“What would women be without men? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.”

– Mark Twain

Due to perceived imbalance in power relations within the community due to its cultural roots in Myanmar, Tenaganita has requested the theme of its workshop programme with Reboot The Roots be around gender.

We have decided to use this opportunity to fully expose the bones of the process to team members who are interested in becoming jokers and facilitators with our other groups. Accordingly, today we ran through the essential process of taking a group from image theatre games to a devised forum piece.

From Wikipedia:

“Boal claims this form of theatre to be one of the most stimulating because of its ease of enactment and its remarkable capacity of portraying thought in a concrete form due to the absence of language idiom.”

Argus commented that in previous years (2008-2009 season) image theatre was not such a core component of our work, and it is due to the deepening of my understanding of the process that I now forefront image’s significance in all the sessions we do.

The results of a two hour session today were amazing. Through guiding the group through a series of gender-themed image processes, we arrived at a short forum piece that I would have no hesitation in using immediately with other groups, if the topic felt appropriate.

The image games produced as follows:

• Representation of men together: two men grooming their beard and moustache, interpreted as leaders, powerful, vain, religious figures (perhaps due to Muslim context).
• Representation of two men with a problem: initially interpretted as a man and woman, with members projecting femininity on to the figure (played by a man) as he was lower, and gripped his head with both hands. “Women tend to show distress like this.”
• Representation of women together: a mother breastfeeding (erroneously interpreted at first as a drug user) and a woman manicuring her nails. Women as mothers, as vain, delicate, daughters and nourishers.
• Representation of women together with a problem: identified as women due to a ‘softness of features’, a vulnerability attributed to female gender.
• Representation of man and a woman: a man stands, holding his dick, proud, upright, noble. A woman squats beside him, holding her head in her hands, her facial expression quizzical. Initially was seen as two men, but then a demonstration of a man squatting highlighted gender differences in how we represent them.
• Representation of a man and woman with a problem: man exerting strength, control, discipline, woman shown emotional, turning away, unable to handle it.

After the session, we discussed whether the differences represented were social, biological or emotional. This was my input, as I enjoy categorising and defining with a group, and it was my understanding that these three criteria could cover the general differences covered. Above are the representations and some facets of the group’s analysis of them. It will be more satisfying to work with a larger group on this subject as we can then find more thematic similarities in physicality and projected interpretation, however, working with our small group of four/five members (depending on attention span) was stimulating enough as a training exercise.

From this point, I requested a member to create an image of a real problem between a man and woman that they had experienced. Interestingly, the image of a man urinating and a woman desperately waiting for the toilet emerged again, and it was this image that we developed very rapidly into a forum piece.

Pissing Up The Wrong Tree – A gender forum piece.

(NB For anyone unfamiliar with forum, they can read a brief outline here.)

A husband and wife are out for a drive. The man is selfish, arrogant and unconcerned about his wife’s need to urinate. She pleads for him to let her urinate. He pulls over, and pisses against a tree, berating her for her modesty. A palm oil worker nearby is within eyesight of her. She continues to protest, but the husband is unconcerned and gets back in the car. Eventually, humiliated and defeated, the wife is forced to squat and relieve herself very publically. She gets back in the car, crushed, and the pair continue driving.

In discussion after the devising, members highlighted how biological differences fed into social and emotional differences. Why was it acceptable for the man to publically urinate, whilst the woman felt embarassed or disempowered when doing so? Playing with the scene, we reversed the power roles, so it became the woman who was driving and happily pissing in public, whereas the man was too shy and struggled to urinate outdoors.

As I am familiar with now, even as we played and devised, the discussion moved from the personal to the social, covering wider and wider concepts of gender norms, of perceptions of men and women within society and why we feel certain ways because of how we identify. It made me feel very confident of taking this format to Tenaganita on Thursday, as immediately discussions of power relationships and the respective identities of men and women within society emerged.

Ideally, on Thursday, a similar process with the Myanmar group will produce a forum piece that is especially pertinent to their community. As we work with them more closely, we discover more and more the entrenched state of gender power disparity there within. I suppose it is always easier for outsiders to do so, and they would probably have a lot to say about gender roles within ‘our’ community, however we might choose to delineate that.

House Report
In other news, one of our members has recently returned from a brief sabbatical due to bereavement. Currently in morning, he will not cut his hair, shave, or eat meat until the final prayer for his mother next week. He has been with the RtR group now, on and off, for a few years, leaving for a stretch of time to work with another centre in Batu Arang. Upon returning, other house members were suspicious he had been using drugs, and accusations were made. Soon stepped in and counselled the situation, which was easily resolved with a urine test (negative). However, throughout all of this I feel it is a timely reminder that those we work with are still struggling with their addiction issues, and that this should never be forgotten.

Lokman has landed, through Soon, two weeks work on a reception at the POD in Brickfields. I’m pleased he decided to take the offer, though I baulk at the 6RM per hour (roughly 1.30 pounds) rate he is earning. Still, the benefits of work are, apparently, not only financial. I hope that he will enjoy feeling productive, useful, and also mingling with people outside of the Batu Arang community will also be of benefit. This means I will have to finish the banner myself, but he’s done a great job so far.