International Workshops on the TFD

 The growth of TFD worldwide and in Africa has followed a
pattern that began with international workshops followed by a fall out of
national organizations and CBOs.

The first international
workshop that considered arts in development was the UNESCO workshop organizedin India in 1972 on the use of folk media in Development. Adult educators
attending the workshop were dissatisfied with media packages (Kerr, 1995) and
opted for the participatory bottom up approach

A second international
workshop was Chalimbana workshop held in Zambia in 1979.Though attended
predominantly by African delegates, there was representative from U.S.A. After
Chalimbana, theatre artists and adult educators in Botswana. Swaziland and
Zambia created informal networks that led to exchange of experts.

The third Workshop was the
Thunder Bay workshop in 1982 held in Canada. This brought together artists from
Africa, Canada, the USA. The workshop was galvanized by the slogan ‘We will
turn the world bottom up” Out of that meeting rose the International
Popular Theatre Newsletter which was edited by Zambia.

The fourth international
workshop was held in Bangladesh in 1983 out of which emerged the International
Popular Theatre Alliance. The Alliance became the umbrella organization for
Popular Theatre workers. It was headquartered at the International Council for
Adult Education. Other Popular Theatre Alliances such as the Nigeria Popular
Theatre Alliance Zimbabwean Popular Theatre Alliance and later Zambia Popular Theatre
Alliance bear the same name because of what was agreed upon in Bangladesh. The
Alliance continued with production of the newsletter but on rotational basis.
The International Theatre institute has not worked to expectation because it
has been run on voluntary basis. When formed in 1983 it was attached to the
Phillipino Educational Theatre Association and later to ICAE.

In August 1983,
another international workshop was held at Murewa in Zimbabwe. Africa popular
theatre activists and academicians from Eastern, Central, Southern and North
Eastern and West Africa attended the Zimbabwe workshop. The workshop gave birth
to the Union of African Performing Arts with Headquarters in Cameroon. The
union was instrumental in organizing the Kumba workshop in Cameroon the country
home for the Secretary General of the Union Dr. Ndumbe Eyoh. The newly formed
Nigeria Popular Theatre Alliance in 1989 organized an international workshop
held in Benue State.In1990, the international Council Adult Education organized
international workshop at Rehoboth in Namibia which brought participants from
Africa. and theatre skills into local groups
and together with local groups they engage communities in the theatre for
development process. In theatre by the
people animateurs/experts from outside train a select group of artists drawn
from the community in the process.

It is an extension
of theatre with the people. The target groups are the organizers, actors and
disseminators of information. The role of animateurs is limited to that of
trainers. Local groups identify and analyse problems, make and perform plays
and conduct discussions under guidance of animateurs. The message is more
important than the spectacle. Artists use minimal props and act more or less on
empty stages and use their own physical and emotional resources to create
spectacles that carry the message. At the end there is some plan for follow up
to deal with identified solutions to the problems.

Theatre for the people
predominated the work of TFD practitioners during the 1970s and 1980s. In the
1990s, researchers and practitioners, particularly in colleges and
universities, have been searching for TFD that should be controlled and’owned
by target groups.

Methodological approaches

Methodology means a
way of teaching and disseminating information. There are two methodological
approaches: performance-based and workshop based.

Performance based approach

 In this approach a play, dance, song, puppetry or game
drives the process and post-performance discussions. In most cases, research
work is minimal and follow up is not emphasised.

Performance-based approaches
are primarily theatre for the people, rather
than theatre with or by the people. Performance-based TFD is hypodermic in nature and is based on an
assumption that behaviour change would occur when the product is injected into
the community.

Due to the emphasis on
entertainment, performances can draw audiences together. Its weakness is that
the performances are controlled and executed by outsiders, who put high premium
on the visual and physical and less on the emotional and cognitive part of
human life (Mwansa and Berman, 2004) Because of this the performance-based
approach may eschew messages and may only be remembered as a spectacle.

Workshop-based approach

Workshop approach requires of
animateurs and target groups or representatives of such groups to share
knowledge and skills using a workshop as a methodology for learning. Animateurs
make a conscious effort to involve the target group in the identification of
problems or issues, analysis, play making, post-performance discussions and
follow up. The message, audience participation and the product are all given
equal attention The education part lies in
the process and not in the product. The play is a mirror that extends the work
done in the process. The product becomes an educational process when again it
is accompanied by deep discussions and plans for follow-up.

Other
methodologically oriented types of TED are “SimultaneousDramaturgy” and “Forum Theatre both types attributed to Augusto
Boal, the Brazialian Theatre actvisk and a close colleague to Freire. Lambert
has explained the methological approach of each one as follows:

“In
Simultaneous Dramaturgy Professional
actors perform a short scene suggested by a local person, halt the action at
the crisis point, and ask the audience to offer solutions. The actors become
like puppets and perform the actions strictly on the spectators’ orders. The
“best” solution is arrived at by trial, error, discussion, the audience
consensus. Thus the action ceases to be deterministic (scripted); everything is
subject to criticism and rectification. Everything can be changed by any
spectator at a moment’s notice without censorship. The actor does not cease
his/her role as interpreter, but now instead of interpreting the solitary
author, s/he has to interpret the whole group”.

“In Forum Theatre the spectator and actor converge. The
participants tell a story with some social or political problem, then
improvise, rehearse and present it to the rest as a skit. The audience is asked
if they agree with the solution. Any spectator is invited to replace any actor
and lead the action in the direction that seems most appropriate to him/her, not make speeches, but to act to
evoke responses from others “on stage”. 

<

p style=”line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 3.6pt; margin-top: 11.8pt; margin: 11.8pt 3.6pt 0cm; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;”>This goes much further than “Simultaneous Dramaturgy’, as the
spectator loses his/her safe seat; s/he cannot just talk but must act
immediately, putting into practice what s/he thinks (which is always less easy
than just saying it), hoping for (but not always getting) cooperation from the
others both on and off stage”.

Others

There is continuous inventing and reinvention of
terminologies. Other types include: “Conscientization theatre”,
“Comgen” and “agitprop”

“Conscientization theatre”, is
derived from the theory of conscientization attributed to Brazilian Paulo
Freire. Conscientization consists of action and reflection. The term was first
used by Lambert in his attempt to classify TED and later taken up by Mda
(1993). Conscentization theatre fits more into theory and not type.

Comgen theatre: this comes from two wards
“community” and “generated” to mean “community
generated”. It was Mda’s coinage. It is a theatre that fits into theatre
by the people.

Agitprop theatre: comes from two words
“agitation” and “propaganda”. It was theatre that promoted
propaganda in favour the course for workers course in Germany and Russia. It
agitated workers to take action. Though no education is neutral treatment of
education as propaganda is looked at with disfavour because it robs the
learners of independent and impassioned decision making.