Ten years ago, Reboot the Roots creative director Serge left the squats of Hackney and returned to Malaysia to facilitate and organise in solidarity with a community of recovering drug users, refugees, and people living with HIV. They blogged about their experience, and we wish to share highlights from their writings to highlight the origins of RtR as an arts-for-social-change organisation.

“We can do anything we like as long as it is UNIMPORTANT.”

                                                                    – Theodore Kaczynski

11pm. We are just back from rehearsal of ‘The Best Creation Story’ for next month’s Short + Sweet Festival. The guys are simply fantastic, playing characters such as Bible, Origin of Species, Fairy Tale and Big Bang arguing over who has the best story for the existence of everything. Elaine is doing a great job directing them. What was most difficult for me was stopping myself from stepping in, the old directorial urge flaring up and having to remind myself just to let go – this was what I always wanted, to work myself out of a job – and now it is happening for the direction of the plays.

One area I could not restrain myself however was in a discussion in the mamak (Muslim restaurant) afterwards when the chat turned towards tomorrow’s meeting with Elodie of Tenaganita. Apparently, in two previous sessions the facilitators have struggled with eliciting satisfactory participation and response from the clients – members of the Myanmar stateless community here in KL – and their was some concerns over how best to achieve a meaningful discussion around gender and power within the community.

I first spoke to Elodie about the possibility of doing forum with Tenaganita back in January 2011. Apparently, there is a power imbalance between men and women with the Myanmar organisations, and she requested the use of forum to address this.

Running through what had been done in two sessions previously, it seems that our facilitators had fallen into the trap of first overwhelming the group by telling them ‘We are going to talk about power and gender’, or even worse ‘sex and violence’, and then allowed participants to wax lyrical on the subject.

To my mind, the power of image theatre and forum is that the discussion is physicalised, and then dynamised. I’m not interested in what you pretend you think on the subject, or in allowing you to hide behind masks of appropriate response. The power of image and projection is that you show and say what you really think, in a physical, unconscious representation of an issue, or in what you project on to one shown.

Tomorrow, we will meet with Elodie, and I feel this is an appropriate juncture for me to step in and again demonstrate the process involved with image and forum. I intend to suggest that the group show the following:

• as a whole, the group will make images of power, fear, joy etc using clay-modelling technique
• the groups will then be separated by gender. The male and female groups will then make images of men and women: first an open representation, then an ideal, then of a problem relationship.
• the groups will be reunited, and split into mixed groups. The groups will then show their images to the others, and the projections will allow a controlled discussion of what is seen.
• Then, we may show the forum of an aggressive flirtation on public transport. If our group is able, this will allow a simple demonstration of a genderbased power relationship. This should start as an image to be analysed, and then become dynamised. (Simply described – a woman enters a train, and is pursued by an amorous man whilst an onlooker mutely observes. I first encountered this forum with Cardboard Citizens under Adrian Jackson.)
• Ideally, the mixed groups of participants will then make an image showing a problematic relationship between a man and woman. This should be based on a real experience from the group. A story of an oppression is normally the ignition for such a discussion.
• Participants then develop this image into a short forum piece, under the guidance of RtR members.
• Then, it’s SHOWTIME!

Following the showtime/forum, there can then be the extended discussion of the issues and problems that have emerged through the process. Questions such as:

• What was today’s session about?
• Is this real?
• Do these situations and scenarios resonate, are they recognisable?
• Are the solutions feasible? Would they work in reality?

I have just verbally run several of the members through this process, and we have decided that I will demonstrate the technique on Friday in preparation for them to attempt it with the Nursalam krashpad kids in Chow Kit on Saturday.