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Saturday 9 May 2009

Thank you Augusto Boal

Augusto Boal sadly died on 2nd May 2009. I had the privilege to have learnt directly from him and the world is a poorer place now. The day before he died he spent the day in a solidarity vigil with workers.

The reason for blogging today is because I spent the day in Bethnal Green celebrating & remembering his life in true Boalian style. We even had identified the global moment for silence wrongly (5 hours ahead/behind) but carried on with the moment as it was. It was the moment.

What was amazing was that Augusto made a global difference and yet too few people know of his work. The Guardian had done a piece and a few radio shows mentioned his passing, and yet his books will be in the majority, if not all universities. His techniques and methods are being used to transform realities all over the world.

Earlier in my learning Paulo Freire has had a major impact on my understanding of discrimination & oppression, he also influenced Boal thoughts & theories which transformed what and how theatre could be. Amazingly and with so much good fortune I had the privilege and opportunity to meet and spend time learning from Augusto Boal back in 2003ish engaging with him around his theories & book 'Rainbow of Desire'. A year or so ago I was honoured to have played a small part in attempting to get him nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize which now sadly will never be realised.

Adrian Jackson played a great role today and it was definitely an amazing event to be part of.

Thank you Augusto for impacting on my life in such a positive way. Important & significant moments, here, today, and in the future we can transform & we can change our reality.

Reflective Note: Today I found out that there were events in Rio de Janeiro,London, Los Angeles, Lille, Vancouver, Istanbul, Belgrade, Barcelona, Stockholm & Rotterdam and these are only places that were able to promote there event so it is likely that there were many more as I know his work is also celebrated in India, Ireland, Croatia amongst others.