Actorvism: Change With Attitude

• In Event: Performance as a Social Context for Transformative Educational Praxis

Abstract

This presentation will introduce the “Actorvism” method of theatre both as a means of personal and community change and as research. As an activist and a therapist my work straddles genres using theatre to educate and to transform. In 1998 I founded Street Spirits Theatre Company, a program that engages youth with challenging life experiences to create performances that explore the nature of the social problems that inform their experience of life. Membership is voluntary and numbers vary; currently, 18 young people participate in the program. Street Spirits has performed and taught all over North America.
In Street Spirits youth learn performance, play creation and advocacy, using their skills and life experience to address problems in the world such as racism, family violence, substance use, sexual exploitation, poverty and others. Participants have specific other responsibilities, including creating posters, advertising, video production and other duties as they arise. Performances are created in interactive, improvisational group processes. There are no scripts. Play creation identifies and dramatizes what participants are concerned about, representing an immediate and valuable exploration of their qualitative experience. Performances are presented before a live audience with an expectation that audience members will stop the play and act out potential solutions to the problems in each scene. This creates a brainstorming opportunity for members of the community to resolve issues. Recording the entire process provides data regarding what matters and what the local population believes will work to resolve the problems they experience. Taking part as a performer or being part of the audience are transformative experiences for actors and audience members alike as well as creating a unique form of qualitative research. The term “Actorvism” was coined by a performer in the Street Spirits Theatre Company to describe the work the company does. It defines the work well, and creating a new word fits with the approach. I hope to share the process and potential of play creation and performance as we practice it.
Perspectives
Audience interactive theatre has been around for many years in North America and across the globe. Persons familiar with social action theatre will recognize the influences of Augusto Boal (1995), Michael Rohd (1998) and David Diamond among others. Boal created the techniques known as Theatre of the Oppressed that form the basis of my work with Street Spirits. Rohd created the “Hope is Vital” project using theatre to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS. David Diamond operates Headlines Theatre in Vancouver and provides excellent training in social action theatre technique. Street Spirits has built on those processes. Working in micro, mezzo and macro terms creates awareness and change on a number of levels—individual, community, and in some cases, legislative terms.

Author

• Andrew Burton, Street Spirits Theatre Company