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facilitating participatory theatre
for social & ecological justice
Triennial, National Workshop
Four-day Residential
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Dates
Dec 2027 To be announced Venue To be announced Language Bilingual (Hindi & English) Facilitators Anju Uppal & Prabir Bose Anju and Prabir have been theatre practitioners for over 30 years, dedicating their work to scripting, directing, and engaging in community theatre. Their journey includes participating in an amateur theatre group, facilitating theatre workshops across the country, and using theatre as a medium for social dialogue and transformation. Prabir has served as visiting faculty at the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) for over 20 years. Together, Anju and Prabir have co-facilitated the course Participatory Theatre for Development at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) for the past 15 years. Recently, they were invited to perform Conversations Around a Dilemma as part of Theatre From The Streets, a pilot project by New Perspectives Theatre Company in New York, collaborating with artists from Palestine, Lebanon, Venezuela, and India. Their one-act play, Superman ka Best Friend, written and directed by Anju and Prabir, explores the theme of children as silent observers of the world around them, even when their voices go unheard. Set against the backdrop of the pandemic, the play creates a space for both children and adults to engage in a deeper conversation about “development” and reimagine a better world. Performed in an intimate theatre format, the play is staged for small audiences in alternative venues, such as academic institutions, workplaces, neighborhoods, and even people’s homes. |
In the context of an all-pervading culture of silence, how do we facilitate liberatory processes and practices that enable groups and communities to build critical thinking, assess their everyday reality, challenge dominant power relations, reclaim control over collective spaces, and tell their own stories and sing their own songs for cultural action?
Informed by the works of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal, the workshop - rehearsing change! Facilitating Participatory Theatre for Social & Ecological Justice - will adopt an experiential learning approach to create thought-provoking dialogue around social and ecological justice. By the end of the workshop, participants will have practiced participatory play-making, performed theatre pieces, and honed their skills in facilitating theatre processes with groups and communities. With the belief that each one of us have the right to “act,” we welcome development actors, theatre activists, and anyone passionate about reimagining a better future, and interested in exploring theatre as an empowering process to rehearse change, including:
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