"It is forbidden to walk on the grass.
It is not forbidden to fly over the grass" Augusto Boal.
Third-Way Theatre, is based in Melbourne, Australia. It grew out of the work of the Takin' Up Space project (1999). We use Theatre of the Oppressed Techniques with communities to address concerns arising out of colonising assumptions where the superiority of some is taken as fact, and the inferiority of others as fate. Third-Way Theatre has roots in Paulo Friere’s work on critical pedagogy. It uses techniques such as Theatre of the Oppressed to free up possibilities to move beyond the pathology of the official stories, and aspirations, freeing us to honor our unrecognized knowing, dreams, images and possibilities as a movement towards a more just and humane world.
FOCUS IN THE WORK
Training in best practice with TWT facilitators and/or International practitioners.
Community Theatre Projects. To date our work with communities has focused on struggles for self-determination and agency in the context of environments where discrimination and prejudice is rife. Our focus is on working with Women and Violence, Mental health stigma, prisonisation, poverty, bullying, gender violence, suicide, racism, displacement, drug and alcohol addiction, anorexia, obesity, climate justice. Concerns arising out of cultures of alienation.
Ensemble work. In 2010-11 our Major Project - "Denial at the Roots" is a FORUM Theatre piece aimed at exploring racialised realities in an Australian context.
Third-Way Theatre wishes to acknowledge that we live on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s Country.
‘Third Space’ is the concept of Homi K. Bhabha, an Indian philosopher. The third space is the shared space where each is involved in an exchange with the other. It is not fixed at all; it is hybrid. It’s the understanding that provides the opportunity to escape from the dualistic and static worldview. It is a space ‘of always becoming’.
