Interactive Theatre Festival
Interactive Theatre Festival is an annual event organized by Interactive Resource Centre since the year 2000. It is a multi-day event which encompasses various community theatre performances on themes of interfaith harmony, fundamental human rights, civic engagement, democracy, bonded labor, gender based violence, countering violent extremism, safe drinking water amongst others. The performers in the theatre plays are all non-actors, and are mostly members of the local communities, activists, students, teachers and youth.
IRC has been a pioneer of interactive/forum theatre in Pakistan. This is a unique form of community theatre originally developed by Brazilian dramatist Augusto Boal based on the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ developed by educator Paulo Freire. Over the course of 21 years, IRC has developed over 250 theatre groups all over the country and conducted more than 3000 performances in 13 different languages and has an active network of theatre groups in 80 districts of Pakistan. It has worked on a variety of themes such as
The founder, director and lead trainer of IRC, Mr Muhammad Waseem was the founding member of both Ajoka and Lok Virsa, the leading theatre companies in Pakistan, and is the only Pakistani to have been directly trained by Augusto Boal. Our particular brand of forum/interactive theatre has been widely recognized by the Government of Pakistan as well as IGO’s as a significant tool for advocacy and awareness.