Our February 2021 episode features Theresa Ronquillio and Tikka Sears, who joined us for a conversation about using Theater of the Oppressed across pedagogical medium. They offer insights on fostering embodied practice, social change, and community building in virtual spaces.
Through these theater pedagogies, Tikka and Theresa welcome participants to bring their whole selves into the learning process. Both make real Augusto Boal’s dictum, “The theater itself is not revolutionary: it a rehearsal for the revolution.”
About Our Guests
Tikka Sears is a theater director and performing artist in Seattle and is the Artistic Director and founder of the Memory War Theater and Theater for Change (formerly the Interactive Theater as Pedagogy Project). She was a Fulbright-Artist-in-Residence in Indonesia for two years.
Dr. Ronquillo holds a doctorate in Social Work and is the founder of Embody Change. She is affiliate faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Inclusive Excellence program that is “rooted at the intersection of arts, anti-oppression and multi-level change.” She is a theatre of the oppressed facilitator and practitioner of the liberatory arts. A second-generation Filipina-American, Theresa describes herself with these words: “I am a storyteller. I enjoy telling stories about my complex identities and intersectionalities—shaped by space, place, and time.” She instigated and led the workshop, “Shifting Stories through Theater of the Oppressed,” last December at the Richmond (VA) Story House.
Beyond the podcast, Tikka and Theresa work with diverse academic departments, using theater to disrupt oppressions and imagine transformative possibilities for learning (for a great example, see this interactive workshop they held last year). Last August, Tina attended their virtual workshop on Theater of the Oppressed in online courses, and she immediately hoped they would agree to come on the podcast. We were so happy that they said yes!
