MTÜ Foorumteater (NGO Forum Theatre) is a leading Estonian Forum Theatre organization. Founded by Nikolai Kunitsõn and Piret Soosaar in 2011, we have had over 200 trainings, workshops and perfomances in Estonia and other countries. Our main target audience has been youngsters and professionals, who work with people - social and youth workers, community workers, teachers, adult trainers and etc. You can find our detailed list of all previous activities in Estonian here.
Since 2011 we have been active in the field of applied drama, in co-operation with municipalities and public sector, private companies, theaters, youth centers and universities in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Romania and UK. We have also hosted and been partners in many international projects, where we have learned different participative theatre methods. MTÜ Foorumteater has been carrying out trainings and workshops on forum theatre and other interactive theatre forms. We have experience in hosting international workshops and trainings in Estonia.
The main goal of MTÜ Foorumteater is to promote Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) methods in Estonia. We mostly use Forum Theatre, but not only - we are open to use all participative theatre methods, which empower people. TO is developed by Brazilian director and politician Augusto Boal. It is a form of interactive theatre, which aims to bring social and political change. It is mostly inspired by educator Paulo Freire.
Theatre of the Oppressed uses different methods, but they all have a common goal to make passive spectators into active “spect-actors”. TO aims to empower people and help them realize that they have the power to change situations, where the oppression (from other people, from media, from the state, etc) occurs. For that there are specific methods, like Forum Theatre, Rainbow of Desires, Newspaper Theatre, Invisible Theatre and so on.
Forum Theatre (FT) is a well-known technique, where audience is shown a play, which is created by non-professional actors themselves. The short play always has a protagonist (oppressed person) and an antagonist (oppressor). In the play the story always ends with antagonist oppressing the protagonist, which results in a terrible end. Then, the joker (mediator between the actors and spectators) uses different techniques to break the so-called fourth wall and invites audience to come to the stage and show their ideas to break the oppression. The idea is not to find one and only correct solution, but to open a space for a dialogue, where the spect-actors can freely discuss and find ways to break the oppression. It is a participative, democratic, dialogue-based theatre form where people are treated equally. It is not a therapy, but it is therapeutical and powerful theatrical tool, which is widely used with different communities, who have something in common. For example, women at workplaces, sexual or racial minorities in a country, school bullying, power imbalance at workplace and so on.
We are open to international co-operation. For further inquires contact info@foorumteater.com