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Augusto Boal 2005 interview on 2005 DemocracyNow

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    Interviewer: -February.
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    This is Democracy Now and now we're going
    to go to, go to, near by Brazil.
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    Uh, and we are joined, uh, in our studio
    and off our house studio here,
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    by one of the extraordinary people's
    artists, of-of, Latin America.
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    Uh, we go to Brazilian artist
    and activist, Augusto Boal.
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    Who sees theatre as a dialogue and an
    opportunity to act out social change.
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    Drawing on Paulo Freire's
    Pedagogy of the Oppressed
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    Boal developed Theatre of the Oppressed,
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    out of his experimental work at the
    Arena Theatre in São Paulo,
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    during the 1950's and 60's.
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    Boal took the theatre to factories and
    farms throughout Brazil,
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    and developed plays around the experiences
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    around people silenced
    by poverty and oppression.
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    Boal's plays were increasingly censored
    by the government,
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    and in 1971, the military dictatorship
    imprisoned him for four months,
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    where he was-when he was released he was
    forced into exile and spent 15 years
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    in Argentina, Portugal, and France,
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    before returning to Rio.
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    Theatre of the Oppressed techniques from
    quote "invisible theatre on the streets
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    to solution orientated form theatre
    spread around the world."
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    Boal was in New York this week running a
    theatre workshop at the Brecht Forum,
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    and he joins us now in our studio.
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    Welcome to Democracy Now.
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    Boal: Thank you very much.
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    Interviewer: It's a pleasure to have you.
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    Uh, talk to us about how you got started
    in the 1950's, uh-uh, in using
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    theatre, and art to-to, open up, and
    explain and-and help folks in-in Brazil
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    be able to deal with their social conditions.
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    Boal: Yeah, uh, in the 50's I did not
    do Theatre of the Oppressed,
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    I did theatre like everybody else.
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    And I cho-called to spectate to come.
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    You charge a price, for the-the ticket
    and then you do plays.
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    The best that you can.
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    But soon I understood that as I was
    doing good plays, wonderful plays
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    for people that were good writers, for an
    audience that came just to look at it,
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    and say "okay it's nice."
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    and then they went away,
    and nothing else happens.
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    And always for me, play should
    be more than that.
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    Shakespeare used to say-not used to say,
    but he said in Hamlet,
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    that the theatre should be, and is,
    like a mirror.
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    In which you look at the mirror and
    see our vices and our virtues.
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    I think that's very nice.
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    But I'd like to have a mirror, uh, with
    some magic properties in which we
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    could-uh, if we don't like the image
    that we have in front of us,
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    to allow us to penetrate into that mirror,
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    and then transform our image.
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    And then come back with our image transformed.
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    The act of transform, you always say,
    transform she or he who acts.
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    So, to use the theatre as a rehearsal
    for transformation of reality.
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    This was my idea but not my practice,
    until the dictatorship was, uh,
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    every time more severe on us.
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    And started, uh, forbidding our plays
    and not allowing us to do our plays,
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    to do nothing.
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    So when we lost our theatre, we lost
    everything, we found theatre.
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    Interviewer: So-so this would've been
    the military dictatorship of the late 60's-
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    Boal: Yeah, it started from the 50-uh,
    64, uh, and then it lasted till 80 and something.
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    And some structures are still there.
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    Uh, we talk about now we have democracy.
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    What kind of democracy?
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    Democracy is a word you can
    fill in with whatever you want.
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    I believe that words, they are like trucks,
    they are like means of transportation.
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    You can put inside what you want.
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    And democracy we call democracy many
    countries in which you have to choose
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    between two people that are very rich,
    and buy time on the television,
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    while democracy Greece in which the women
    did not vote.
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    We call democracy anything.
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    We say in Brazil we have democracy,
    but that's not true.
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    Half of the population cannot read or write.
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    Half of the population live under
    the poverty limit of life.
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    So that's not democracy.
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    Interviewer: Uh, Paulo Freire
Title:
Augusto Boal 2005 interview on 2005 DemocracyNow
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
27:41

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