Games for Actors and Non-Actors: What We Played, January 10th, 2012

In 2012, T.O. Philly takes up residence at the Rotunda for a number of classes and workshops on Tuesday evenings. Our first was on January 10th, with two dozen people who came to play games. These games come from a variety of sources: theatre games used by actors to warm up before rehearsal, trust-building and non-competative games from the "New Games" movement, and techniques that examine social relationships from the Theatre of the Oppressed—all have a folkloric quality that can be brought to almost any group.  Here's what we played:

Circle Games:
• Flying Dutchman: Ghost ships that race to safe harbors without colliding (hopefully).

• Group Juggling: Throwing and catching each others names, as well as juggling balls.

• Ooh-Ahh: The "ooh" goes one way, the "ahh" the other, and then the names start flying as games get combined.

Walking Games:

• Number Speeds: Speed up and slow down at the shout of a number, then do it without breaking eye contact with one other person.

• Handshakes/Hi-Fives/Hugs/Hellos: Each action (shaking hands, high-fiving, hugs, and waving hello) must be performed with a specific partner on cue. Combined with the previous game it's a beautiful mess.

• Lines and Trinagles: Secretly pick two people and form a shape with them—either a straight line or an equilateral triangle—without letting them know who they are. Oh, and everyone else is trying to do the same thing as well.

• Hagoo: Two teams form a corridor, one on each side, and each send a member to walk toward each other down the middle. The walkers cannot smile or laugh, though opposing team members try to make them do so, thereby getting them to join they're team.

Rhythm Games:

• Bronx/Paper/Scissors: Pairs play each other and the loser joins the winner's gang, backing 'em up as they play other RPS gang leaders. Everyone ends up in two big gangs, and then just one gang with no one left to fight.

• Carnaval em Rio: Same situation as above, one instead of throwing fingers, players throw rhythms—sounds made the mouth and movements made by the whole body. Pairs "morph" there rhythms into a unified compromise of individual movements and sounds, then morph with others into to fewer, bigger groups, until everyone is doing the same thing in unison.

• Rhythm Challenge: With one unified rhythm, the group faces the same way. A challenger steps out, faces the group and proposes a new rhythm, which members can defect to or refuse. Larger group wins with new rhythm being adopted by everyone or no one, and then a new challenger steps out, and so on.

Image Theatre Games:

• Animal Ritual: Everyone is secretly assigned an animal. They all enter the space in the manner of each animal—moving, making noises, foraging for food, and eventually interacting. Before exiting, each animal must find their mate (hopefully) of the same species.
• 10 Seconds of Noticing: In pairs, one stands with eyes closed while the other sculpts themselves into a motionless Image. The other open the eyes for 10 seconds, then replicates the image to the best of their ability. Adjustments are made by the original sculptor before switching roles. Individual images can then evolve into group images, movements, or anything else that adds layers of nuance, language and fun to the exercise.

Check out other rules for games on this site. Add your own by posting a comment below!

T.O. Philly News 2011-2012

2011 was an active year for Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed, full of games, workshops, performances, travels and actions that brought this work into the wider world. On the local front, we rounded out two years of work at the Attic Youth Center with a 6-week service learning project that brought LGBTQ teens and allies together to address the issue of bullying. T.O. Philly facilitators also did some work with the Occupy Movement, as well as two dozen German volunteers who are in the U.S. for a year through Action Reconciliation Service for Peace. We'll have a post up soon with more info about our collaborations with these organizations, and look for info about our upcoming workshops on Tuesday evenings at the Rotunda.

Analytical Image from the Rainbow of Desire

Beyond Philadelphia, T.O. Philly represented at the annual Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference in Chicago with a workshop called "Making Mistakes" about what we can do when this work does not work. In the summer we led a day-long Image Theatre workshop at Camp Onas with Quaker youth from all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and this fall a trip to Providence brought us to lead a training with English for Action, an ESL organization that uses the pedagogy of language education to enact social change.

Besides announcing our classes and events (of which there were many this past year) we're now using this blog as a general resource for all things Theatre of the Oppressed, including:

• Games: Rules for playing games and how the games can be applied to the work we do.
• Graphics: For public use by anyone who does Theatre of the Oppressed and wants an image for a flyer or the web.
• Glossary: In case someone's uses a T.O. term that others don't understand, now there's an online resource to ease up the jargon.

All of these resources are open source—please use them and attach a link to our blog if you do. And please contribute: if you have questions, variations on games, graphics or definitions for terms, leave us a comment or drop us a line and we'll add you in!

Thanks for reading. Hope to see you in 2012!

The Vehicle Game

We are starting to post rules for games and techniques! If you've used this game, have variations to add, or have questions about how this and other games are played, leave us a comment.

Can you guess what this vehicle is? Let us know.
Guess correctly and we'll send you a poster!

This is a theatre game that's good for building teamwork, working under pressure and developing the language of images. You need enough people to make two or more teams of 5 to 10 people each. You'll also need space for these teams to work simultaneously and separately.

The Game:
Each team uses their bodies to construct the image of a vehicle—that is, a mode of transport that will be recognizable by the members of the other teams. The vehicle must also be able to travel across the space as a moving human sculpture that includes sound effects. Once all the teams have completed this task, one team shows their stationary vehicle. The others make observations and guesses as to what the vehicle is. Then the vehicle moves and makes noise, either confirming the guesses or not. The round ends with the team revealing what their vehicle was, and the next team has a go.

Variations:
This game can be played with any sort of mechanism, be it a household appliance with moving parts (such as a clock or a dishwasher), a ritual performed by a person or people (brushing one's teeth or going to vote), or larger social systems made miniature by the metaphor of theatre (education, commerce, government, patriarchy, childhood, etc.) As with all Theatre of the Oppressed games, the permutations are endless!

Photo above of one team's vehicle image in a workshop at the Muktadhara III Theatre of the Oppressed Festival in West Bengal. Leave us a comment below with your guess as to what they are. Guess correctly and we'll send you a poster!

A Theatre of the Oppressed Glossary

Like any profession or educational system, Theatre of the Oppressed has its own terminology. Some terms are derived from more traditional forms of drama, others from other modes of anti-oppression pedagogy, such as popular education. One of Theatre of the Oppressed's goals is to "multiplicate" (from the Portuguese verb "multiplicar"—to multiply), meaning to make its language and methodology accessible to as many people as possible. So far this aim has been largely successful: Theatre of the Oppressed is now used by millions of people in more than 70 countries.

In the hopes that more people will put Theatre of the Oppressed into practice, we are starting a glossary of terms here—"starting" because this is an open document. If you want to add an entry or alter a definition, leave a comment on this page!

Terms Commonly Used in Theatre of the Oppressed:

• Actor: A person who performs an action, whether onstage or off.
• Antagonist: A character in conflict with the story’s protagonist.
• Cop in the Head: A Theatre of the Oppressed technique aimed at dismantling internalized oppression.
• Difficultator: A facilitator who offers challenges to a group as part of a workshop process.
• Dynamization: The process of adding movements, sounds and words into a piece of Image Theatre.
• Facilitator: A person who directs the flow of a discussion or workshop. Literally “one who makes things easy.”
• Forum Theatre: A play performed in front of an audience in which audience members can step onstage, take the place of a character or characters and change the story’s outcome.
• Games/Gamesercizes: Group activities that get people comfortable with themselves and each other, build trust and develop skills necessary for working with the language of Theatre of the Oppressed.
• Ideal image: A desired, improved variation on the Real Image in Image Theatre.
• Image: A motionless sculpture made from human figures.
• Image Theatre: A form of Theatre of the Oppressed that uses collectively constructed still images to convey meaning.
• Joker: The facilitator/difficultator in a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop.
• Kinesthetic: Relating to the body and/or movement.
• Mask: An image that an actor takes on to embody a character.
• Mirror: When an actor or actors take on the image, movements, sounds, words, characteristics and/or actions of another actor.
• Objective observation: Responding to an image with commentary on its physical nature alone.
• Oppressed: Anyone who is subject to others having power over them.
• Oppressor: A person who has power over another person.
• Player: Participant in a theatre workshop.
• Protagonist: A person who performs an action, whether onstage or off.
• Rainbow of Desire: A specific therapeutic theatre technique, and also a family of techniques, aimed at dismantling internalized oppression.
• Real image: A main character from whose perspective a story is told.
• Sculpt: The process of creating images with people’s bodies.
• Self-sculpt: To create an image with one’s own body.
• Spect-actor: A participant in the Theatre of the Oppressed, both spectator and actor.
• Subjective observation: Responding to an image with commentary based on perception, speculation and intuition.
• Technique: An intricate Theatre of the Oppressed exercise, more complicated than games.
• Theatre of the Oppressed: A system of theatrical games and techniques that examine and dismantle dynamics of oppression.
• Theatre pedagogy: The use of theatre to develop language and social awareness; Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of theatre pedagogy.
• TO: Theatre of the Oppressed.