Activating allyship: Revisiting Forum Theatre through a study abroad program in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In March 2023, nineteen students, educators and clinicians affiliated with New York University’s theatre education, dance education and drama therapy programs travelled to Rio de Janeiro for ten days to learn about the work of Escola de Teatro Popular (ETP) or The Popular Theatre School across social movements. Co-founded by Julian Boal and collaborator Geo Britto, ETP has reworked the original contributions of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and Forum Theatre into a new model of allyship. The co-authors of this article, four drama therapists working across healthcare systems in New York City, seek to examine how ETP’s art-infused allyship with communities relates to therapeutic practice in drama therapy and how it can further the World Health Organization’s global efforts of using the arts to improve community well-being. The article explains how this evolved approach can be a model to build new strengths and new forms of solidarity to confront the contradictory forces that compel drama therapists to submit and resist inadequacies within managed care systems.