TOgether Project. Evaluation Report

The evaluation in the educational process must take into account the complexity of the processes itself. In addition, the focus of the assessment in adult education has to be on the adult. This seemingly trivial or tautological affirmation is made to emphasize that before looking at the methodological and technical issues, it is crucial to focus on the subjective presence in the process. Therefore, the evaluation should be played out in the field of the relationship between the subjects. This perspective leads to a model of shared and constructive actions, as well as to the importance of aspects of an emotional and motivational nature. In the transition of these ideas to the principle aspects, we can say that thinking about the evaluation of adults means entering into a permanent perspective of change, which does not necessarily take place in a linear fashion but in a continuity-discontinuity game. The Theatre of the Oppressed is an aesthetic method that aims to transform the reality that was created by Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal. It stimulates the critical observation and the representation of reality, envisioning the production of consciousness and concrete actions. Theatre of the Oppressed proposes the elimination of the barrier between the stage and the audience to establish a free transit between the artists and the spectators, who are invited to act as subjects and producers of the culture and knowledge, and to discuss concrete proposals in a playful and democratic space. The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is currently a widely used method, although for a long time it has been a niche practice and not considered an authentically theatrical approach by experts and professionals. Even if the mass of popularity index does not represent a qualitative value in itself, the spread of TO, on the one hand, denotes the interest and, in some way, the success in terms of the effectiveness of the method. On the other hand, this spread of the method requires a good understanding of the purposes and objectives of Augusto Boal’s theatre. From these assumptions the European TOgether Project (TP) was born. Coordinated by GTO Lisboa, seven partners of experts with experience of application of the TO approach in community groups from seven European countries (Portugal, Germany, France, Croatia, Scotland, Spain and Italy), have been working for three years and the network is currently active in the TOgether International Theatre of the Oppressed Company under the artistic direction of Barbara Santos. This TO practitioners’ community (they call themselves “art-tivists”, a portmanteau blending the two words “artist” and “activists”) have socialized the layered experiences during the TP process, giving shape to a research network. TP was funded in the first three years (2011-2013) from the Grundtvig Program of the European Commission, and the first goal was to create a defined curriculum, shared among all members, to qualify the TO trainer (“kuringa” or “joker” as called in the TO environment). This unusual figure of engaged expert and researcher also has the task of directing the performance of TO and facilitating training sessions, embodying the three souls of the method: aesthetics, politics as well as pedagogy.