Even in today’s world of slang and jargon, some words are still followed by a heavy silence. Rape. Abuse. Racist. Homo.
The University of Oregon strives to create an open and friendly environment for all students and staff on campus, and two groups have made it their mission to preserve this through education and helping prevent acts of sexual violence and social injustice.
Rehearsals for Life (RfL) and the Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team (SWAT) are interactive theater programs that give audiences an opportunity to practice strategies for intervening in real-life situations in the classroom, the bedroom and around the community.
RfL group members present a problem and ask their audience to find solutions by playing the role of an ally for someone who is being oppressed. “It’s like a physical brainstorm for them to try out different strategies,” Christine Madzik, a graduate student in Theater Arts and a three-year participant in RfL, says.
Group members find material from their GTF classrooms as well as the classes they attend. Madzik has heard professors on campus use labels like, “that Asian girl, that Mexican girl” and asks fellow graduate students how they would handle the situation. It’s this peer-to-peer education that Abigail Leeder, director of Sexual Violence Prevention and Education with the Office of the Dean of Students says is invaluable.
It also provides an environment for audience members to bounce ideas off of each other and collect information for peers who may experience similar situations. “Some of us don’t have a lot of practice for interactions with people of different ethnicity or different sexual orientations and there’s a lot of racism, homophobia and bias happening on our campus,” Leeder says. “We use Rehearsals for Life as a tool to bring awareness and give people the opportunity to practice intervening in different situations.”
Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team (SWAT) is a two credit, three-term course where students learn about the dynamics of sexual assault and dating violence, and use interactive theatre to advocate for safe, healthy and consensual sex.
This year a Department of Justice report estimated that about 95 percent of completed rapes of women on campuses go unreported, and nearly 96 percent of attempted rapes go unreported. With reports like these, members of SWAT face the important job of informing students about situations they may encounter and where to find help. “I actually had little knowledge about sexual awareness education before my time with SWAT,” says Lloyd Hall, UO senior who has been with SWAT for three years. “I was inspired to join after watching the summer SWAT session at IntroDUCKtion my freshman year.”
Hall hopes their audiences, from 4,000 incoming freshmen to workshops of 15, understand that anyone can be a survivor of sexual violence regardless of sexual orientation, gender, or ethnicity/race. “I became much more aware of the patriarchal culture that we live in and the social issues that stem from this culture,” Hall says. “Thanks to SWAT, I became more educated on issues related to sexual violence including, but not limited to feminism, patriarchy, privilege, and power dynamics.”
Students in SWAT have performed for Fraternity and Sorority Life, undergraduate classes, residence halls, IntroDUCKtion and other student groups, averaging 10 performances per term. SWAT has also been invited to present at other universities throughout the country. Rehearsals for Life has roughly four or five performances per term so far, but are open to more opportunities around the campus to educate different groups about their message.
RfL was a project of the Center on Diversity and Community (CoDaC), the Graduate School, the Office of the Dean of Students, and brainchild of Leeder. Leeder has had interactive theatre programs like RfL and SWAT in mind since she began working at the University in 2005. Her goal is to use theatre as a tool for healing, personal growth, and social change through education.
“I see interactive theatre as a really great way to educate and empower students around complex issues and a ripple effect happens and they educate their peers,” Leeder says. “I think it’s a really nice way to build community around topics people are concerned about in the larger university experience.”
Madzik first helped Leeder with the group as a community member when it was just getting started and then enrolled as a student and got involved with RfL as a graduate student actor.
Three years have given RfL time to gain members and form their mission, which Madzik says is to use theatre to inform audiences and encourage them to explore intervention strategies around issues of diversity, equity, and social justice on campus. Madzik says that the chosen issues are inspired by conversations overheard by a professor or a comment shouted in the middle of a lecture hall. In the moment you’re speechless, but working with RfL helps you become an ally to those under fire, she added.
“It’s been pretty life changing, I represent a pretty privileged section of society, so I feel like my awareness has increased hundredfold,” Madzik says. “It’s been really empowering to see ways that I can intervene, because before doing this I may have been aware of my privilege, but didn’t know what I could do.”
SWAT and RfL see only a handful of theater students, but it’s the mix that brings the multicultural message from these groups in a peer-to-peer learning environment that gets Leeder excited. “It’s fresh. People like something different than a PowerPoint presentation,” Leeder says. “They want to engage in the material in a more emotional and impacting way.”
story: Anna Helland