Main description:

Jana Sanskriti is internationally recognised as the most iconic post-Boalian Theatre of the Oppressed operation in the world today.

This fully illustrated book by the Bengali company's founder and artistic director Sanjoy Ganguly, edited by Ralph Yarrow, collects and explains their programme of workshop exercises, placing them in the context of their social and activist work. A set of interviews with Ganguly complements these practical sequences, drawing in topics such as the role of the joker, the nature of development, participation and agency, aesthetics as transformation, and Theatre of the Oppressed in the context of a market economy.

Contents:

Foreword Eugene van Erven

Preface Ralph Yarrow

PART 1: Workshops Sanjoy Ganguly

Developing Boal's Games into Social Metaphors

Index of Exercises

Introductory Exercises

While Walking

Feel the Protagonist

Express Emotion

Variation, Finding Oppression

Indian Parliament

Fish Society

Game of Power

Expression with Body

1

Joint Sculpture

Circles of Emotion

Sculpting in Pairs, plus Variation

2

Human Knot, plus Variation

Variations of Grandma's Footsteps

The Deer and the Tiger

Crossing the Border

Spontaneous Group Sculptures

Development of Status Game

3

Forum in a circle

Variation on Columbian Hypnosis, plus further Variation

Blind Game

Storytelling

4

Catch in the Circle

Newspaper Theatre

Points of Contact

Invisible Friend

Soundscape and Images

Characters' Stories

5

Moving as Still Image

Experiencing the Lives of Others

Glass Cobra becomes Trade Union Game

PART 2: Interviews with Sanjoy Ganguly and short essays

Interview by Robert Klement

Interview by Robyn Kirkby

Interview by Clement Poutot

Interview by Joschka Kock

Interview by Clement Poutot, on Vivekananda

Sanjoy Ganguly: The Political Aesthetic of Jana Sanskriti: Theatre

as an Art of Creating Connection

Coda: Sanjoy Ganguly: 'Aesthetics as Transformation'

Postscript: Sanjoy Ganguly: A critical space: Forum, Jokering and the problem of sympathy

Letters from Augusto Boal and Sanjoy Ganguly