Visions of change

By Roberto Mazzini (Giolli, Italy)

It's some impressions I got about the Austrian Festival Visions of Change (Vienna, 18th-26th October 1999) and the connections with some more general knots. I arrived the last 4 days and therefore I didn't attend the probably strongest event: The Legislative Theatre in the street; so I give some short view about what touched me.

The atmosphere of collaboration and common research
I have been asking myself for a long time why there is not a more strict link among people doing T.O., not even a network of contacts, neither at national level nor European, except commendable exceptions (Sweden and Austria, that I know of). An important element is, to me, the comparison of different styles of T.O. in a mutually respectful way. I see a lack of recognition of diversity while criticism, open or not, is uttered against styles that are different to that of the criticiser. To me, it is also difficult to accept certain ways to do T.O., but we need to get over this attitude that damages the common research, discourages people, creates confusion, wastes energies and creates a single dogmatic truth. In this case Boal gives a good example when he doesn't judge styles that are very different compared to his own.

I guess there still is long way to do but it's the only one for all of us. In Vienna I saw many groups showing their Forum Models, many Jokers equally different, more or less expert and I felt an attitude of mutual respect and recognition of other's work. I believe it's the right way.

Rituals/Codes
Boal distinguishes between ritual and social code. In this Festival I found the closing ritual they did on Monday exceptional, by creating short artistic and collective moments of goodbye/thanks to Boal; a new ritual created with old elements, as a bricolage, for a new sense of this T.O. community. Even the beginning of every Forum was announced by a gong, an unusual instrument in our culture, extrapolated, transferred from a context to another. I strongly believe in the invention of new codes for our movement that will be able to underline the deep meaning of some moments; mainly in this period of "uprooting", of downfall of ideologies, of cultural relativism of values, I think it useful to create codes, new, temporary, never concluded, in order to give roots to the culture we're creating.

The yearly Swedish Festivals are full of rituals too and maybe it's not by chance that Sweden an Austria are today the only two European countries where there are so well organized T.O. movements. Do code and structure enhance each other? Can they exist separately?

Organizing liberation processes (Legislative Theatre - LT)
Is it maybe a new phase that makes T.O. more effective? It's a return to a political level? It's an empty invention? These questions went through my mind and the discussion among T.O. practitioners in the mornings. From my point of view L.T. is a structure, a framework which renders effectiveness to the T.O. method for social change, organizing processes really similar to the Community Development Approach.
Since a long time I'm convinced of the importance of inserting/integrating T.O. practice in larger conceptual frames (Active No-Violence, Freirian Popular Education, Community Approach...) to increase its effectiveness. L.T., if not limited only to the strong experience in Rio, can be one of these frameworks.

It's based on process development and puts the products (Forum-Theatre and laws) in a systemic circuit of feedback; it opens the dialogue among social groups, empowering minorities, it gives voice to voiceless people not only during an evening; it thinks about oppression as a dynamic situation that needs research and not a bible. I think many of us arrived through different ways to similar ideas (see David Diamond and his Community based work, Tim Prekti in Great Britain...).

Survival and globalization
In Vienna we were not only Austrian, but also people came from the Ukraine, Germany, Netherlands, Corea, Switzerland: globalization effects? In the discussion we had there, the money problem was often cited, raising funds, economical survival, for people doing T.O.
How to face the cutting of social expenses in Europe? For people who live by this theatre, as we are, it's a central point, it's a question to survive, economically and ideally, that is to be autonomous in our own research not depending from single Institutions.
It's possible to cooperate more, to create more networks so that we could get more European funds, to have more impetus towards Institutions, for the sake of deepening both research and education of new T.O. practitioners? We believe it is, we want a stake in this national but also European network.

This newsletter, thanks to the friends of Stichting Formaat, can be a first input; we do believe in and go on to support a European network as we did in the last years. In Austria, 5 years ago, there were few groups and people doing T.O. This Festival demonstrates that in 5 years it's possible to do a lot to organize and spread off, and demonstrates that our Austrian colleagues have been working well and there is space, social, political, economical, for T.O. method and practice.
Nowadays society needs T.O., everywhere, because everywhere there still is oppression, not solved or expressed conflicts, violence in a thousand forms.

I remind you of the next appointments in Vienna and Sweden (March 2000), maybe in Vancouver Canada (2001, International Festival), in Graz (Austria, 2003) and more. I thank ARGE, the Austrian organization of Festival, and Stichting Formaat that publishes this paper.

Under Pressure 1, January 2000