ABSTRACT
Performance ethnography uses performance to make structures of oppression visible. Augusto In the Theatre of the Oppressed people are invited to come on stage to recount an episode of oppression in their lives. In Brecht’s theatre a spectator also delegates power to the character, but she reserves the right to think for herself, often in opposition to the character. Augusto’s project helped open the space for a new performative theatre, a social theatre that stands alongside, sometimes in place of ‘aesthetic theatre’. Social theatre takes place in the places where people are struggling, where they feel oppression, in slums, shelters for the homeless, prisons, refugee camps, hospitals, schools, classrooms, orphanages, homes for the elderly, in places where persons are displaced, vulnerable, marginalized. The Theatre of the Oppressed, as a form of Critical Pedagogical Theatre, can empower persons to be subversive, and to be active agents in resisting oppression.
