Breaking Patterns, Creating Change
 Why do we have this page? Sometimes people ask us “Why should I do a workshop called ‘Theatre of the oppressed’, I do not feel oppressed”, and we say “Many have found it useful, so perhaps you will too. Why don’t you do the Workshop and see for yourself what TO (Theatre of the Oppressed) is all about?”.But, given the novelty of this medium – 95 % of the people who did our workshops had not heard of TO - we thought it best to reproduce some of the feedback we get, to help those trying to decide whether they wanted to attend a TO workshop. At the end of each of our workshops, participants have shared their insights and experiences and we have felt good because the overall feedback appeared to be positive. But it seemed necessary to have something more concrete to base our impressions on, and so we started giving out written feedback forms at the end of our workshops. Another important reason for documenting our feedback so systematically is the different contexts in which we at CCDC use it - in urban settings, in mainstream education and Medical Humanities. Hardly any documentation is available for the use of TO in these contexts in India. Up until August 2012, most of our workshops were conducted primarily in English. Discussions among the CCDC team members led us to believe that the mother tongue is often more effective and more comfortable for many participants. In August 2012, we stared using a mix of local languages. We also encouraged participants to write their feedback in the language of their choice. We have since noted that the depth of thought , feelings and emotions expressed by participants giving feedback in their native tongue was often qualitatively different from Feedback that was written in English. All Feedback was voluntary and participants had the option of being anonymous. One of the questions in our feedback form is: “Would you recommend this workshop to others?”98% of answers so far: “Yes”
We continue to learn from the feedback from every workshop and are very grateful to our participants for the effort they put into reflecting on their experience and helping us with useful comments and suggestions. Read on! |
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