Igniting transformational change through applied theatre: Jardim Romano's Floods and Estopô Balaio unleashing an overflow of possibilities

ABSTRACT

Applied theatre extends beyond traditional performance and entertainment, using theatrical techniques to address social issues and engage communities. In this paper, we emphasise the importance of a socially and politically engaged approach to Applied Theatre (AT) using Paulo Freire's and Augusto Boal's works as primary references to support transformational change and bring about social resistance. A small-scale case study was carried out with participants and collaborators of Estopô Balaio, a collective theatre group in Brazil that has worked for over a decade with a community in a deprived peripheral neighbourhood, Jardim Romano, in São Paulo. Key findings highlight the concept of feasibility in AT, where the collective's efforts overflowed with possibilities for change and empowerment by embracing its residents as collaborators and agents of change in their realities, being thinkers, makers, and citizens through continuous work instead of isolated actions.

KEYWORDS:

• Applied theatre
• theatre in communities
• Paulo Freire
• Augusto Boal
• transformational change
• Estopô Balaio

Addressing a visceral need

Theatre has the potential to ignite social transformation when utilised as a tool to empower individuals in collective resistance to the status quo. We draw upon the influential works of Brazilian authors Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal, specifically Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968 – Chile) and Theatre of the Oppressed (1970 – Argentina), to showcase how raising awareness of oppressive contexts can foster societal changes. Furthermore, by sharing the experiences of Estopô Balaio – a collective theatre group closely working with an underserved community in São Paulo – we aim to transcend cultural boundaries and apply these principles globally. According to Edison Martins¹, ‘As these inequalities are less observed and worked on by the government, the more these inequalities tend to alienate, separate and divide people’. Hence, this paper explores how Applied Theatre (AT) can empower individuals engaged in group activities, fostering a sense of community and empathy and, ultimately, responding to a visceral need for reflection and transformative practice.

The primary objective of this paper is to document the experiences of individuals whose environment has been transformed through theatre from Freire’s and Boal’s perspectives. Additionally, we seek to trace the journey of these empowered social agents and their contribution to social transformation through the arts. This research sheds light on the fundamental need for social change and the profound impact theatre can have by addressing it.

Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire in applied theatre

AT, also known as interactive/participatory theatre, is characterised by the active involvement of the audience in assessing their perspectives, experiences, and knowledge (Kershaw 1992; Prentki and Preston 2009; Taylor 2003). This process allows the audience to contribute to the development of the performance. For instance, this includes granting them the ability to steer the performance so that they can also lead an approach usually focused on engaging communities, often in non-theatrical settings such as schools, cultural centres, prisons, hospitals, or public spaces where the targeted participants are located (Boal 2007).

Boal is considered a ‘guru’ of AT (Prentki and Preston 2009) due to a political consciousness-raising approach to his work. Nonetheless, the concept was coined in academia and not from practitioners (Nicholson 2005), therefore, it is not referred to in Boal's literature – over and above the expression has only emerged in Brazil in the last decade. Although the term is not significantly used in Brazil as it is in the UK, the USA and Australia, the practices concerned are consistent with it (Coutinho 2010; Nogueira 2008; 2019). We approached Estopô Balaio’s case study through this combined perspective which describes their dialectic elaboration of providing for untested possibilities of being more (Freire 1996).

In compass with Freire’s and Boal’s literature, this experience aims to unfold a sense of ownership and empowerment amongst participants, in this sense evidencing a more direct and meaningful engagement with the community. The work is usually facilitated by professional artists willing to create opportunities for dialogue, reflection, and social change through agents’ active participation in their own environment, thus activating the inédito viável – or untested feasibility – to change contexts of dependence and marginalisation of social groups.

Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is an aesthetic method devised by Boal that uses theatre as a tool to stimulate dialogue in order to transform oppressive realities. This transformation happens through concrete social actions produced through organisation and solidarity between oppressed social groups (Santos 2019). In line with Freire's concern – that people need to be literate (to read the world, one must read the word) –, Boal’s view undertakes the need to use education to unravel the world and its political implications. For both authors, reading and literacy are more than decoding written words. Furthermore, it shows how power dynamics, ideologies, and structures are implicated in shaping society structure. This approach is viewed as a key means for raising the political literacy of people (Santos 2019). Boal believed that people should learn about the meaning of their social reality as citizens; this in turn would enable them to make an intervention. An essential step to transforming their reality is to fundamentally acknowledge it as an unnoticed practicable solution, in this case, through a set of theatrical lenses aimed at creating one’s narrative about their reality. In other words, generating a possible consciousness to reach a stage of perceived practicable solutions for a real consciousness (Freire 1996; Landy and Montgomery 2012, 132). Taylor (2003, XXV) connects this with ‘the realisation that theatre can be a potent transformative agent and that it can open our eyes to new ways of seeing and understanding [the world]’.

In this paper, the theatre group Estopô Balaio – made up of Northeastern Brazilian migrants, artists, and Jardim Romano’s residents, in an underserved peripheral area in the far east of São Paulo – are examined, so as to analyse their contexts, conditions, and transformations as a result of Freire’s work and in AT Boal view. Estopô is an expression which can be interpreted in English as biting one’s tongue until it is no longer possible to stay silent. Estopô’s case was conceived through a process of multiple interactions seeking for inéditos viáveis against the unchallenged demobilising context they were living in.

Memory and Narrative – setting thematic universes and unnoticed practicable solutions

The initial encounter among the members of Estopô occurred in a local cultural centre CEU (Unified Educational Centres)², where frequent episodes of floods significantly impacted the children's creative processes affecting their narratives of living. Hence, the CEU’s theatre practitioner – intrigued by the stories shared by the children and teenagers from another programme called ‘Teatro Vocacional’³ – gathered these young actors and two professional actors to collaborate on a project.

In the beginning of the partnership, the project modestly stood as a means for bringing together different residents’ narratives displaced by the floods. Having experienced drastic weather events, especially in the year 2010, the residents faced the daunting task of physically and symbolically rebuilding their lives after 3-extensive months of catastrophic flooding (Figure 1).

Figure 1. (a) Residents were moving to temporary accommodation.¹⁰ (b) Graffiti by Cristiano Ignoto – a local artist of Jardim Romano.

The project's first year was engaged in collecting narratives that engaged artists as visiting residents; startlingly, many of the non-local artists learnt they were sharing the same cultural identity with residents as migrants from Northeast Brazil. Over five years, Estopô created The Water Trilogy comprising three plays. The first one, ‘Soon the fish will jump’, was portrayed solely by local youth artists, incorporating the residents’ stories and perspectives as central elements. The show was created to have the street as the stage but also ran elsewhere in the neighbourhood and inside official buildings, such as schools, CEUs and nearby cultural centres. Consequently, residents in the audience could identify themselves within the narratives and social realities portrayed by the group. A sense of community was strengthened through shared experiences and the creation of common bonds (Dewey (1938) 2005, 244).

‘What is Left from the River’ continued to explore the theme of floods, with a particular focus on the concept of ‘home’⁴ and flood hardship. At that point, non-local artists joined the local artist in devising the play. As a final act, those residents who had inspired particular scenes were invited to share their reflections as part of the performance. The production was presented to different audiences in the city centre and in various neighbourhoods which had endured the same kinds of social fractures.

‘The City of Invisible Rivers’ – the last part of the trilogy – had more interaction with different artists and residents. It was a four-hour long itinerant performance that started at a central train station, followed by a forty-minute scene in a train journey; it continued through Jardim Romano’s territory and culminated at the river (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Play: ‘The City of invisible rivers’ beginning of the show. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v = hlTaADKItm8

Taking on board – audience and triggers mechanisms

As a spectator in City of Invisible Rivers in 2015, Spadotto (2021) accessed an array of sensations, emotions and reflections. The journey according to her, depicted a clear gentrification process in São Paulo as the train moved away from the city centre, unveiling the city's depreciation. Infrastructure issues were evident in the pavements, or the lack thereof, bearing the scars left by the floods that had affected the area for over a decade. While these physical marks were still visible on the walls, the invisible scars in the residents’ souls remained unseen. Nevertheless, their resilience was invaluable and prompted them to resist and re-exist – a term created by the group to describe their routine when they ‘were forced to reinvent life, to create prospects for survival and re-existence’.

During that Act, one of the residents invited the spectators to have coffee and cake, a common practice among neighbours, while sharing their stories. As the barrier between the audience and actors was being dissolved, reality and fiction exposed the invisible aspects of life to a broader audience, allowing an ‘expansion of experience’ (Dewey (1938) 2005, 325). With that veil lifted, new possibilities and different alternatives for realities could be reconsidered by shared experiences – fostering sensitivity and critical thinking. In working-class contexts, adversity is prevalent, and individuals are expected to linger and accept their circumstances. However, Freire ((1970) 1996) points out that these adversities are limit-situations that reveal extreme injustices and dehumanisation. These triggers serve as turning points, prompting individuals and communities to confront their oppressive conditions and develop critical consciousness. These circumstances recondition individuals’ actions to transform them into opportunities for liberation and social change by engaging in dialogue, reflection, and collective action.

The troupe’s fieldwork played a crucial role in creating with – and within – their communities. They engaged in ethnographic work for extended periods, collecting ‘data’/narratives through interviews and direct observations that fomented a creative process to acting improvisation experiments based on these findings. Their artistic research, grounded in the community and its narratives, reflects Freire's concept of praxis as the ‘reflection and action upon the world to transform it’ ((1970) 1996, 33). In the same way, integrating theory and practice into a theoretical practice; and combining reflection and action into a reflexive action are vital aspects of AT as Practical Research (Mackey 2016).

Participants can challenge assumptions, expand their understanding, learn from, and generate new insights through this active experience – as a form of political and pedagogical action aimed at the transformative potential of education as a political act within critical pedagogy (Boal 2019; Freire 1996; O'Neal 1968). Agreeing with Freire (1996) on this topic, in our perspective, Estopô’s approach involves working ‘with’ rather than ‘for’ others, emphasising a collaborative and participatory approach.

In the following sections, we present excerpts from our findings and discussions of Estopô’s transformational change and social resistance.

(i) CEU refuge – existential fatigue and detachment

Estopô’s members were all enrolled at CEU. Keli (founder member of Estopô, a local actress), recalls that she used to go to the library and spend hours reading to forget her problems, and there she could also start to make theatre.⁵ The impact of these Centres is immeasurable; they provide openings for cultural expression and talent development, giving opportunities to underserved areas to progress socially (Fabiano 2010). These centres have transformative effects on individuals’ lives, fostering personal growth, empathy, a sense of commitment, and offering people some dignity and access to education, culture, and leisure (Fabiano 2010; Silva 2014) by (i) providing suitable venues for cultural activities, (ii) deploying the conscious management of public space, (iii) offering staff training programmes and subsidised presentations, (iv) creating community engagement, and (v) delivering strategic planning and budgeting. Amongst other means, they ensure the sustainability and success of programmes like Teatro Vocacional.

Theatre became a refuge for Keli, offering an escape from the physical abuse she was facing at home. She emphasised the importance of exposing her children to the theatre environment, where they can also access art and develop into mature and open-minded individuals. Keli's daughters have been attending Estopô rehearsals since the collective’s beginning.

(ii) Children as transformational agents – being more and theme-problem

The children in this research, Lia (pseudonym), who is 13 years old, and Pedro (pseudonym), 11 years old, played a crucial role as agents for social transformation, challenging the perpetuation of social inequalities in accessing cultural assets (Souza 2016, 28). They had their first exposure to theatre during their years at CEU. Their drama teacher, Carol (non-local actress), endorsed the view that their involvement in theatre lessons and their exposure to art profoundly impacted the community. The children’s weekly engagement and participation in Estopô’s scenes provided a pedagogical process for the community that catalysed the transformational movement. According to Keli and Bruno (former member of Estopô, founder member of collective Acuenda, and local actor), more families were engaged after they started to collaborate with Estopô. However, the parents had different viewpoints; some did not understand their children's interest in theatre, whilst others recognised the value it brought for them. In an informal conversation with an Estopô’s member, a local parent who happened to be a drug dealer, expressed appreciation for having a safe space for their child to learn something different, potentially diverting them from following the parent's paths. This brief acknowledgement by a parent highlights the potential impact of theatre on the community’s children in providing alternative opportunities and future pathways. Bruno acknowledges that, ‘There was a transformative impact on the neighbourhood, but I think the kids had the biggest impact because they were more interested than the young people in doing the activities’. Ultimately, the children's narratives of floods sparked the project, allowing tragedy to be reinterpreted, on the one hand, and to establish crucial connections between artists and the neighbourhood, on the other (Figure 3).

Figure 3. ‘The city of invisible rivers’ – the first year that children officially participated in a scene. Retrieved from https://coletivoEstopôbalaio.com.br/a-cidade-dos-rios-invisiveis

Still, the presence of a cultural centre in a disadvantaged area does not guarantee local attendance or the children's participation. It requires the implementation of effective and comprehensive programme strategies – i.e. Teatro Vocacional – to manage and promote social development. These initiatives aimed to achieve broad accessibility, encompassing geographical, thematic, visual, and interpretive aspects.

(iii) Challenging the fixed mindset – untested feasibility into testing action

Estopô’s street performances facilitated meaningful public exchange and enabled a wider audience to experience theatre. For them, the creative process, rehearsals, and performances on-site were vital to their artistic development and lives. In Freire’s words, it represented transformative responses to an urgent matter of hopelessness in the neighbourhood. Beyond creating a sense of community, they raised awareness, convening locals and empowering them to shape their own realities. This ongoing effort challenged fixed mindsets and promoted critical perceptions, fostering reflections on social conditions from and within their lived space. Additionally, an unconventional theatre set, such as Jardim Romano’s streets, provided many residents with their first contact with the theatrical language.

However, as Dewey ((1938) 2005) argues, art, as a powerful form of communication, sometimes encounters obstacles when locals are unfamiliar with the language of theatre, leading to friction in communication. There is a dispute of imaginaries⁶ regarding the recognition of theatre as a language and as a feasibility. This fact became evident in the early days of Estopô's process when actors laid down on the street – as part of their creative research –, and their performance was misunderstood as a mass killing, reflecting the community's distrustful routine in that space. Using untested feasibility as means to challenge mindsets, and encouraging communities to dispute existing norms, systems, and structures, is revolutionising the imaginary by bridging this gap into tested actions to bring about positive social change and liberation (Carol – founder member of Estopô, non-local actress).⁷

In line with Boal's Poetics of the Oppressed, Estopô utilises theatre as a language to encourage spectators to intervene and fully engage as subjects. The group's engagement with the residents leads to reinventing life, creating prospects for survival and re-existence. In this interim, the community responds to their theatrical production and significantly impacts the group's interaction. Estopô seeks dialogue by drawing from the inhabitants’ memories and using art references to re-elaborate their stories; binding with Freire's concept of utopian pedagogy of denunciation and announcement, where knowledge and denounced reality are used as cultural action for liberation. Through codified situations, Estopô progressively unveils the subjects’ understanding and capacity to address social issues (Boal 2019; Freire 1981).

(iv) The dimension of cultural action

Estopô's local engagement initiated a process of instrumentalisation and training among young artists, immersing them in the production and design of performances. Theatre funding played a crucial role in supporting ten local artists – particularly those who are the primary breadwinners in their households – for four years to continue their work.⁸ Estopô's theatrical work gave them a foundation career pathway that later on was continuously funded by various grant applications⁹, enabling the sustainability of activities and establishing a headquarters, Casa Balaio. The space has become a hub for artistic residencies, cultural events, and collaborations with other collectives, such as rappers, musicians, graffiti makers, street dancers, writers, and poets. The residents’ collaboration provided a new perspective that challenged the professional actors (non-local) to establish new ways of thinking – creating a critical hope for the future. The expansion to more art forms and reflective exercises, meant new theatrical perspectives could be better assessed as a language, overflowing the feasibility of partnerships. Similarly, by challenging traditional theatrical structures and inviting spectators to become active participants and protagonists of/in their own stories, Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal 2019) empowers individuals and promotes transformative experiences. Estopô blurred the boundaries between daily life and stage, addressing social and political issues and redefining the audience's connection with their city and peers (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Dihana D'agua – Bruno's character in ‘The city of invisible rivers’ – Retrieved from https://coletivoEstopôbalaio.com.br/a-cidade-dos-rios-invisiveis.

Documentary theatre, urban intervention, and installations are the means through which Estopô brings forth the social reality of the neighbourhood. According to Mackey (2016, 46–48), the inhabitants of a place engage in ‘performance of place practices’ in their everyday lives, which can contribute to changing perceptions of those places, especially when associated with unease. Despite the unsettling circumstances in Estopô's work environment, they employ affective approaches to transform the perspectives of both residents and outsiders. Residents, such as Keli, actively advocate for the neighbourhood's accomplishments to challenge marginalisation, whilst Bruno underscores the significance of presenting a reality that transcends negative narratives propagated by the media or rumours.

Those actions emphasise the need for ongoing community engagement and align with Freire's assertion that political action with oppressed communities must be a ‘cultural action for freedom, and for this very reason, action with them’ (1970) 1996.

Being part of it through praxis

All forms of art can have transformative potential because of how they influence our thinking. However, the impact of art, whether for good or for bad, depends on the commitment and humanity of its creators (Boal 2019; Freire (1970) 1996; Van Erven 1988). If we intend to intervene in social and political discourse through artistic processes, we must be mindful of whom these productions might serve. To contribute to a fair society, we must constantly reflect upon our work and be aware of whose interests we are serving. Snyder-Young (2013, 138) stresses that artists are ‘embedded in webs of power and beholden to institutions for funding, access … ’ so one must be aware of the institutions’ agendas as funding bodies. Informed action is of utmost importance when it comes to constantly practising critical thinking. Moreover, when engaging in praxis, which involves acting and reflecting upon our actions (Freire (1970) 1996, 186), practitioners cultivate response-ability (Haraway 2016, 35) through co-constructive and co-creative practices with participants; for instance, ensuring that multiple agencies become part of the performative action flow.

Conclusion: Re-existing to resist

In this paper, we have presented an overview of Estopô Balaio and its relation to Freire, Boal and AT concepts, highlighting their democratising practices and transformative impact within their community and forging their means of production. Through arts strategies, the theatre group mobilised the community, amplified participants’ voices, and found an alternative response to an oppressive condition by challenging and confronting hegemonic discourses. Converging with Freire ((1970) 1996), who used education to critically question and change realities by enhancing and releasing people's autonomy through social and economic awareness. Estopô’s trajectory sheds light on the pedagogical dimension of theatrical work, valuing children's narratives, collaborating with local artists and residents, and supporting artistic training (Viganó 2019).

By having streets as their stage and prioritising cultural action, Estopô broadened partnerships, constantly exchanging experiences between artists and residents in a democratic exercise (Pompeu and Vasconcelos 2020.). Their work raised social and political issues, restoring the audience's relationship locally and reaffirming the group's political and aesthetic stance. Furthermore, Boal's (2007) view was endorsed by the understanding that theatre is an effective form of social and political expression, most inherent to human beings. Estopô achieved the professionalisation of the local youth in exercising their agency and solidarity to transform their realities and environment, and at the same time, they were able to find a solution to share the means of production and empower people to challenge imposed social conditions. ‘Theatre is a weapon, and people should wield it’ (Boal 2019, 98). Political art takes place through these humanising dialogues, hence the experience is formative of citizens as critical subjects in society as the outcome of the artistic research process. In this way, a training experience is a liberating pedagogical artistic experience that must consider the subject in its sociocultural context more than a simple fruition process or a knowledge transfer (Freire in Santos 2018, 254). Cultural action and artistic work with a community are only meaningful if it embraces its residents as collaborators and agents in their realities, respected as thinkers and makers, and citizens through continuous work rather than isolated actions.

The coherence and consistency that Estopô put forth, working closely with the community, transcend the frontiers of Brazil into a cross-cultural application. Rather than generalising the case study, this is an invitation to reflect on a socially and politically engaged approach to AT, Freire and Boal’s concepts which supports transformational change and social resistance. Estopô’s work contributes to understanding artistic practices as pedagogical and political actions, challenging hegemonic discourses and seeking alternative pathways through the untested feasibility that might be another possible reality in the future (Freire (1970) 1996). ‘Perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself, but it is surely a rehearsal for the revolution’ (Boal 2019, 135).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Edson Martins, sociologist and doctor in education from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) extracted from https://32xsp.org.br/especial/sao-paulo-das-desigualdades, accessed 25 June 2023.

2 The Unified Educational Centres (CEU) are public facilities aimed at education created by the Municipal Education Department of São Paulo in 2001 and located in the peripheral areas of Greater São Paulo. This program is dedicated to early childhood, primary and secondary education as well as to offering quality services in sports, recreational and cultural practices to the population in general. The city of São Paulo currently has 46 CEUs which allocate more than 120,000 students (Silva 2014).

3 Vocacional is a cultural project created in 2001 by São Paulo Municipal Culture Department. One of the main goals is to reduce/eliminate the existing borders between professional and non-professional theatre practices. ‘Placing the democratisation of the means of improvement in theatre; thus, study and reflection in theatre as a possible guideline for this equation. In other words, the democratisation of the means of aesthetic production’ (Fabiano 2010, 39).

4 https://coletivoEstopôbalaio.com.br/o-que-sobrou-do-rio, accessed 25 June 2023

5 See more in section (ii) Children as transformational agents.

6 Imaginaries in Portuguese are: imaginários. In this context, a close translation to a revolution of imaginaries challenges fixed mindsets.

7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zofF-cGICic&t=1446s, accessed 25 June 2023

8 Grant: Lei de Fomento ao Teatro.

9 Grants: Programa VAI, PROAC de Primeira Obras em Artes Cênicas.

10 Accessed 25 June 2023. (a) Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5bTsJlJzEQ / (b) retrieved from https://mural.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2012/12/06/apos-3-anos-jardim-romano-relembra-enchente-que-durou-meses/