The Rainbow of Desirei
Rainbow of Desire is a general title for the set of techniques developed to analyse the process of internalising and crystallising oppression. These are theatre techniques which study cases where the oppressors were internalised, whose ideologies continued reverberating in the habits and everyday life truths of those who were hosting them inside.
In spite of being subtitled “The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy”, the book The Rainbow of Desireii is not about therapy. Not only because Theatre of the Oppressed practice does not require therapist qualification but mainly because of the type of work that should be developed. The sensitivity the Kuringa needs to create an adequate atmosphere for the collective analysis of internalised oppressions does not turn her into a professional therapist. The set of Rainbow of Desire techniques is defined as theatre. As with all good theatre, its development tends to be therapeutic. In this sense, it amplifies the possibilities to understand the variables and implications at play in the situation under analysis.
Those theatre techniques are developed through collective processes, starting from personal stories. The idea is to explore the aesthetic routes that led to the social contexts causing those subjective oppressions. From there, the aim is to understand their implications in objective life and rehearse alternatives to overcome them.
The analysis should focus not on a specific event in a certain person’s life, but on a mechanism of oppression experienced by one person. This mechanism should also be identified in the lives of the others present in the room. The goal is to multiply the possibilities of understanding the mechanism of oppression through the different perspectives present in the collective, rather than deepen analysis of an individual experience.
i SANTOS, Bárbara. Theatre of the Oppressed ROOTS & WINGS a theory of praxis. Los Angeles – USA, KURINGA in conjunction with UCLA Art & Global Health Center and UCLA Prison Education Program, 2019
ii BOAL Augusto, The Rainbow of Desire, Rio de Janeiro, Civilização Brasileira, 2002.