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Theatre Activation – Transformative paths

Theatre Activation – Transformative paths Introduction A very important sector in the panorama of current day theatre uses drama technique as a catalyst for awareness and growth, applying its methods towards the development of human potential. Most of these groups use, to varying degrees, the actors’ formative process, such as: self-knowledge, sense memory, improvisation, body awareness, character analysis, etc., to create a theatre process that is part of a social project, developing pathways and methods that can help connect microcosm to macrocosm; man/woman to the surrounding community; the self to the other. These processes, in the long run, tend to become performances, offering real opportunities for "collective self-awareness", creating "empathy fields", breaking down social stigma. Art and therapy: a dialectical binomial In many circles the word "theatre", especially in a social or mental health rehabilitation setting, is linked to th...

Barcelona, summer of ‘75, Franco dethroned and the Ramblass sure was cooking!

1975 Barcelona, summer of ‘75, Franco dethroned and the Ramblass sure was cooking! Musicians were playing 24 hour gigs at the Olympia . Theatre and alternative forms of expression, hitherto hidden or in exile, were running rampant in streets, storefronts, cellars, factories - wherever there was space and a willing audience. Flamenco guitarists and cantaors played on through the night, as winds of excitement and change flowed in through the hotel window. I couldn’t sleep – so I just sat looking down at the plaza, savouring it all in. People coming out of alleys and basements, peeking out from behind half open doors, checking to see if the coast was really clear - so many years of Franco repression still in the air. And lot’s of hugging and hot smooching. Ah, it was like Woodstock all over again – the freedom feel. I was on tour with the “Living Theatre”, fresh in from Denmark where we had performed the “ Money Tower ” at Eugenio Barba’s Odin teatret i...