Puppet Theatre to Explore Voter Awareness

The project used drama - participatory theatre - as a research tool. The main focus was on uncovering attitudes and constraints to women's participation in the democratic process in the light of the upcoming (October 2000) multi-party election (the first multiparty election was in 1995). SWT collaborated with Tanzanian performers from local street theatre groups using participaory theatre and research methodology in low-income communities to gather information, process it through drama techniques, and replay it to the communities in performances aiming to stimulate further discussion to feed into the process.

In addition to drumming and singing, the performance featured characters created by the community through the research process; these characters told stories that the people were thought to be able to relate to - such that they could be entertained while also learning crucial information and being stimulated to take action. For instance, a larger-than-life puppet figure, "Bwana Democracia", chaired "the proceedings" and provided factual information such as who is eligible, how and where to register, and so on. As the large puppet head was revealed, the actors arms in the puppet's sleeves started to animate and his voice booms out, those of voting age heard how Mr Democracy is weak and has come to find out why the people of Kunduchi and Mbagala are not interested in voting, since he is only strong when people participate. Life-sized puppets of women were used in a second stage of the research. They functioned as intermediaries through which groups of people from the communities collaboratively created narrative and discussed the realities of women's lives. This formed the basis from which to build performances which actors replayed to larger audiences in those communities.

Political Development, Democracy, Women, Rights.

According to SWT, audiences joined in, argued with the characters and each other, and explored the nature of democracy. Audience members expressed sentiments like "this is a new thing for us, no one came to find out what we think before, I hope this will be the future."

A video (pal or Mini DV format) of this work is now available; please see contact information below to request further details.