Community Theatre and AIDS

HIV/AIDS is the most serious health issue in the world today. Beyond information and medical campaigns the breakthrough of an effective social prevention is still challenging aid workers and researchers in Africa. Through a series of case studies and analyses, this book argues that participatory and interactive modes of community-based theatre may be the most auspicious mode of HIV prevention for the most susceptible groups in Tanzania today, namely young, poverty-stricken people, especially young rural women, and yet the latter groups and individuals prove to be the most knowledgeable social agents when it comes to identifying, organizing, and implementing taboo-breaching public counteractions against the pandemic. But when will the findings be acknowledged by the ones who have deployed the young people as artistic researchers? Not until young people are assigned a political mandate will they be able to make real changes in the ravaging pandemic.

Ola Johansson is Visiting Professor at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts where he teaches Artistic Research and Devising. He has published articles on community-based theatre as HIV prevention and performance art. His latest book is Performance and Philosophy: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Performing Arts (2008).