Building Connections Online

As the lockdown due to the pandemic continued, CCDC began to receive requests from different communities for online Theatre of the Oppressed workshops. The requests clearly focussed on specific themes, such as ‘performance anxiety’, ‘online harassment’ and ‘coping with isolation'. We designed short theme based workshops for youth, women in professional spaces, and senior citizens. Using a couple of games followed by Image Theatre, the workshops combined embodied work with reflective activities and discussion. The feedback from participants in these workshops has encouraged us to offer workshops on similar themes, or other themes that communities suggest.

In June 2021 Radha Ramaswamy led two workshops as part of Freedom Rising, a programme supporting women and survivors of modern day slavery such as forced marriages, trafficking, and exploitative work conditions. The workshops offered the 50 participating women an opportunity to explore the idea of “self as leader”, using the tools of Theatre of the Oppressed. The workshops were offered in Tamil, the language of the participants, who were based in and around the town of Erode, Tamil Nadu. The programme includes online workshops in early 2021, to be followed by in-person workshops later in the year. The workshops were supported by Freedom Fund, and Dalberg.

June 2021 also brought an opportunity for CCDC to offer a hybrid form of remote training. From June 15-17, Radha and Ravi co facilitated a 3 day online TO training. This training was part of a pilot project called 'Peeling the Onion of Pain': Developing community based dramatherapy to support children traumatized by the conflict in Cameroon. CCDC collaborated with Dr. Roxana Willis from the University of Oxford, the Principal Investigator of the Cameroon Conflict Research Group.  A group of 14 participants - artists, activists and researchers - all based in Cameroon, were gathered together in a hall in Yaounde, Cameroon, and we facilitated the training from Bangalore remotely. The training focussed on Forum Theatre creation and facilitation, which would enable the participants to carry this methodology into communities that they were working with.

On October 14 2022, Ravi Ramaswamy led a 1.5 hour Theatre of the Oppressed online session as part of of the International Medical Education Conferece 2022 held at Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. The conference was themed: 'Reshaping Health Professions Education for Equity, Inclusivity and Diversity'. Using Image Theatre Ravi explored the themes of inclusion and diversity.