Amplify & Ignite: Creative Practice in and With Communities

A Girl Can Only Watch Fiddler on The Roof So Many Times
Presenter: Blair Bean
In a world marked by division and uncertainty, the role of artists, educators, and scholars in fostering community, connection, and change has never been more critical. This presentation is based off of my thesis that explores the intersection of Jewish identity, cultural storytelling, and theatre as tools for addressing contemporary societal issues, particularly the rise of antisemitism. As an assimilated Jew, I delve into the complexities of Jewish-American narratives in theatre, using autoethnography to examine my own evolving relationship with Jewish identity in the context of modern challenges. Diving deep into the idea of catharsis in communities and synthesizing widespread narratives. I look into Jewish immigration and generational trauma as the drive for this paper. I reflect on how these themes have shaped seminal works like well known Fiddler on the Roof among others and its relevance in today's cultural climate. I have explored the delicate balance between honoring painful histories and celebrating Jewish joy in performance, while questioning how these stories are adapted, interpreted, and portrayed for diverse audiences. As theatre is a source of cultural resilience and creative expression, this project is a personal and collective exploration of how Jewish storytelling can evolve. How do we bridge generational divides, and contribute to larger dialogues around social justice, identity, and cultural preservation? Examining the intersection of, Jewish heritage, and artistic practice, I aim to highlight the power of theatre to amplify voices, challenge preconceptions, and create space for meaningful conversation educational spaces during a time heightened division.


Beyond Belonging: Navigating Marginalization in Theatre Education
Sobha Kavanakudiyil
I would like to have the opportunity to share my research for my dissertation.  In the proposed research, I will examine stories of female-identifying performing arts practitioners from ethnically and racially minoritized populations. The impetus for this has been reflection on my experiences as a South Asian Indian woman in theatre education, and the lack of other South Asian Indian women in the field.  This has impacted my sense of belonging and my identity.  I  am interested in examining the moment of decision-making to continue a career in the performing arts or not and how cultural, social, and familial influences impact that decision. The hope is that the outcome of this research will illuminate the challenges many practitioners have experienced to help theatre teacher training programs better understand the barriers that exist for these populations to engage in the field.   Although my research centers on female-identifying artist educators from ethnically and racially minoritized populations, I acknowledge that many minoritized populations need to be uplifted. The research focus of this paper represents just one aspect of a broader dialogue on diversity and inclusion in the arts.My research questions are: What are the pivotal social, cultural, and familial experiences of female-identifying South Asian artist educators in theatre education?What personal and/or professional experiences have shaped the identities of female-identifying performing arts practitioners from ethnically and racially minoritized populations, and what has been the impact of their professional journeys?What are theatre education programs doing to increase access and opportunity for practitioners from ethnically and racially minoritized populations?


Work/Play
Presenters: Sara Berliner + Calvin Keener
"Work/Play" was a workshop series conducted in the Spring of 2024 at Emerson College focusing on using demechanizing exercises from Theatre of the Oppressed to identify challenges and opportunities for transformation in higher education workplaces. The workshops aimed to engage students, staff, and faculty in a collaborative artistic process to reclaim our collective humanity. While there had been robust union activity in the school year, these disparate groups do not consistently organize cooperatively together or share a vision for campus working conditions and labor organizing. While many undergraduate and graduate students are employed by the college in various capacities, they tend not to see being a worker as a salient part of their identity, nor do they typically identify with a larger labor movement, due to the temporary, part-time nature of their work and transitory relationship to campus. We hoped to enable participants to make connections with other workers at Emerson, to recognize commonalities between their needs and experiences, and to identify tools for changing conditions in the workplace.In this narrative, we will reflect on the challenges, discoveries, and lessons learned in using artistic techniques for labor organizing with participants who have a common employer but differing work identities.

OUR STORIES: We Can Be Heroes/Heroines
Presenter: Dylan Russell
OUR STORIES: We Can Be Heroes Utilizing Generative Theatre Practice as Mental Health Modality in Community Settings. We are at an emergent moment where arts in public health and the arts as civic engagement are being accepted and integrated into the fabric of community well being. From music therapy being utilized to heal Parkinson's patients to the Massachusetts Cultural Council's first statewide arts prescription program in the US, we are seeing the arts accepted as a treatment for physical and behavioral health issues. Five years ago, I created OUR STORIES  - a community arts venture between Orange County Healthcare Agency and Laguna Playhouse. This program was created as a response to studies showing depression and isolation experienced by youth 16-25 and a belief that engagement in the arts could make a difference in this health crisis. Participants will experience an OUR STORIES workshop utilizing storytelling and devised theater exercises to explore the lived experiences that form one's identity. Activities tap into memories and stories of our lives and are shared collectively. This act of having others witness your story creates a shared place where we can bridge isolation and the differences that often separate us from one another. We discover the hero/ine within ourselves. This theatre in health workshop will demonstrate the healing that emerges from storytelling. We will explore the ways this work can be used in formal and informal settings to support development of students' SEL and create connection. Together, we'll collaborate to define a core set of outcomes for this learning and ways to bring transformational arts to your community or classroom.


Exploring Mental Health Through Story Drama  
Michelle Gram Giesen
In this interactive workshop, attendees are guided through a Story Drama or immersive storytelling experience of the picture book Dark Cloud by Anna Lazowski. The main character, Abigail, suddenly has a dark cloud following her around.  Participants will predict, observe, and identify how the cloud affects Abigail's social-emotional and mental health, and determine potential strategies to support the young girl. Participants will use movement, tableau, writing in role, role play, improvisation, poetry, large and small group collaboration, and more to experience the story rather than listen to it as passive audience members. The drama unfolds as the story unfolds. This workshop illustrates how drama can be explored as an inquiry process. Dark Cloud will be read in segments, with periodic pauses to use drama, movement, writing, and music exercises to investigate key moments, evaluate character perspectives, question choices, build environments, and explore present themes. This workshop offers step-by-step guidance to successfully implement Story Drama into regular storytelling sessions for Grade 1-8. Additionally, attendees will be provided a collection of 15+ Story Drama exercises that elevate and activate storytelling using rich picture books, a sample unit plan, and various assessment templates.  

Over the past three years, the Student Voice and Engagement (SVE) program has undergone significant transformations to better serve the needs of students, teaching artists, and school communities. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Assistance for Arts Education (AAE) grant, SVE integrates theater arts and social-emotional learning (SEL) to enhance English Language Arts (ELA) skills and foster sustainable student engagement. As the only New York City-based program to receive the 2021 AAE Award, SVE has made a lasting impact in four schools in Brownsville, Brooklyn.This workshop will explore the evolution of SVE, highlighting the program's structural and creative adaptations over the past three years. We will examine how teaching artists and program leaders have responded to the unique needs of individual schools and communities, refining approaches to collaboration and engagement. Additionally, we will focus on the pivotal role of transformation in supporting students as they transition from 5th to 6th grade, using theater and SEL as powerful tools for growth and self-expression. Participants will gain insights into the challenges and successes of adapting arts-based education programs and explore interactive games and activities centered on the theme of transformation. This session invites educators, administrators, and teaching artists to reflect on the lessons learned from SVE's journey and consider how these practices can be applied to their own work to foster sustained student engagement and meaningful collaboration.

The three, sequential Communities of Practice gatherings are an opportunity to engage with a more intimate group of symposium attendees over the weekend. These lightly moderated sessions will provide space to grapple together with core questions, inquiries, reflections and curiosities that emerge for your own creative practice throughout the Symposium.

Though we acknowledge that so many of us have hybrid-hyphenated-intersecting identities related to our practice, we request that you self-select one of the following communities with to engage over our three days together:

K12 educators (Matthew Reynolds)
Community-engaged artists and practitioners (Jo Michael Rezes)
Researchers/ university faculty or staff (Jonathan Jones)

NOTE: All attendees will join a Community of Practice regardless of how many days you will be with us.

In this final full community gathering, we will reflect on the weekend and close our time together with celebrations and commitments for moving forward.