Exploring TO Workshop Facilitation
by Warren Linds, Regina, Sask., Canada

In the August 2001 Under Pressure, the editors ask: "What experiences do you want to share [about joking]....how do you think it can be learned?", and ask jokers of the world to share their views and experiences in Under Pressure. I share the interest Formaat and Under Pressure have in documenting experiences in joking Theatre of the Oppressed as I have found a dearth of materials that reflects on TO workshop facilitation.

I have been engaged in popular theatre for the past 15 years and have facilitated adaptations of Theatre of the Oppressed in communities and schools in Regina, Saskatchewan Canada since 1991. (In particular I was trained in, and have been using Headlines Theatre of Vancouver's Power Plays and Theatre for Living approach). In 1995 I began a doctoral program at the University of British Columbia where I have been exploring my practice of TO workshop leadership through a performative writing and research methodology.

I have been reflecting on my many experiences facilitating the collective creation process in TO workshops (note: this study has concentrated primarily on the workshop process that creates Forum Theatre presentations. I call my role in this process facilitation, as joking is only one aspect of it). What does it mean to facilitate Theatre of the Oppressed work? How can the methods of TO be incorporated into learning to become a skillful facilitator? How might one teach others in the 'arts' and 'crafts' of facilitation and joking? These are some of the questions I have been addressing as I look at the (I plan to share more about this recently completed study of my experiences joking TO workshops in future issues of Under Pressure).

I have come to realize that one important aspect that needed to be addressed involves the development of my skills as a responsive facilitator - through, for example, the many TO exercises that activate sensory awareness. This meant, for example, investigating the role of my whole body in the facilitation process.

This past year, a book I co-edited (with colleagues Brent Hocking and Johnna Haskell) was published. Unfolding bodymind: Exploring possibility through education is a collection of essays on the experiences of educators using an integration of our whole body and mind (which we call bodymind) in our work. We explore what happens when knowing emerges through our senses, emotions, language, intuitions and relationships. We develop this by looking at the role of the body in various educational areas. The essays integrate theory and analysis with diverse personal and pedagogical experiences, as well as introduce the 'enactive' approach which looks at knowing as not only developing in our minds, but also in engagement in the type of joint and shared action that happens in Theatre of the Oppressed workshops and Forum Theatre performances.

As an artist educator I engage in the facilitated process of Theatre of the Oppressed work, which is always filled with rapidly evolving uncertainties in a dialogical, collective and improvised process. In my chapter of the book, Wo/a ndering through a Hall of Mirrors....A Meander through drama facilitation (as well as in the editorial conversations which precede each section) I explore the question, "How can my facilitation beyond 'facts' and 'rules of inference' to include intuitive actions based on the common sense judgements that have accumulated through my experiences?"

Through an interplay between such enactive conceptions of knowing (where I am part of a particular series of TO experiences which are shaped by, and unfold in, the workshop environment), and through embodied knowing, (where my learning depends up on an integration of feeling thought action that emerges from being 'tuned into' the workshop process) I contemplate experiences of interaction with what is created by participants (including from warmup games and energizers). This is a process which has been described as 'letting go', as I begin to pay attention to what I am thinking/feeling/doing in moments of interaction with others. Writing is also an important part of this process as I interweave the exercises I conduct with what emerges for me as facilitator in these activities. Thus, I explore many sensing, and sentient experiences I have as facilitator as I engage in the structured improvisation which is the workshop process.

I hope these texts help others learn about the possibilities in TO facilitation that involve more than workshop planning and go beyond the examination of the joker's role in Forum theatre performances. I would be interested in other jokers'/facilitators' reflective approaches to TO workshop facilitation and how they document this process.

Under Pressure 8, November 2001

More information on Unfolding bodymind is available through the publisher's website at: http://www.great-ideas.org/bodymind.htm
Contact: w.linds@sk.sympatico.ca