Through theatre, hope is
becoming possible.
Another theatre worker,
Michael Sanders also wrote in a paper titled “Urban Odyssey: Theatre of the
Oppressed and Talented Minority Youth”, that is being published in Journal for
the Education of the Gifted (2004). In this paper Sanders explained how he used
theatre of the oppressed method to discuss and help the teenagers to rethink
about racisms and discrimination happened in their community. Both applications
above inspired me in using Boal’s concept in theatre project.
In correlated with Service
Learning and the assessment, As Leda Cooks and Erica Scherer wrote in their
article “Assessing Learning in Community Service Learning: A Social Approach”,
thus “actions are always meaningful and meaning is made in (inter)action with
others; the process of meaning – making is itself empirical, just as outcomes
are social facts”. I use this perspective to help me assess not only the result
but also the process of the project through reflections of the students
involved and the tutors. Every choice that they make represent something that
they think about.
Research Method
The data for this paper is taken from three
groups of theatre projects, Hendrikus High school, Petra Little Theatre and
Pondok Kasih. The first group consist of high school students and are coming
from middle class family. The school is Catholic School. Second group consists
of college students who are studying in English Department, Petra Christian
University. They call themselves theatre group. They usually stage with
literary works that they learn in the curriculum or new play that is written by
their senior student. The last group consist of teenagers between 16 and 19,
some are in high school and other could not continue their study due to
financial reasons. This group is under a program from an NGO Yayasan Pondok Kasih. Students from
Acting Class in Petra Christian University involve in the program as part of
their service learning experience.
Interview, Focus Group Discussion and
reflection are becoming the tools of the data collection. Based on Kemmis and
McTaggart in their article “Participatory Action Research: Communicative Action
and the Public Sphere” (2005), PAR has three main principles:
1.
Shared ownership of research projects
2.
Community based analysis of social problem
3.
An orientation toward community action
It means, I got involved in the project together with the targeted
groups and share the ownership of the performance, analyze and come out with
issues that are existing in the community and trying to find the ending
possibilities that is concentrating on the solution.
Following the discussions, the targeted
group created their own script, rehearsed and staged it in the Onstage theatre
festival.
Discussion
This discussion is divided into two parts. The first part is the
discussion and the form of the project and the second one is the discussion on
the assessment of the project.
1. Theatre Project
The project is designed for 14 (fourteen) meetings.
Each project has a project manager who is also becoming the tutor for the
project. All meetings are structured with ice breaker/ warm up activity, one
topic of theatre performance preparation and discussion. The most crucial
meeting is the first meeting. In this meeting, students and tutors try to get
to know each other, build the trust and share each other’s stories in facing
the challenges in each community. On the same time, the students from my acting
class prepare themselves with the basic knowledge of acting and theatre
performance. Each group undergoes these phases below:
a.
The writing process
In this process, students are participating
in finding the potential problems/ challenges based on their discussion in the
first meeting. Some are able to identify the challenge and some could not. The
table below will illustrate the difference among three targeted groups in term
of finding the issue.
|
Hendrikus High School
|
Petra Little Theatre
|
Pondok Kasih
|
|
Peers bullying
Minimum attention from parents cause angry teenagers who now trying to
get attention from school by doing negative things
|
Problematic students who do not have initiative and teamwork capability
|
Begal (Motorcycle robbery) to get money
Pickpocket
Domestic Violence
|
Table 1. Issues
from each group
Form the table above, High school students are trying to bring out the
importance of a family and the danger of peer pressure through bullying. The
scope of the problem is private and communal. The issue touches the challenge
that the students face in their family and also in their school. Students from
Pondok Kasih talk using the similar tone, challenges at home and outside the
home. Domestic violence happened, the communication among family members
blocked then teenager tries to get attention from other places that is not necessarily
in a positive way to fill in the emptiness. However, the issue is not the same
for those who are studying in Petra Christian University. Students are not able
to see problem that they can face outside the study environment. For them the
biggest challenge in their life is to get good marks.
I decided to redo the discussion. It took
three hours, two hours are dedicated to examine each life story. After
questions over questions and they came out with an assumption that their life
is ok and the only challenge that they face is how to get a good mark. As a
faculty member in a University which vision is to be a caring and global
University with commitment to Christian Values, this result is heart breaking. I
decided to go further, by asking more questions about life, about the values.
The last hour, they found out that apparently their problem is ignorance. They
do not care about others, they do not care on what happen around them. This is
a good negative news. Good news since at last, they are able to understand
their situation and negative since as a faculty member of this University, I
know I have a homework to solve. Then the table changed into the table below:
|
Hendrikus High School
|
Petra Little Theatre
|
Pondok Kasih
|
|
Peers bullying
Minimum attention from parents cause angry teenagers who now trying to
get attention from school by doing negative things
|
Ignorance. We do not care about free sex, drugs, commercializing body,
plagiarism
|
Begal (Motorcycle robbery) to get money
Pickpocket
Domestic violence
|
Table 2. Issues
from each group
Students learned
how to write using given circumstances classification following Robert Barton’s
concept in his book Acting Onstage and Off (2003, p. 120). They shaped the plot
using Gustav Freytag pyramid (http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~hartleyg/ref/freytag.html).
They focus on the goal, obstacle, tactic and expectation of each characters in
creating the story using Robert Cohen’s GOTE system from his book Acting One
(1998, p.53).
The script then
paused when the main character reaches the crossroad. The students come out
with two choices that will be offered to the audience to solve the conflict.
Then, a moderator will lead the audience into a discussion. The audience then
give their opinion on the issues and try to choose how the play will end by
choosing one out of two choices offered to them. The result of the discussion
will determine the ending of the performance. Once the audience agree on one
choice then the actors on the stage will continue the story based on the
audience’s opinion. The engagement between the audience and the actors is the
vital point in this project. Like Boal believes in the inseparable relationship
between actor and spec-actor. Through this activity, both actors and spectators
are exercising their capability to discuss issues related to challenges that
are real and happening in real life. It broadens their mind, rehearsing their
capability to think and feel for others, building empathy skills which may lead
to a more caring society.
b. Actor in the Making
Using some
Viewpoints exercises created by Anne Bogart and Tina Lindau in her book The
Viewpoints Book (2005). The students learned to be more flexible with their own
body. They learn to know their body better and realize which muscle that is
moving when they make a certain move or stay in certain position. This
realization is important to help them in understanding their own body and be
more comfortable and flexible with it. This helps them to know themselves
better. It is easier for them to distinguish themselves from the characters
that they need to play.
When the groups
reaches this point then, my students from acting class join the groups. The
purpose of sending the acting students to targeted groups is to enable them to
serve and help the targeted group with their acting and in the same time
actually they are improving their acting skill and understanding upon the skill
given in class.
Then students who
are becoming the actors need to make a character analysis. The analysis enables
them to know the multi dimensions that a character has. The analysis examines who,
where, when, what, why and how of a character. The how then make actors able to
identify series of action that a character must do. The identification is
important so that actors can try to find the intention in every action that the
characters need to do. This intention will help the actors to understand and
later play the characters.
c. The Production Management
In this section, students learn how to
manage the theatre performance, starting from artistic team like costume, make
up, lighting, setting and property design to management team like publication
and documentation team, stage manager, management and marketing. At this point,
acting class students and targeted group members learn other skills that is
complementing their acting and writing skills.
2. Assessment of the projects
Interview,
reflection and Focus Group Discussion are conducted to gather information on
what they learned from the projects. I would like to divide the evaluation into
three parts: challenges and solution, acting skills, production skills. One for
the targeted group and the other is for my students
|
Targeted Group
|
Hendrikus High School
|
Petra Little Theatre
|
Pondok Kasih
|
|
Challenges and solution
|
Interesting issues
Real issues
Some do not like one of the ending that is violence
|
Interesting issue since they did not realize it before. The solution
is predictable either they want to continue being an ignorant or not
|
Real issue.
The solutions are reminding them that all thing has consequences.
Unfortunately the solution could not solve the domestic violence.
|
|
Acting skills
|
Know how to understand the character. They know how to act and handle
stage nerve.
They learn about team work, how to be responsible, being committed,
thorough.
|
Know how to see a character as a whole. They learned how to bring a
character alive. They know that that they need to do a research to see the
connection between a character and real life.
They learn how to communicate things among them
|
Know how to act and the rules on the stage.
Learn the importance of team work and supporting each other
|
|
Production Skills
|
Cater the artistic aspects.
They feel good about it already unless for the sound
Making poster and playbill
|
Cater the artistic aspects.
|
Cater the artistic aspect.
Making playbill
|
Table 3: Assessment
on the Targeted Group
Based on the categorization of the answers above, I can argue that they
are able to identify their challenges. They exercise their capability to find
the solutions. There are some of the students from Hendrikus High School
mentioned that they do not like the solution since it is involving violence.
They do believe that all problems have a way out and it is not necessarily
involving violence. For me, this answer shows how they hope to have a better
solution. There is optimism in trying to focus on the positive ways out.
For PLT, the case is a
bit different. The revelation on the fact that they are being ignorance was
surprising them. I was in the room with them to witness some students blushed
and some other swearing and then shyly admit that indeed they do not care.
After sometimes, they admit, that indeed free sex, plagiarism, drug, commercializing
body are happening around them. They do not know how to solve it but they say
that now we realize that it is part of our responsibility also, even though
they still do not know what to do. I think, they are still in the phase where
the revelation shocks them.
Teenagers in Pondok
Kasih realize that not all problem can be solved. They could decide to take the
control or blame others for what is happening. Through this play all of them
realize that the power is in their hand to solve or to act, and behind all
actions consequences will follow.
The result on the
acting and also production management skill are as planned. Furthermore, one
important note that would like to highlight is the fact where the targeted
groups are talking about the soft skills that they learn. They are becoming
more aware on the importance of team work and the importance of supporting each
other.
|
Acting Class Students
|
Hendrikus High School
|
Petra Little Theatre
|
Pondok Kasih
|
|
Challenges and solution
|
Real and happening issues
|
Interesting issue since they did not realize it before.
|
The issue is so far from their daily life, it was hard to accept how
hard their life is.
|
|
Acting skills
|
Better understanding on the character analysis application,
projection, intonation since we must help the students to understand the
knowledge
|
Better understanding on the acting skills since we can experience the
exposure to get involve in a real production.
|
Mastering the knowledge, more prepared to help others
|
|
Production Skills
|
Cater the artistic aspect.
|
Cater the artistic aspects.
|
Cater the artistic aspect.
Making playbill
|
|
Others
|
Collaboration with high school students need to be more patience. We
should say no to free sex and stop bullying
|
Be more understanding and appreciate other people who work in
backstage.
|
Communication capability. How to handle prejudice and assumption.
Welcome differences. More understanding to others who are different.
More confident.
|
Table 4:
Assessment on the Acting Students
For students in Acting Class, through their engagement in this Service
Learning Project they are able to learn about other teenagers’ challenges and
the possible solutions for them. The capability to know that those challenges
are real helps them to be more open minded. They become more aware on the
different problems happen in reality outside their comfort zone.
This program also helps
them to master the knowledge that they learned in class. They believed that
involving in a real production help them to apply the knowledge that they
learned. This also help them to improve their
team work, communication, social skills. They are able to make a statement that
free sex and bullying are not acceptable and aim to stop them.
Conclusion
Based on the discussion above, I can argue
that it is possible to measure the output of this program. The targeted groups
has awareness to be able to identify their challenges and feel more comfortable
in discussing them. They also can come up with possible solutions. For acting
students who involved in Service Learning they can understand the acting theory
better. They also learn other skills related to theatre production. For their
soft skill development, the students realized that they can have a better
communication skills and able to accept differences, either the opinion, or perspectives.
However, I believe that longitudinal study is needed to see the outcome. Can
they then become the agent of change? The possibilities are there but to
guarantee the result, time and repetitions of activities
are
needed to answer the questions.
Bibliography
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Boal, Augusto. 1979. Theater of the Oppressed. New
York: Theatre Communication Group. 2005. Games for Actor and Non-Actor. 2nd ed.
New York: Routledge.
Bogart, Anne & Lindau, Tina. 2005 The Viewpoints Book.New York:Theater
Communications Group Inc.
Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2002. Relational Aesthetics. France, Les Presse Du
Reel,Franc.
Carver, Rebecca. 2009. “Theotrical Underpinnings of
Service Learning”. Theory into Practice. London, Routledge.
Cohen, Robert. 1998. Acting One.
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Comfort, Kelly.
2011. European Aestheticism and Spanish
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