Creative Connections and Mandala Theatre, in Nepal, gave students with a better appreciation and understanding of their cultural heritage, while giving them innovative tools to critically examine their own connections to their heritage.
USA-based theatre facilitator, Tim Steckler (intro below), introduced students to experiential theatre techniques, gaining a better understanding of their cultural heritage while acquiring innovative tools to critically examine and share their own connections to that heritage.
Meet the Facilitators
Key Terms
Forum theatre is a type of theatre created by Augusto Boal, one of the techniques under the umbrella term of Theatre of the Oppressed. This relates to the engagement of spectators influencing and engaging with the performance as both spectators and actors, termed “spect-actors”, with the power to stop and change the performance.
Image theatre is a performance technique in which one person, acting as a sculptor, moulds one or more people acting as statues, using only touch and resisting the use of words or mirror-image modelling. The images presented in this form of theatre are a series of still-images that are brought to life via a variety of ways. Image theatre originated as a form of theatrical protest in the Theatre of the Oppressed created by Augusto Boal in the 1960s.
Participatory Theatre is a form of theatre in which the audience interacts with the performers or the presenters.
Project Manager & Facilitator
Tim Steckler is a Brooklyn-based Applied Theatre Educator and Facilitator. He has worked with students from the USA and around the world to put together interactive performances on social justice issues ranging from refugee resettlement, countering systemic racism, and preserving cultural heritage. Tim holds a Master’s of Education degree in International Education Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Principia College.
Learn more about Tim here in an article from Shoutout LA.
Workshop Photos
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Workshop Summary
Facilitated by Tim Steckler
- Introduction, warm-up games, sharing of students’ cultural artifacts
- Mandala Theatre presents a forum theatre performance showing the challenges of young people confronting cultural heritage in Nepali society.
- Nepali and US students discuss the presentation with students in both countries proposing and trying out possible interventions and outcomes
- Using cultural artifacts as a starting point, US students create and present their own image theatre scenes focusing on the origins, challenges, and potential outcomes of preserving or rejecting aspects of cultural heritage in their experience
- Reflection on the experience
Communities Connecting Heritage Program
Building on our previous work in 2019 with the Communities Connecting Heritage Program (CCH), sponsored by the US Department of State, and World Learning, featuring student-led workshops, this project will involve CCH alumni students in Nepal facilitating a series of virtual workshops for ten local classrooms (250 students) in Connecticut using participatory theatre techniques.
Visit the World Learning website for more information on CCH.
