This 4-5 hour interactive workshop mobilises Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (TO)—developed in Latin America amid dictatorship—as a creative, critical method for memory studies. Building on my practice-based PhD and documentary Performing the Memories of the Cultural Revolution which was presented at MSA 2025 in Prague, I invite participants to collectively explore how embodied, participatory forms can surface contested memories, negotiate intergenerational difference, and rehearse democratic agency.
After a brief introduction with short clips from my film to situate the methodology (memory, repression, affect, and resilience), we will move into three facilitated TO segments: Image Theatre (composing and reshaping embodied “tableaux” of remembered scenes); Rainbow of Desire (externalising and examining internalised oppression and affect in small groups); and Forum Theatre (spect-actors intervene to test alternative actions and narratives). Throughout, we will connect Chinese Cultural Revolution memories with Latin American memory activism, asking how embodied remembrance can resist oversimplified or instrumentalised narratives and strengthen pluralistic debate.
The workshop directly speaks to the conference strands Art/Media Representations, Resilience & Resistance, Repression/Justice/Human Rights, Generations & Education, and Trauma/Affect/Emotion. Participants will leave with a transferrable toolkit: concrete TO exercises, facilitation prompts, ethical guidelines (care, consent, do-no-harm), and ideas for integrating TO into research, pedagogy, and community work. Scholars, students, artists, educators, and memory activists—whether or not they have theatre experience—are warmly welcome. The session will be conducted in English.
20260731T154520260731T1715America/Argentina/Buenos_AiresWORKSHOP: Performing Memories: Theatre of the Oppressed for Democratic Memory Work (from China to Buenos Aires)SV404 (ART)MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
