Canadian Director for ‘Healing Art’ Theatre Workshop:Oct 3-5

Local ‘Theatre for Living’ practitioner, Xris Reardon of the Taking Up Space Project, run in association with the Borderlands Coop, Melbourne, has contacted PWF about ‘Wildest Dreams’, a three day workshop that aims to:

About Theatre for Living

Xris, like many of us, is passionate about increasing community communication and very excited that Award-winning Canadian Director, David Diamond, of Headlines Theatre in Vancouver, will be here to share his skills and techniques in ‘social action theatre’.

Specific issues David addresses include:

• violence and suicide prevention,
• anti-racism workshops,
• youth empowerment,
• bullying and community development.

Melbourne Workshop Venue

The Augustine Centre, 2 Minona Street, Hawthorn.

Time

3-5 October, 2007; 9.30am to 5.30pm.

Cost

$210 – concession
$270 – waged
$320 – organisations
$180 – subsidised

For more info contact

Xris Reardon T: 03 9388 8014 M: 0428 293 008
E: theatre@vic.chariot.net.au

Cheques payable to ‘Borderlands’ Mail to: 50 Kingfisher Gardens, East Brunswick 3057.


Brisbane & Adelaide will also host sessions

Brisbane
24, 25 & 26 September 2007, 9am to 5.30pm
Queensland Community Arts Network, QCAN – The Valley Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane.

Adelaide
28 & 29 September 2007, 9.30am to 5.30pm
CAN SA Big Space – 234A Sturt St Adelaide S.A. In cooperation with the Community Arts Network CAN SA.

Social change through Theatre for Living

THEATRE FOR LIVING has grown out of Augusto Boal’s activities AND David Diamond’s interest in, and commitment to, a ‘systems view’ of the world. The notion that a community is a large, living organism, and therefore we need to think about how we can embrace AND consciously work with that larger consciousness, using a primal language (the theatre) to help it tell its stories?

THEATRE FOR LIVING is about empowerment – about people being the experts in their own lives and being able to use theatre as a means of creating change. The process gives a community the opportunity to express their concerns – using a symbolic language to investigate alternative approaches to hard-to-talk-about issues. This is a first step towards dealing with difficult topics – moving towards open communication and realities that living communities want in an active and meaningful way.

THEATRE FOR LIVING gives workshop participants the opportunity to experience theatre in a different way not as something outside their lives but as a natural language. If we can reclaim cultural expression as part of our everyday vocabulary, a common language used to tell stories, we are one step closer to celebrating and taking control of our lives.

APPLYING THE TECHNIQUES
In a move towards open communication that begins to create ‘desired realities’ the techniques have been applied to mainstream theatre, interdisciplinary work, personal, community and team development, anti-racism and violence prevention, environmental action, education and counselling.

About David Diamond

David has directed over 350 community specific theatre projects on issues such as racism, gender roles, violence, addiction, self-esteem, First Nations’ Residential Schools, globalization, language reclamation and many, many others. David has directed workshops throughout BC, Canada and the USA, as well as in Namibia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Italy, Singapore and Finland.

He has also been involved in writing and/or directing of all Headlines main stage plays. He has pioneered the development of live, interactive Forum Television and web casting.

David a 1975 graduate of the University of Alberta with a BFA in acting. He worked as a professional actor in theatre, television and film throughout Western Canada until 1981 when he co-founded Headlines Theatre. He is the originator of Headlines’ Theatre for Living workshops, based on Brazilian Director Augusto Boal’s ground-breaking Theatre of the Oppressed.