Human Rights! Bloody Human Rights!
Forum Theatre Project 2012-14
Director: Patrick Morris
Partner: School of Law, Queen Mary University of London and Amnesty International.
Collaborators: Alan Dignam, Professor of Corporate Law, QMUL
Human Rights! Bloody Human Rights! was our first Ideas Stage project to use forum theatre. In this project, it was to explore complex and pressing questions around corporate human rights law. In workshops jokered (facilitated) by Patrick Morris, we invited audiences to engage directly with the questions thrown up by Alan Dignam’s research which he had distilled into 3 short, provocative plays. Through performance, vigorous debate, rehearsal of new ideas, and challenges to the characters on stage, the audiences (or ‘spect-actors’) then devised new legislation which formed part of the project’s ultimate documentation. This allowed the ‘spect-actors’, many of whom had no background in either law or academia, to fully debate and engage with the issues.
Human Rights! Bloody Human Rights! toured the workshop to the following locations:
Queens University, Belfast
University College, Dublin
Amnesty International, London
QMUL, London
Festival of Ideas, Cambridge
This project remains live and we are currently developing plans for international workshops in 2017. Watch this space and please contact Patrick Morris with any questions.
For more information on the project, visit the project website here.