Methods

Kate Malone Smith, drama tutor and Head of Performing Arts led the teaching on this project. We made initial contact with Travellers through established agencies (Traveller Support Networks) in North Wales and Cheshire. Students researched Traveller culture through lectures, readings, newspaper stories and Internet sources. They learned about the work of Augusto Boal through practical workshops on Image Theatre and other techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed. (There is a short lecture on Image Theatre available on video.) We found Chapter 3 “The Arsenal of the Theatre of the Oppressed” of Boal’s book Games for Actors and Non-Actors (1992) really useful in preparing our encounters with the Traveller groups. We also found the video lectures and conferences offered by the project helpful in thinking about ways of working.

The structure we used took the form of an initial encounter where students would plan some activities designed to allow everyone involved to find out about each other, a second encounter where Forum Theatre techniques were used and where the Traveller participants could learn how to use such techniques by themselves, a third session where the participants could design their own Forum Theatre ideas, and a final encounter where the work was presented to an “audience”. The relationships established are likely to be long-term and sustainable after the end of the Minerva Project.