The Concept of Theatre for Development (TfD)

 Theatre for Development refers to the theatre for community animation theatre for integrated development, theatre for the marginalised, theatre for rural development and simply popular theatre. It is a form of theatre that combines research, entertainment and education.

The Concept of Theatre for Development (TfD)

In 1977, popular theatre workers organized a Latin American Conference on Popular Theatre, which was attended by 32 groups from 11 Countries. The conference defined as follows:

Popular Theatre is that theatre which both with and from the people participates and is integrated in search for equality of classes within the Latin American reality in which art is relegated to a secondary position and the people to non-participation due to the prevailing system which is interested in maintain that situation.

In Botswana. popular theatre was defined thus:

Popular Theatre’ is the term for a variety of different kinds of performance which are used as a method of adult education. The media used for these performances in Botswana have been drama, puppetry, songs and dances. It is called ‘popular theatre’ because it deliberately aims to appeal to everybody, not just the educated elite. Performances usually take place in the open air and use the language of the area. Audience participation in singing and dancing is encouraged and after the performance the audience is invited to discuss the issues raised and consider action to solve problems.

The term was coined in Botswana in 1976 because it was felt that ‘folk media’ was not accurate, as drama and puppetry were not indigenous performing arts. The term has now come to cover a very wide range of activities. from a family welfare educator doing a simple puppet show for mothers at a clinic to a weeklong community festival. The common denominator of these activities is that they use entertainment for education. They bring fun, excitement and a release of creativity in an effort to engage people in more active and participation in community affairs.

Bappa and Ertherton, both of the proponents of the popular theatre movement defined Popular theatre as follows:

“The activity indicates, first of all, live performance. It is specifically to do with a drama This means dramatizations of stories: events which are characterized. and acted through using dialogue. It is also to do with theatre, and by this we mean the sense of a consciously anticipated performance before an audience; a presentation of a fiction, in a specific form, employing those conventions of theatre familiar to that particular audience”.

“Secondly, popular theatre indicates a direct and continual involvement with those most oppressed in the Third World societies — peasants and proletarians. It is important to note that this is not merely a statement regarding the composition of the audiences, or indeed even a statement concerning peasants both audiences and actors. It does not mean this: but in addition it means the way the content of the drama is structured. 

The integration of content and structure right at the beginning of a particular project is central to the process of popular theatre, for what is being presented is not just ‘oppression’ but a specific experience of oppression. Through the process of the drama there is a precise exploration of that experience (the concrete solution) as well as of ‘oppression’ (a theoretical abstraction). 

When the popular theatre activist says the work is by, for, and about the peasants (or proletarians) in his or her society, this is what he or she means. The work, therefore, is not a superficial protest drama. A great deal of rhetorical posturing about revolution is turned away.

The third element in popular theatre concerns the traditional performing arts: the oral tradition which also contains a sense of history. Peasants are sentimental beings, capable of careful representations and fine expressions of their social being which has determined their consciousness. 

They are aware that the immediate agents of their oppression are within their midst: headmen, kulaks, specialists in agriculture implementing gigantic agribusiness schemes; and for the same proletarian, during his or her city sojourn, the oppressors are the traders, debt-collectors, slum landlords. the lower ranks of the police force, and even their own trade-unionist leaders” (Salihu Bappa & Michael Etherton (1982). Popular Theatre Voice of the Oppressed)

In examining the nature and types of theatre on the continent of Africa, Mwansa defined popular theatre as follows:

Popular theatre in Africa, judged by what it is doing and not necessarily by what it professes to do. is pre-occupied with three issues: a search for an alternative performance culture, community education, and political action. All these focuses constitute a form of theatre that is popular in as far as it reflects issues which people can identify themselves with. Thus we can consider popular theatre in Africa as consisting of popular theatre whose focus is the art, popular theatre as an educational process and popular theatre as political action. (Dickson Mwansa.(1992). Critique of Popular ‘Theatre in Africa: Definitions, Focuses and Lessons)

Lambert tried to differentiate popular and defined one type of popular theatre thus:

Conscientization theatre, like Freire’s literacy teaching process, aims to liberate from oppression and to redistribute power into the hands of the oppressed. Power cannot be given; however, it must be taken. Consientization aims to facilitate this process, and in popular theatre, the “spectator” becomes an active agent who by extension, is the forerunner of social action in daily life. The play or drama-without-spectators is no longer a spectacle, but a dramatic means to explore reality and then act upon it in life”. (Source: Lambert, Pru. Popular Theatre: One road to Self-Determined Development Action).

Boal (1979) urged theatre artists to transfer the skills to the people so that they could use them for themselves when he wrote:

I believe that all the truly revolutionary theatrical groups should transfer to the people the means of production in the theatre, so that the people themselves may utilize them. The theatre is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it. (Boal, 1979:122).

At an international workshop organized by the Nigeria Popular theatre alliance held at three Villages of Onyuwei, Asankari and Otobi in the Akpa District of Benue state organized for Nigerian participants and attended by eight participants from Britain, Cameroon, Ghana, Jamaica, U.S.A, Tanzania and Zambia defined TFD as:

a)    A practice which is about for and increasingly by the ordinary people in both urban and rural Africa

b)    A practice of empowerment and liberation

c)    A theatre practice which has roots in the ideas of the German Brecht and two Brazilians ix ale trere and Augusto Beal. A distinct body of African characteristics have however established themselves in the practice across the continent with great mosifications to the ideas of Frele and Beal. (Abah, 1989):

Even with such multiplicity of terms, Nogueina (2002) has noted that the classification of practices in is very similar. Two key elements in the definitions are theatre’ and “development”. While development could mean different things. It seems to many practitioners it just means participation in discussions. As Abah has argued, theatre for development should go beyond conscietization. It must lead to action.

Freire’s ideas were central to adult educators as indicated by Kidd (1980) when he says:

This new tradition builds on a long history of people’s songs, drama, dance, drumming and puppetry being used in resistance against colonial and other forms of oppression. It also relates to fresh emphasis and given by Freire and others to development of a critical consciousness as a key component to the struggle.

The linkage of TFD to Brecht comes from theatre practitioners and academicians to whom Brecht was the pioneer in creating theatre that responded effectively to the needs and aspirations of workers particularly in Germany and Russia. Boat experimented with theatre as an educational medium in the context of a literacy programme ALFIN which was implemented in Peru between 1972 and 1974 and operated within the Freirian frame work (Kidd, 1980).

Again, while a well-made play seemed to be of less importance to adult educators to theatre artists, crudely done works were like an insult to the people because ordinary people have also done good things in their manifestation of art (Kerr, 1995), In real situation of TFD the question presenting refined work does not seem to arise arid what matters most is the message. Like Freire’s generative words and themes, dramatization of topics and issues familiar to target groups easilyattracts attention and provokes thought.