Alright, so this website is already changing shape from what I originally anticipated.

Tomorrow I am teaching an acting class. Since the election (and a bit before it actually), I have been absorbing myself into the writings of Augusto Boal and his Theater of the Oppressed. Inspired by that, I have scheduled a time to use a space at the public library to play some acting games and do some exercises.

I’m following the four stages that Augusto Boal outlines:

Stage 1: Knowing the Body – “A series of exercises by which one gets to know one’s body, its limitations and possibilities, its social distortions and possibilities of rehabilitation.”

Stage 2: Making the body expressive – “A series of games by which one begins to express one’s self through the body, abandoning other, more common and habitual forms of expression.”

Stage 3: The theater as language – “One begins to practice theater as a language that is living and present, not as a finished product displaying images from the past”*

Stage 4: The theater as discourse – “Simple forms in which the spectator-actor creates “spectacles” according to his need to discuss certain themes or rehearse certain actions.”

I’m excited about this. I’m nervous about this. I’m hopeful about this. We’ll see where it lands.