The 29th Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference

Democracy in the Ashes: 

Voices of Resistance, Songs of Transformation

  Pre-conference workshop Songs of Protest, Songs of Justice July 23, 2026

Pre-conference workshop Introduction to Theatre of the Oppressed with PTO Board Member Mark Weinberg
July 23, 2026

Conference: July 23-26, 2026
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Host Site: Augsburg University

Online Conference Day: July 19, 2026

Post-Conference Forum Theatre Workshop with Julian Boal July 26-28
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Host Site: Mixed Blood Theater

Join us July 23-26 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA for a deeply participatory conference where we lean into inquiry, dialogue and creative expression as ways to challenge the forces of domination, share learning and knowledge, and to create change! Artists, activists, organizers, educators and anyone working to dismantle oppression, this is for you!

The conference includes the following events:

• 3-day post-conference workshop with Julian Boal: July 26-28, 2026 hosted by Mixed Blood Theater
• Half-day pre-conference workshop with PTO Board Member Mark Weinberg: July 23, 2026
• Pre-conference workshop learning songs of protest and resistance, July 23, 2026
• The PTO Conference itself: July 23-26, 2026
• Online Conference day, July 19, 2026

About this year’s conference:

My voice is in tune with a different language, another kind of music. It speaks of resistance, indignation, the just anger of those who are deceived and betrayed. It speaks, too, of their right to rebel against the ethical transgressions of which they are the long-suffering victims. –Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage

In a time when public education, democracy, community organizing, the arts, and critical pedagogy face extraordinary threats, this year’s conference invites educators, activists, artists, and community members to gather in solidarity. We recognize the ashes of programs dismantled, communities marginalized, and voices silenced. Yet, in these ashes, we also see the seeds of resistance and the songs of transformation. Across the world, oppressions continue to intensify on many fronts, but people continue to build mass struggles to survive and even (when at all possible) thrive.

The unique ways that Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal approached education and theatre provide inspiration and tools to resist the dehumanizing strategies employed in our current political moment and ways to transform the remnants of former structures into tactics to

transform our world into a more just and equitable society. Join us in the L’Étoile du Nord, the Star of the North, Minnesota, to forge relationships of solidarity and to build something new from the ashes of what has been dismantled. Minneapolis, which sits on the stolen lands of the Dakota and Lakota peoples as well as the Anishinaabe people, claims the motto En Avant, or Forward and provides a space for us to remember what has been taken but more importantly to look forward to what can be, what must be.

This gathering provides opportunities for people to share and expand on their methods to create participatory justice in spite of our current material, economic, and political conditions. In these bleak times we offer not only hope, but real, practical ways to move toward a new society, regardless of who or what party is officially in power. We will amplify the voices of those resisting the consolidation of executive power in ways that trample human rights, including the current wave of kidnappings and deportations and violence against those who protest. We will explore work that attempts to offer liberating visions and methodologies, including restorative and transformative justice initiatives, abolitionist activism, healing practices, calls for reparations, organizing across the country, environmental justice and the fight against environmental racism, food sovereignty, housing rights, and other ways people are reckoning and grappling with the current moment. And we will sing songs that ask us to transform our current moments of despair, anger, and fear into practices of radical hope, love, and joy–joy is resistance!

Check back soon for more information on conference housing, registration, etc.

To find out how to submit a proposal, please click this link.