Theater for Change: Two Cases of Using Theater to Unpack Queer Sexuality

• In Event: Sexuality, Society, and Pedagogy: Teaching About Sexual Diversity in the South African Context

Abstract

While the post-Apartheid South African constitution provides promise, the reality is that drug abuse, sexual violence and xenophobia are prevalent at schools as they are in broader social context (Msila, 2011). Prejudice motivated violence is a huge problem amongst South African queer people in the form of physical and sexual violence based on their perceived gender-identity or sexuality (Nell & Shapiro, 2011). The struggle for social justice in South Africa needs to be understood within the context of individual struggles for equality and dignity within a world stratified by race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality and religion (amongst others). I too struggle writing this as an activist, as a queer person, as a person of colour and as a person who is less than trusting of the academic institution.
I draw upon my own work as an activist and educator working for the organization GALA (Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action). I focus on a cases study of an interactive drama workshop designed to engage people to think about queer sexuality. Dubbed the Queer Jozi Tour, the activity facilitated a group of young people to dramatize a diverse range of stories linked to queer experience in Johannesburg. The workshop was implemented twice with a group of students in the International Human Rights Exchange at the University of Witwatersrand (largely heterosexual group) and secondly with a group of students leaders who are part of the Kaleidoscope LGBTIAQ Youth Network (largely queer group).
The facilitators use interpretations of Paulo Freire’s (1970) and adaptations of Augusto Boal’s (1995) interactive theatre techniques. While Freire’s ideas frame the community engagement, Boal’s techniques allow for these ideas to be realized in the workshop space. Boal envisioned theatre as a space to promote social and political change, where individuals can explore, dramatize, analyse and change reality.
As facilitator, my analysis is based on my own written reflections, workshop plan and notes, workshop feedback forms and interviews with co-facilitators to explore how Boal’s method offered opportunity and limits. Two of the main issues that have emerged concern embodying queer sexuality, particularly when these representations are stereotypical, and the ways in which power operates among facilitators and participants with different and at times conflicting agendas, ideas and beliefs. The central question explored is: In which ways can one extend Boal so that representations of queer sexuality and inequality can be challenged?

References
Boal, A. (1995). The rainbow of desire: the Boal method of theatre and therapy. London: Routledge.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.
Msila, V. (2011). Fighting for peace in the South African classroom: Peace education the missing link? The Online Educational Research Journal (OERJ). Retrieved from http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/62642020/fighting-peace-south-african-classroom-peace-education-missing-link
Nell, M., & Shapiro, J. (2011). Case Study: Out of the Box: Queer Youth in South Africa Today. Atlantic Philanthropies. Retrieved from http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/learning/case-study-out-box-queer-youth-south-africa-today

Author

• Gabriel Hoosain Khan, University of the Free State