Inspringtheater Inspringtheater

Inspringtheater

Inspringtheater is a daughter organization of Boerengroep with as main purpose to start conversations about difficult topics and to stimulate emancipation of vulnerable people using participatory theatre. Inspringtheater works with the ideology and the methodology of the Theatre of the Oppressed (TO).

Inspringtheater makes forum theatre plays, gives workshops and courses.

The team consists of one employed coordinator and several trainers, directors and actors on an on-demand basis. Inspringtheater is closely cooperating with Boerengroep and therefore linked to the Wageningen University (WUR). It means that a part of the activities is focused on students and employees of the WUR and on the context of the green themes of the WUR and Boerengroep. But that doesn’t exclude other themes and groups of people at all.

History

From Boerentoneel to Inspringtheater

Boerengroep and Boerentoneel

Inspringtheater arose from Stichting Boerengroep. Stichting Boerengroep is founded in 1971 to let a more critical and practice-oriented voice be heard by students at the agricultural university in Wageningen (the WUR). The stance is that the education is too theoretical and painting a wrong picture of the reality of farmers. Boerengroep uses multiple methods to let the voices of the farmers be heard and to work towards a more social, just and sustainable food system. Think about organizing critical lectures, film screenings and courses, but also linking researchers and students to farmers so research can be done that is actually matching the needs of the farmers in practice.

In 1972, one year after the foundation of Boerengroep, a group of their people started a theatre group: Boerentoneel (Farmers Theatre). Boerentoneel made theatre plays about pressing topics in agriculture, followed by discussions with the audience. Topics that were addressed in the plays were for example succession of family farms and the disappearance of facilities in rural areas.

Inspringtheater

Around 2000 Boerentoneel followed the movement of Augusto Boal and his Theatre of the Oppressed and there was more emphasis on participation of the audience. The name changed from Boerentoneel to Inspringtheater (Jump in theatre) and because of the shift towards a technique developed to address all different kinds of oppression, the door opened towards a wider scope of topics. Because of the close relationship with the university, topics that are pressing for students and people working in academia were often worked with, for example scientific integrity, study pressure and discrimination. However, the focus of Inspringtheater is still often on the agricultural topics.

Theatre of the oppressed

Inspringtheater is part of a global movement using Theatre of the Oppressed. Theatre of the Oppressed is developed by the Brazilian theatre maker and political activist Augusto Boal. The starting point is that theatre is not being made about, but by people in a oppressed position. It doesn’t speak about a target group, but about a source group. People from the source group are central and play an active role in the process from the beginning until the end. When a play is being made, the actors are preferably people from the source group.

Theatre of the Oppressed is participatory theatre. That means it is not only to watch, but mostly to do. Everyone is making the story together. When played for an audience, the audience is invited to participate and come on stage. It is not about sending a message, but about having a dialogue.

Theatre of the Oppressed consists of a range of methodologies, exercises and games that are all part of the process in which stories of people in oppressed situations are told and tools to deal with these situation are being explored. In the end it is not about individual behaviour, but more about revealing and exploring a system that causes certain behaviour and trying to change this with the aim of making humanity more humane.

For more information on theatre of the oppressed and on the activities of Inspringtheater, have a look at the website: www.inspringtheater.nl/en.