Today at 19h30 (Lisbon) Joana Lobo Antunes will be doing a demonstration of the Theatre of the Oppressed. Come and join us at MUDE or UCAM.

Theatre of the Oppressed is a participatory form of theatre that was developed by Augusto Boal in Brazil. It involves actors and non-actors playing out stories of oppression (factory owner mistreating the workers/abusive husband abusing his wife etc). In these performances, the audience can stop the performance at any time, take over from one of the actors and re-write the story. This can continue until all the members of the cast and the audience are satisfied with the new script. 

Between 1993 and 1997, Boal was a Councillor in Rio de Janeiro. During that time, he developed 'Legislative Theatre' which is based on the same principles as Theatre of the Oppressed, but instead of acting out a scene where someone is being oppressed, the subject of the performance is a proposed new law. Spectator-actors (or Spect-actors) can take to the stage, express their opinions and support, oppose or modify any of the proposals. This approach was recently used in the UK in Brighton to promote public engagement in a local health improvement programme.

To find out more see Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, Pluto Press, 1979, Augusto Boal, Games for Actors and Non-actors, Routledge, 2002 and Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics, Routledge, 1998.

Dialogue Café, Lisboa-Rio de Janeiro from Rita Carvalho on Vimeo.

Today at 19h00 Dialogue Cafe Invites

Sophie Pinto reads Bruno Munari book "Das coisas nascem coisas"

Bruno Munari, one of the founders of the "Concrete Art Movement", was an Italian painter, sculptor, graphic artist, industrial designer, as also a theoretician and author of books and treatises of great expositive clarity and divulgative efficacy.

Rogerio Jaques reads Italo Calvino book "Invisible Cities"

Italo Calvino was an important Italian journalist, essayist and novelist of the 20th century. His works published in the 1970s show a remarkable combination of fantasy and surrealism with satirical sense of humor and depth that he became well-known not only in Italy but throughout the Western world.Calvino's later works were more experimental. He tried to combine fantasy, folklore, fairy tales and science fiction to produce something new in contemporary fiction.

DIY Kinetic SolarBots at Dialogue Cafe!

Today, João Nogueira, Maurício Martins, Tiago Henriques and Rita Carvalho in Lisbon and Caio Loures in Rio de Janeiro talked about the use of digital technologies in research and art and more broadly about creative uses of digital technologies in fields such as art, education and community based social ventures.

The discussion drew from the experiences of a team of ethnographers, designers, artists, IT professionals working with schools, universities, museums (including education departments), local projects, and community hubs. There was also a chance to discuss some of the exciting projects taking place in Portugal in this area - such as Diodo, Altlab, Project Eva, as well as DIY culture, hackspaces and hacklabs; and a few showcases on creative electronics and physical computing.





Come and join the Dialogue! To find out how to take part and get involved in Dialogue Cafe contact mude@dialoguecafe.org or ucam@dialoguecafe.org.

The deadline is approaching fast - so check it out quickly!

The UN Alliance of Civilizations is holding its first ever Summer School for young people from around the world to work together to develop practical projects and ideas. Its going to take place at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, from the 15-21 August with the theme of "Bridging Hearts, Opening Minds and Doing Things Together".

The course aims to promote the empowerment of youth by strengthening intercultural skills and competences, and strengthening young people's capacity to get involved in the preparation and implementation of collaborative action across countries and cultures. Its also going to showcase some of the most innovative and exciting youth led intercultural projects from around the world.

The Programme looks really interesting and I'm especially pleased to see workshops on Dialogue Cafe and social innovation. Hopefully, together, we'll be able to work out how to bring Dialogue Cafe to many more cities across the world and ways of engaging young people and youth led organisations to develop programmes and activities using Dialogue Cafe.

To find out more information see here.

Lots of fun stuff happening at Dialogue Cafe this week! Here are some of the highlights.

On 13th July, we had Maria Coutinho from Design Battle talking about Creativity in the Global World with Susana Branco and Sandra Reit in Lisbon and Franklin Arturo, Jennifer Sant'anna and Karlili Trindade in Rio de Janeiro. They talked about the interactions between street entrepreneurs and customers and the need to consider mechanisms to protect and develop a balanced local economy for small businesses.





On 14th July, we have Luis Jeronimo from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation with Pedro Rocha Vieira and Nuno Coelho in Lisbon telling us about the Action for Age project - which started out as a way of exploring the role of design in providing an alternative response to the growing challenges of an ageing population. They were joined in Rio by Flavia Chueire and Viviane Costa.





Come and join the dialogue! If you'd like to find out more about how to take part and book sessions contact mude@dialoguecafe.org or ucam@dialoguecafe.org!

We've just launched a Call for Proposals. We're looking for dynamic, entrepreneurial and creative partners to host and manage a Dialogue Café in London. This is truly an amazing opportunity to take part in a groundbreaking social venture and to represent London in the global Dialogue Café network.

There is no typical Dialogue Café partner - we're working with schools, universities, galleries and museums, local governments, foundations, social innovation centres and community hubs. The three things that Dialogue Café partners have in common are: creative, entrepreneurial people to manage the Dialogue Café; a space (60-80m²) which is open, accessible and easy to get to; links to networks who would be interested in taking part in and using Dialogue Café. We welcome expressions of interest and proposals from any group or organization that could provide one, two or all of the above.

For more information about how to apply see here.