Theater of Engagement
Most engaged teaching, learning, and discovery in higher education tends to originate on campus and connect outward. However, in the arts the direction is frequently reversed. A notable example is the 13th annual international conference of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO), May 31-June 3, 2007, at the Rarig Center on the University of Minnesota West Bank campus. Information about the conference, which features Augusto Boal, the cofounder of PTO, is available here.
According to its web site,
PTO is a not-for-profit (IRS 501C3) organization with the following mission: To challenge oppressive systems by promoting critical thinking and social justice. We organize an annual meeting that focuses on the work of liberatory educators, activists, and artists; and community organizers.
This organization developed from a series of four conferences held in Omaha, Nebraska from 1995-1998. The conference was based on the ideologies and works of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal. Using pedagogy and theatre, they each worked with oppressed peoples of the world to develop critical literacies and actions to overcome social systems of oppression.
Biographies of Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire are on the PTO web site. They provide striking examples of how critical social thinking, and art that exemplifies and dramatizes that thinking and moves it forward, can arise out of dire sociopolitical circumstances.
Another noteworthy aspect of the conference—and of engaged scholarship generally—is that it brings together educational institutions that don't often connect with each other: The Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota hosts the conference with Metropolitan State University Urban Teacher Program and St. Paul Central High School. Sponsorship is provided by the Institute for Advanced Study and the College of Liberal Arts Scholarly Events Fund at the University of Minnesota, and Macalester College. The media co-sponsor is KFAI Fresh Air Radio.