Jana Sanskriti: A spect-actor movement

In the present study, the Jana Sanskriti group and their understanding of forum theater are examined. In the study, the history of the group and the tools, theater techniques, and community building methods they used were studied for the first time in Turkey. The qualitative action research cycle model developed by Mills was adopted in the study. The study started with a literature review and document analysis on the Jana Sanskriti group. In the data collection phase, participant logs recorded after each session and staging, focus group interviews, observation notes, questionnaires consisting of open and closed-ended questions, and audio and video recordings were used. Afterwards, the various practices and unique perspectives of the group based on Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed approach were identified, and a 136-hour workshop series consisting of 38 sessions was conducted accordingly. The forum theater play staged as a result of the workshop process was presented to the same audience three times at certain intervals. The entire process, including the workshop series and the staging process, was carried out with the Jana Sanskriti group's distinctive repetition-based methods. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used in the interpretation and analysis of the data. At the end of the study, it was observed that the working methods of the Jana Sanskriti group were effective in terms of providing the cast with oppressor-oppressed awareness, building self-confidence on and off the stage, and developing different perspectives. It was also found that pressure situations were more clearly internalized by both the actors and the spect-actors. It was suggested that the techniques applied by the Jana Sanskriti group be examined and utilized by practitioners of the Theater of the Oppressed.