Performance Activism: Precursors and Contemporary Pioneers by Dan Friedman (review).

The author notes that Augusto Boal's well-known Theatre of the Oppressed is a progenitor of performance activism; but as this book seeks to fill holes in the existing scholarship, he chooses to put his efforts elsewhere. While the chapter titles, indicative of the various things that performance activism I does i , are somewhat redundant and overlapping, watching Friedman's world come into focus through these microcosms makes the book a rewarding read. In Friedman's words, performance activists "are seeking new ways, through play and performance, to be helpful to the poor and oppressed, to build community, to address local and international social and political issues, to bring antagonistic forces and communities together, to heal, to educate, to free the imaginations of those who have had their imaginations beaten or bombed or starved out of them" (2). [Extracted from the article]