Mothertongue: Incorporating Theatre of the Oppressed into Language Restoration Movements.

Abstract

As we dangle precariously on the edge of loss, First Nations people claw our fingers deep into earth to pull ourselves up, to dis-cover what has been de-stroyed and hidden during 510 years of European occupation of our homelands. Miraculously, we have survived mass genocide of our peoples and attempts to burn our lives and languages off the face of the planet. But it is not a survival that we carry without wounds, without scars of loss criss-crossing our skin. Some-times we bare open wounds we find too terrifying and bloody to look at, and neglect them until they fester. In order to dis-cover and (re)learn the languages of our peoples, we must grapple with the history of genocide and compulsory assimilation that paved the road to language loss. We must use all the tools available in order to heal from and/or understand historical and personal trauma, to loosen the stones tied to our hands and blocking our mouths. Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), a movement of radical theatre and popular education founded by Brazilian actor and educator Augusto Boal, is one of many tools that holds promise for First Nations people to dislodge these stones and to return to and

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