E. Gabriel Dattatreyan
Anthropologist • Media Maker
Theater of the Oppressed
Since 2014, I have been working with the West Philadelphia chapter of Theater of the Oppressed to understand the ways in which the embodied pedagogies that Augusto Boal developed in rural Brasil as a tool for liberation has been utilized in contemporary urban North America to address issues of racial, class, and gender inequality. The project has evolved over the years, first focusing on thinking through the Boal's modalities -- for instance image theater -- and how the collective production of images through performance at once unsettles and reproduces stereotypes.
In the last two years, we have focused our documentation on workshops put on by Philly TO on race, class and gentrification. In particular, I have become increasingly interested in and focused on how Whiteness is articulated, performed, and undone in this space of contact, introspection, and community accountability. I am working with Natasha Carroll-Cohen to complete a film on this long term project.