The sibling conflict, with new small sister
-”Go change into something decent. Why are you wearing this mini-skirt, my sister should dress properly and not walk around in this stupid short skirt!” The young guy towers over his sister and acts threatening.
-”But all the girls wear the same… I think I can dress the way I like” the sister shouts back. Their conflict escalates and the brother hits the sister.
This is a small scene a group of youngsters from Vale da Amoreira showed. At this point Gisella steps forward in the group of young actors and asks -to actors, audience and everybody in general: “Now how could this have been solved differently?” After a few general suggestions an especially responsive person from the audience is invited to come forward. A huge lad now takes the necklace of the girl and takes over the role of Michaela. The scene starts with the girls dancing, the brother comes up to them and starts again: Go change into something decent!… Only this time he is talking to a man his own size. The new actor tries to stand up for his right to wear what s/he chooses, but to prevent conflict.
The Grupo de Teatro Fórum do Vale de Amoreira is demonstrating the way Forum Theatre works.. by doing it. Forum theatre is a way to both work with groups of actors, engage them in something which will give them self-esteem AND reach out to others by doing it, in the schools, in the neighbourhoods.
Afterwards I meet some of the actors. They are between 15 and 34 years old, and meet twice a week to practise. They think of their themes themselves, and do not use any written scripts. In the videos they talk about themselves. The videos are in Portuguese.
Recent Comments