Remembering Freire & Boal

Today especially we remember with gratitude and profound respect Augusto Boal, who died ten years ago on May 2, 2009, and Paulo Freire, who died on the same date 22 years ago, on May 2, 1997. We honor their shared commitment to the belief that the oppressed are the necessary agents of their own learning, art, struggle, and emancipation.

“At the point of encounter there are neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only people who are attempting, together, to learn more than they now know.”—Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“We should know the world we live in, the better to change it. Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, instead of just waiting for it.”—Augusto Boal, preface, Games for Actors and Non-Actors

“ . . . But that’s why we are alive, to go after utopias, to go after dreams, not to reach them but go after them all over and over again.”— Augusto Boal, 2008 Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference, Omaha, Nebraska