Not seeing any memorials to Augusto Boal on this site, I wanted to honor the brilliant Brazilian actor, educator and philosopher & also share a bit on how he influenced my work and the work of the school that I'm at the Miguel Angel Asturias Academy in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.
Augusto Boal took the concepts that Paulo Freire worked on and applied them to theater. The end result was always messy, radical activism.
What Boal is most known for, "Theater of the Oppressed" involves the presentation of a scene to the public that chronicles injustice and oppression. The protagonist always loses. The public, hopefully outraged at the loss by the protagonist, is invited to assume the protagonist's role and improvise a new solution. A moderator, known as a jester, helps to keep some semblance of order throughout all of this.
What comes out of this forum theater is oftentimes people who have a deeper understanding of their reality and who are hopefully now energized to make some change in their community.
For me, discovering Boal was a great turning point in my life as a teacher. His books, especially "Games for Actors and Non-Actors" is an amazing manual that I've used to try and bring reality into my classroom. I struggle (I truly think it's impossible to be an expert in this), but I think that it's made my bag of tricks stronger.
Boal was also a jokester. Trying to make a comment on the political situation in Brazil, he ran a fake, satirical campaign for city council. As it turned out, enough people thought what he was saying made sense he was urged to actually run for city council...and he won!
The school that I'm currently at uses a lot of Boal's concepts in our day-to-day life. We had been really excited to meet him at the upcoming Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed Conference, but it appears that this year's version will be a more somber affair with this great loss.
Augusto Boal was a giant and touched a great deal many lives. If anyone is looking for a book to read, I highly recommend anything written by this powerful, humble and influential man.