The 29th Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO) Conference, Minneapolis 2026

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 workshop with Julian Boal July 26-28
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Host Site: Mixed Blood Theater

“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 

Para español          Para português

Check back for registration for the conference here!

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 10, 2026 (with notification by the end of February). NOTE: Submissions can be made any time before that date. We will do our best to expedite the review of submissions from outside the continental United States to maximize planning time for those who submit. There are members of our volunteer staff who work to stay updated on the current situation related to international travel to the U.S. and can answer many questions accordingly. We can also provide official documentation of the conference and your anticipated presence should you be applying for a visa or an ESTA.

Submit your proposal here: CLICK HERE

Democracy in the Ashes: Voices of Resistance, Songs of Transformation

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!

We seek proposals for workshops and panels that actively engage participants in practical, hands-on exercises, critical dialogues, and performances that explore stories of resilience, resistance, community power, and diverse strategies for understanding and acting in the world. 

This conference is a platform for sharing knowledge, experiences, and building new coalitions. We encourage proposals that not only address challenges but also celebrate innovative solutions and victories that bring joy and inspire change. 

To best support and amplify the work of Minnesota-based, local activists, artists, educators, and organizers who have direct experience with local challenges and opportunities, we strongly encourage you to offer proposals. Your insights, experience and perspectives on the challenges to making change are invaluable in understanding the nuances of the issues faced by local communities, and for rising together.

Furthermore, we are committed to including opportunities for youth participation and perspectives. The voices, ideas and innovations of the younger, rising generations are vital to navigating the dangerous terrain of which we speak. We encourage you to tap into the youth activists you know and support them to propose sessions. 

While our current moment revels in dehumanization and destruction, we call for people to gather in the radical idea that while we must let go of structures whose endings we cannot control, we can build something new to transform the world if we stay connected and remember why the fight is critically important. It is true that democracy seems to be burning, but we can lift our voices in resistance, and we can transform what is into what could be. “Democracy in Ashes: Voices of Resistance and Songs of Transformation” reflects our attempts to acknowledge what has been lost but more importantly to take action to transform what is into a just, equitable world.

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For some generative questions, please see the end of this call. If you are not sure how to communicate some part of your idea or how to submit a conference proposal, you can email us at ptominneapolis2026@gmail.com with a question or idea, and we can collaborate with you to develop your proposal. In addition, you can learn more about Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theatre of the Oppressed at www.ptoweb.org.

A note on language: We release this Call for Proposals in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and have the capacity to read and respond to proposals in those languages.

About PTO:

Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO) is an organization with international membership that supports people whose work challenges oppressive systems by promoting critical thinking and social justice through liberatory theatre and popular education. Our approaches stem from the theories and practices of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal. We foster collaborative connections to share, develop, promote, and document liberatory theatre, popular education, and other revolutionary actions. Our annual conference seeks to provide an accessible, inclusive, and educational space. We actively seek both introductory sessions for those new to Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed practices, as well as advanced sessions for long-time practitioners.

HOW TO APPLY TO SHARE SOMETHING AT THE CONFERENCE 

• Read the list of session formats at the bottom of the page and choose one that fits your work. 
• Check out the questions at the end of this call that are related to the theme above to get your ideas flowing. 
• Submit a proposal using the form (click here) by January 10, 2026.

Session lengths:

❑   Single Session: 90 minutes
       Papers will be grouped around topics. There will usually be 3 per session.

❑   Double Session: Two back-to-back 90-minute sessions with a 15-minute break between sessions.             NOTES: We have limited space for double sessions and encourage submission of single sessions              whenever possible. Participants may choose to attend only one half a double session.

Session formats:

❑   Workshops: Interactive workshops that focus on exploring, explaining, and experiencing techniques and their applications. Methodologies should be rooted in liberatory education and/or TO techniques, or allied liberatory practices and anti-oppression work.

Workshops might present adaptations, expansions, and permutations of PO/TO techniques developed for various situations, circumstances, and populations, related liberatory practices, techniques of self and community care for folks directly engaged in movement-based or other social justice work, etc.

❑  Research Presentations: Presentations can include traditional papers, multi-modal offerings, and other ways of sharing information. They should present a summary of research about issues related to PO/TO or liberatory practices work and theory, or case studies that highlight liberatory artistic and educational techniques.

Each presentation should last approximately 15 minutes, excluding discussion. We will cluster presentations, usually in groups of 3, under a proposed theme, with time for dialogue. Not eligible for a double session. 

❑   Dialogues and Discussions: These sessions provide spaces for group dialogues around specific, complex questions about liberatory work.

Sessions may be facilitated by one or more people and might include brief preparatory remarks by a pre-formed panel, discussions or debates between activists, artists, organizers, and/or popular educators, or more free-form conversations between attendees about a topic of interest. Everyone attending should be invited to participate either in the entire dialogue or in response to panel and debate statements.

NOTES: Panel and invited discussion members are considered co-presenters and must be listed as such on the proposal form.

❑   Performances: Interactive performances that promote and problematize transformation,   liberation, social justice, and/or political engagement.

The conference should not be seen merely as a showcase, but rather as an opportunity to engage in interactive exploration of the performance itself, the topics about which it was created, or both. Performers are considered co-presenters and should be listed as such on the proposal form.

❑   World Cafe Topic: *New This Year* Designed for newer presenters or newer ideas and projects, World Cafe sessions offer a less formal setting for dialogue and reflection.

World Cafe sessions offer presenters a chance to present an idea or project to a smaller group of attendees. Each presenter has 10-15 minutes to share their project or idea and then 15-20 minutes for dialogue, reflection, and feedback with attendees. At the end of 30 minutes (total), attendees switch to another topic/table/presentation, and each presenter gets another 10-15 minutes to share their ideas. It’s sort of like speed dating for liberatory projects! Multiple presenters will share a session and attendees choose what topics they want to discuss, switching topics to hear a total of three in a session. Presenters should plan on sharing their idea three times.

MORE QUESTIONS TO GET YOU THINKING ABOUT THIS YEAR’S THEME:

We encourage submissions that contribute to the exploration of topics related to this year’s theme. Technique workshops, reports and papers, dialogues, performances, and short world cafe discussions are all welcome. Perhaps some questions that occurred to us while developing this year’s theme might inspire you to develop proposals or ask additional questions of your own. They are, in no particular order:

• How can TO and PO raise questions about the difficulty and risks of active resistance in the face of systemic oppression and the accompanying threats?
• Paulo Freire discusses the interplay of anger and joy, in particular of educational practices: “The kind of education that does not recognize the right to express appropriate anger against injustice, against disloyalty, against the negation of love, against exploitation, and against violence fails to see the educational role implicit in the expression of these feelings.” He also says that he “felt a sense of joy that [he] was able to be angry” (Pedagogy of Freedom 45). How can anger and/or joy be a motivating factor in work for transformation? How can we keep ourselves in a productive anger and not a debilitating anger that prevents action?
• What roles do community-based theatre and popular education play in ensuring that stories of activism and social change remain in the bloodstream of working-class communities? How does dialogue around those stories promote the development of radical imagination and lead to transformation?
• What ideas do you have for transformative acts that can be implemented in our current moment, both within the physical and economic constraints being forced on peoples (in your community/state/nation) and in ways that ignore or overcome those constraints?
• How can we remember/mourn/take care of structures that are being ripped out of our communities while not becoming fatalistic about the impossibility of change? How can we think of social hospicing as a practice of taking care of those things that we must let go of as best we can and also of building new structures and practices that work toward humanization and liberation?
• What role does radical imagination play in crafting new visions of justice, equity, and community empowerment amidst today’s crises?
• How do liberatory theatre and education techniques manifest themselves in different places and situations around the world? Should, and if so, how can we simultaneously support efforts to amplify the voices of groups facing and battling focused oppressions and unite those diverse voices in the pursuit of a just and equitable world?
• How might music, singing, and other artistic practices expand how we think of resistance, and how might they lead to transformation? Can you offer a workshop, a paper, or a world cafe topic to think through what Boal might have called the aesthetics of the oppressed?
• What is the role of safety in our current moment? How might it be possible to engage in transformative work without putting lives at risk? When is it important to take safety risks and what are the tactics of managing them to minimize risk as much as possible?
• What is the role of liberatory theology in resisting and transforming our current moment?
• What practical tools can you imagine to help focus joy as a radical act of resistance?

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE (for proposals for both online & in-person sessions): January 10, 2026        Submit your proposal here!