Theatre of the Oppressed: Linking Research, Political Commitment and Pedagogical Perspectives

The intellectual path of Augusto Boal ran parallel with his own life. “A path made by walking”, we can say using Machado’s words. In my personal experience, working as an educator I discovered the necessity of a pedagogical framework to sustain the practice; thinking as educationalist I realized the importance of the political meanings of education; acting as a Theatre of the Oppressed professional I understood the importance of keeping links between theory and praxis, personal and academic research. To summarize, in this paper I try to connect some points between pedagogy, politics and research using the method of the Theatre of the Oppressed as a framework. The first part described the reasons of my interest in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (P. Freire) and then on the Theatre of the Oppressed (A. Boal). Later on, the focus is on the meaning of the words ‘theatre’ and ‘oppression’ to explain the aims and the roots of the Theatre of the Oppressed. At the end of the paper the project is presented: “TOgether”, a European research-action path aimed at constructing a curriculum for the Theatre of the Oppressed trainer as well as experimenting with the aesthetic potential of the method.