PTW 2018 - Presenters

THE 2018

Presenters

Helen Abel

(San Francisco, CA, USA), MSW, is a life performance coach on staff at Life Performance Coaching in San Francisco, CA. She has trained with Fred Newman and Lois Holzman in postmodern approaches to human development and community building. As a life performance coach she helps people build groups where they can develop new ways of responding to challenging conversations and create the lives they want to live. She leads the Playground series in S.F. where she encourages development by teaching participants to use their capacity to create, perform and play and has also presented workshops in London, Greece and Serbia.

Hunter “Patch” Adams

(Urbana, IL USA) is a 73-year old clown who is a physician. In medical school (1967-71) he realized that the way medicine was practiced was wrong. So, Patch designed a hospital addressing some of the major problems in our country’s health care delivery system. The staff of this hospital would live together in a communal eco-village and artist colony, and everyone would make the same salary: $300 / month. This hospital would charge no money, carry no malpractice, and accept no medical insurance. A medical practitioner could spend as much time as he or she would want with a patient and be open to all kinds of healing. At 18, Patch decided to be happy, funny, loving, cooperative, creative, and thoughtful as an instrument for peace, justice, and care for all people and nature; therefore he is a clown. Patch has a fantastic partner, Susan, and two precious sons, Zag and Lars.

Lars Adams

(Oak, CA, USA) is most well-known for his eccentric character “Dolphin Boy,” Lars Adams (30) is a physical theater clown who began humanitarian clowning with his father when he was in junior high. Lars’ formal training includes several intensives at the San Francisco Clown Conservatory and a two-year program at Berty Tovias International Theater School in Barcelona studying the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq. Other stylistic influences include Jim Carrey in the 90s, South Park & bouffon. Lars’ approach to clowning reflects his interests in exploration of play, curiosity & relentless joyfulness as tools for authentic human connection.

Omar Ali

(Greensboro, NC, USA) is Dean of Lloyd International Honors College at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he infuses play, improvisation, and performance into the culture of the campus. Of Peruvian and East Indian descent, he is also co-director of Community Play!/All Stars Project Alliance in Greensboro, and brings performance and play into the working-class black community of Warnersville and the Congolese refugee community of East Greensboro in partnership with the City of Greensboro and the Center for New North Carolinians.

Beatriz Feliciana Amaral

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a 9th grade student at Stance Dual School. She is currently developing a research project about the influence of social networks on the popularization of social movements. She a is participant in the LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) research project at the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP) and also participates in the Digitmed Program, in which she develops activities with students, teachers, and administrators from public and private schools for collaborative school practice through multi-media.

Francesco Argenio Benaroio

(Budapest, Hungary) is a social theatre practitioner and Theatre of the Oppressed / Forum Theatre facilitator. He has worked for the United Nations, ILO, EU and for various NGOs around the globe as trainer and project manager for the empowerment and dialogue of various vulnerable communities. He facilitated social theatre processes in Colombia, India, Nepal, Thailand and Burma/Myanmar. Francesco lives and works in Budapest, Hungary, where he founded ANAMUH – Arts for Dialogue (www.anamuh.org), coordinating Theatre of the Oppressed grassroots processes, training courses and performances. Francesco is deeply committed in the transformative power of Social Theatre, as a means for personal healing, social change, community empowerment, peace and dialogue between cultures.

Jeffrey Aron

(New York, NY, USA) is Director of External Affairs at Fountain House, a community-based mental health organization in NYC dedicated to the recovery of men and women with serious mental illness. Under Jeffrey’s leadership, Fountain House won the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the world’s most prestigious humanitarian award; and created a partnership with the World Health Organization to develop guidelines and best practices for health practitioners working with people with serious mental illness. Jeff is currently planning Fountain House’s Healthier, Longer Lives for People with Serious Mental Illness international conference to be held in New York November 8th-9th. This convening represents a platform to raise awareness of the crisis of excess mortality and comorbidities amongst persons with serious mental illness, and to share innovative solutions that are improving and extending lives. Jeff has been associated with All Stars since 1981 and helped develop its community-building model. He is on its Board of Directors and the faculty of UX, All Stars’ school of continuing development.

Art Assoiants

(Calgary, AB, Canada) is an M.Sc. student in Counselling Psychology at the University of Calgary. In his thesis, he is exploring how counsellors are transformed through collaborative social change research. He enjoys co-creating innovative solutions to complex problems in his career and personal life. He is currently passionate about exploring and constructing performances of healthy living.

Saliha Bava

(New York, NY, USA) Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, NY. She is a doctoral advisor at the Taos PhD Program. She is on the faculty for HGI’s International Certificate Program in Collaborative Practices. As the Director of Research with the International Trauma Studies Program, she offers training on community engagement and has researched theater, community resiliency and psychosocial practices. She is the co-author of The Relational Book for Parenting, which draws on her research and practice of Relational Play i.e. the activity of relating from within the making of relational space. For over 20 years, she has consulted, designed and implemented performative/play-based and dialogic processes with organizational, community, family, learning and research systems. She embraces living as processes of improvised inquiry. Visit salihabava.com for her practice as a couple and family therapist. She lives in NYC with her partner and bonus son.

Derek Baylor

(New York, NY, USA) M.A., Applied Linguistics, is a Faculty TESOL instructor, the Committee Co-chair of the Applied Linguistics SIG of NYS TESOL, and the Committee Chair for the 2018 Applied Linguistics Winter Conference at Teachers College Columbia University. He is also a member of the T.O.C. fellowship at Teachers College. His research interests lie in examining how culturally responsive pedagogies can help educators and institutions to better deal with the difficulties that can arise from pedagogies based upon language deficient perspectives. His research interests also include on an exploration of how the processes of Hip-Hop Culture can apply to second language acquisition processes. An accomplished a singer-songwriter, he has recorded and/or produced music of various genres in several languages in multiple countries.

David Belmont

(New York, NY, USA) is a community organizer and mixed media artist living in New York City. He is on the faculty of the East Side Institute, as well as the co-music director of the Castillo Theatre and a researcher with independentvoting.org. After 50 years in the music business, he is now writing a novel and a memoir.

Omar Bolado Villegas

(Ciudad Juarez, México) is a student Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juárez and social activist, specializing on critical thinking in pedagogical communication. His participation and social action has been, in different ways, linked to defending human rights. He is currently coordinating the Tira Paro network of civil organizations that work with children and young people in vulnerable conditions in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. He also participates in the binational coalition Performing Communities de Esperanza, joining efforts for social transformation.

Elena Boukouvala

(Thessaloniki, Greece) is a drama therapist (M.A.), psychologist, counsellor of children and young people (M.A.), performance activist and community builder. Currently based in Thessaloniki, she has worked in refugee camps, schools, mental hospitals, rehab wards and communities in Europe, Asia and Africa as well as with international organizations such as IOM. As the founder of Play Is Hope, she has organized multicultural performance events across Europe in response to the leadership of the young people she met in the camps. Elena is East Side Institute Faculty, a graduate of the International Class, a board member of All Stars London and an organizer for PTW. She comes from a family of refugees. Her grandparents were dislocated from Turkey during the First World War. Elena is an initiator and lead organizer of the PPLG conference and the PTW on the Move Europe.

Amy Bravo

(New York, NY, USA) is the senior director of International and Experiential Education in Academic Affairs at New York Institute of Technology. She has over 20 years of experience in the areas of career services, experiential education, and civic engagement. Her specific areas of interest and expertise are in program development and assessment, partnering the academy with community businesses and non-profits, and student professional and civic development. She is co-creator of several NYIT programs including the Internship Certificate Program, Consultants for the Public Good and two student-run Community Service Center offices designed to get students civically, electorally and politically engaged. She also brought an Alternative Break Program to NYIT which has sent students, faculty and staff to Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic to build houses and to increase community access to clean water. Her centralization of service-learning programs created opportunities for all students to serve the public good.

Eva Brenner

(Vienna, Austria) is an independent experimental theater worker, author, and producer. After studying art, theater history, as well as stage design in Vienna, she worked for five years in Austrian, Swiss and German theaters before moving to the USA in 1980. Here she studied Performing Arts and Performance Studies at NYU (M.A. 1983 and Ph.D. 1994 under Richard Schechner), and became co-founder of the independent political Castillo Theater. Since 1994 she has been working out of Vienna, as artistic director of the experimental theater collective PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO/FLEISCHEREI_mobil, where she directed over 50 political performances and new formats of socio-theatre with migrants and community people. Currently she is working on a new concept for a Community Theater Center in Vienna, Austria. She has toured, lectured and given workshops internationally (Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Israel, Poland, Hungary, USA, China and others) and in 2013 published her book about independent theater ADPATATION or RESISTANCE, The Loss of Diversity (Promedia, Vienna).

Andrew Burton

(Prince George, BC, Canada) is the founder and Artistic Director of Street Spirits Theatre Company. Founded in 1999, Street Spirits has used creative art and performance to raise awareness of problems in the world and to generate ways of changing the world in positive ways. Andrew has presented and taught on social action and performance themes all over North America. His work has been recognized with numerous awards including: The Otto Award, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Canada Peace Medal, and British Columbia Gold Public Service Award.

Sarah Buchanan

(Round Rock, TX, USA) is a Junior at Southwestern University in Georgetown Texas. Working on completing a major in Elementary Education and a double minor in Special Education and Spanish. She wishes to work with bilingual students receiving special education services in the Georgetown school district. She is a member of the national spanish honor society Sigma Delta Pi, the national service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, and the national honor society for students in education Kappa Delta Pi.

Jorge Burciaga Montoya

(Ciudad Juarez, México) works as a professor at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional del Estado de Chihuahua (UPNECH), Campus Juárez, where he is also the Coordinator of the undergraduate program of Pedagogy (for those who want to be teachers). He trained in Social Therapy at the East Side Institute of New York and was a member of the International Class 2012-2013. Jorge has been teaching at the higher level since 2007 with different institutions and has more than 20 years of experience working with NGO’s, with teenagers, young people, schools, teachers, and unprivileged communities. He is a founding member of the Fred Newman Center for Social Therapy in Ciudad Juárez.

Valentina Caprotti

(Brugherio, Italy) is a nomad artivist, social worker and facilitator. Currently living and working in San Cristobal de Las Casa, Mexico, she is accompanying local social movements, while writing her thesis on somatic experiences within the feminist justice movements, for her MA at the Innsbruck School of Peace Studies. Prior to this, she lived in Guatemala, for four years, where she mainly worked with campesino and indigenous organizations fighting for their rights against land grabbing. Valentina has also facilitated workshops on the strategies of self-protection with a feminist approach with local organizations by combining analytical and creative methods (theater, body cartography and bodywork) in order to elicit processes for community transformation. She believes in the importance of self-healing and spirituality towards constructive social change, as she has learned from Mayan women activists with whom she shares experiences.

Ursula Carrascal Visarreta

(Lima, Perú) is the Director of the Cultural Association Minaq Ecodanza, an organization working since 2008 in creating environmental awareness through movement, therapy and visual arts. As a journalist, choreographer and ecologist she has worked over 20 years creatively promoting sustainable livelihoods. Her experience has included the research and development of indigenous children’s contemporary dance related to climate change and natural ecosystems. She won the International Ecology Peace Prize (Bolivia) and during 2017 was recognized as The Woman for Environment (University of Callao). She has worked with national and international associations in networking and organizing events allowing her to present her work and lead workshops in 22 different countries. Ursula is an associated member of the East Side Institute (NYC) and currently is studying dance therapy. She received her M.A. in Gender, Politics and Society.

Viviane Letícia Silva Carrijo

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a researcher with the DIGITMED project and member of the LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) research group. She holds a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Languages from the Federal University of Mato Grosso, and a Doctorate degree in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from PUC/SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo). She works with the following subjects: Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Multiliteracy, Digital Education and Teacher Education.

Teresa Cavanaugh

(Prince George, BC Canada) is the Assistant Director of Street Spirits. Teresa has taken part in Street Spirits productions, presentations and workshops for many years and serves as our in-house counsellor providing support to participants.

Michael Chan-Frazier

(Atlanta, GA, USA) LPC has 18 years of experience working as a licensed therapist with children, adolescents, and families in various treatment communities and educational environments. In addition to being a therapist, Michael is also an instructor at the University of West Georgia, where he teaches Psychology courses. In 2011 Michael began his journey worQing with energy healer and light worker, Vanda, and experienced a significant shift in not only his professional life, but also in his personal relationships. This shift prompted Michael to become more directed in his purpose by becoming a SOULva Bar Specialist where he performs energy clearings, or what we call SOULva Bar, supporting individuals, co-leading SOULva and CARE WorQshops in Atlanta, GA, and New York, NY.

Sabine Choucair

(Ain El Mreisseh, Lebanon) is a Lebanese humanitarian clown, storyteller and performer. She has been working with different communities around the world, finding real stories and transposing them on stage or in film. Sabine co-founded Clown Me In, in Lebanon and Mexico, a group using the art of clowning to fight social injustice. She is a member of Clowns Without Borders USA spreading joy and laughter among disadvantaged communities and in refugee camps. Sabine is the artistic director of The Caravan project, a street theatre performance that took the Syrian refugee stories to more than 50 communities in Lebanon and Tunisia and soon to Europe. She was among the 40 cultural leaders chosen to share their work at the World Economic Forum at Davos in January 2017. She’s worked in Lebanon, The United Kingdom, The United States, Brazil, Mexico, India, Canada, Cyprus, Tunisia, Belgium, France, Cameroon, Morocco, Jordan and Dubai.

Atay Citron

(Tel Aviv, Israel) is the director of the Ebisu Sign Language Theatre Laborator and Associate Professor and former chair of the Theatre Department at the University of Haifa. There, he founded the pioneering full-time academic training program for medical clowns. He is co-editor of Performance Studies in Motion (Bloomsbury, 2014), and was Artistic Director of the Bat-Yam International Street Theatre Festival (2007-2010), the Acco Festival of Alternative Theatre (2001-2004), and the School of Visual Theatre, Jerusalem (1993-2000).

Susan Clemesha

(São José dos Campos, Brazil) is a graduate student in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies at PUC/SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo) and a pedagogical coordinator at Esfera Escola Internacional, a bilingual (Portuguese/English) school in São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Education and has been working with English for speakers of other languages and teacher education for over 15 years. As part of the LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) research group, she is involved in the Digitmed Program, which aims at curriculum decapsulation through multiple media in collaborative and situated practices.

Natalia Collings

(Mt. Pleasant, MI, USA) was born in Volgograd, Russia, where she started her professional journey as an elementary teacher. She became involved with a study abroad and student exchange program that brought her to Michigan State University, where she completed her M.A. and Ph.D. studies in Education. Since then, she has been teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in Educational Psychology and Assessment at Central Michigan University for the past 12 years.

Miguel Eduardo Cortes Vazquez

(Ciudad Juarez, México) is a social therapist and educator from Ciudad Juarez. He received his B.S. in psychology from the UTEP, and his Master’s degree in Family Therapy from the Instituto Regional de Estudios de la Familia. In the past decade, he has received extensive training in social therapeutics from the East Side Institute through many of their training options, including the International Class, online certificate programs, by participating in the past five PTW conferences, and has been part of the social therapy supervisory group. He is the director of the Fred Newman Center, the first effort to bring social therapy to Mexico and is an advocate for learning disability educational rights through his project Heterolexia.

Matthew Costanzo

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) is a mental health survivor, musician and mental health professional. He’s worked for systems and culture change in several capacities, including as the Coordinator of Recovery Services at Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Long Island, NY where he oversaw the development and management of the Peer Services Department as well as provided trainings and program initiatives to support PPC’s goal of transitioning to a recovery-oriented model of care. Using the lessons gained from his life experiences as a consumer, he has presented extensively on a number of recovery-based topics in various professional forums. He’s been an educator at Howie T. Harp as well as a Peer Counselor and Advocate at Kings County Hospital Center in New York City. He completed his M.S. in Psychiatric Rehabilitation from Rutgers University in the spring of 2015. He was asked to join the PRA Board of Content Matter Experts in May of 2015.

Murray Dabby

(Atlanta, Georgia, USA) is a psychotherapist, group therapist, relationship coach, teacher and trainer for the last 30 years. Murray trains people in the non-diagnostic performance based social therapeutic approach developed by the East Side Institute, an international education and research center he helped found in NYC. He also co-developed thecouplescollege.com and curtainupanxietydown.com. Murray has a history in the performing arts as a musician, a community theatre director and as someone who uses performance and improvisation in his teaching and training in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to running a youth non-profit, Atlanta All Stars Talent Show Network, Murray conducts regular workshops with local business professionals and is on the faculty at Clark Atlanta University as an Adjunct Professor.

Mariamalia Cob Delgado

(San José, Costa Rica) is a microbiologist and clinical chemist who works for the social health system of Costa Rica. There, she runs the laboratory of the Naranjo Clinic, a rural town north of San José. In her quest to achieve a more humane treatment with her patients, she was trained as a therapeutic clown. In the year 2015, she founded the group Burumbun, a collective of artists and volunteers who use clowning as a tool of social integration. Currently, Burumbun is actively developing projects with populations at social risk; orphan children from the San José Hospice and kids from La Carpio, a community of migrants in San José.

Carolyn Dorfman

(Short Hills, NJ, USA) Artistic Director of Carolyn Dorfman Dance (CDD) is known as a creator of evocative dances that reflect her concerns about the human condition. She is interested in creating “worlds” into which the audience can enter. Hailed as the consummate storyteller, Dorfman, a child of Holocaust survivors, has also created a celebrated body of work that honors her Jewish legacy; its trials and triumphs, its treasured uniqueness and, most importantly, its universal connections. Her interdisciplinary and intercultural approach on the stage and in the community explores the rich tapestry of human experience, tradition and stories. Touring nationally and internationally, her eleven-member, multi-ethnic company, appears at major theaters, festivals, universities and non-traditional performance venues. CDD presents immersive performance and teaching residencies that take the company into diverse communities to share art and process that can build connection, understanding and inspire social change.

Kristina Dove

was born and raised in Dallas, where she currently manages Dallas City of Learning (DCL), a citywide initiative that bridges connections between the city, school district and over 500 community partners. Under her leadership, DCL involved 69,000 students in activities throughout Dallas during the summer of 2018. A passionate advocate of collaboration and community service, Kristina is also CEO of Women of Philanthropy, a foundation she started to bring together women leaders working to serve communities of color in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. She serves as Board President for The Learning Paradigm, which advocates on behalf of students with learning disabilities, and received her B.S. in Health at the University of Houston. She is a member of the ASP of Dallas Afterschool Development Working Group.

Abigail Earle

(Jacksonville, TX, USA) is from Jacksonville, the former world capital of tomatoes. She’s currently a senior at Southwestern University majoring in secondary education with a focus in English. She aspires to be the change through inspiring her students to love literature and see its worthiness and the places it can take them.

Renee Emunah

(San Francisco, CA, USA) Ph.D., RDT, BCT is the Founder/Director of (and Professor in) the graduate Drama Therapy Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. A pioneer in drama therapy (and one of the first drama therapists to be officially registered in the US), she is author of the book, Acting for Real: Drama Therapy Process, Technique, and Performance, which is considered a classic in the field. She is co-editor of two other books, Current Approaches in Drama Therapy, and The Self in Performance, and author of numerous articles. She is a recipient of the North American Drama Therapy Association’s highest award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Drama Therapy.

Francisco Estefogo

(Taubaté, Brazil) Post-doctorate in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (2017) under the supervision of Dr. Fernanda Coelho Liberali. He holds a Doctorate (2005) and a Master’s degree (2001) in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. He was a University professor at Centro Universitário Capital for 14 years and an English teacher at Cultura Inglesa São Paulo for 12 years. He was also a coordinator at Cultura Inglesa Faculty and a visiting professor at the General Coordination of Specialization and Extension – PUC / SP (COGEAE). He is currently a professor at the Program of Applied Linguistics of the University of Taubaté (UNITAU) and the academic director of Cultura Inglesa Taubaté.

Rita Ezenwa-Okoro

(Lagos, Nigeria) is the Founder and Lead Visionary of Street Project Foundation and a Marketing Communications Consultant. She is the architect behind talent discovery and development projects, such as the Creative Youth Boot Camp, Project Raw and Reflection Series. She has also successfully masterminded and managed life-changing charity projects, such as A Smile for December and The Haven Project that have succeeded in impacting the lives of over a thousand youths. Rita is constantly thinking of new ways to reach out to the less fortunate in society helping them become self-reliant, self-sustained and financially empowered. She is a Mandela Washington Fellow, a recipient of the Extraordinary Women Award in France, Lagos State International Youth Day Award, Champion of Change Award and Honoree of The Future Award. She was a panelist and guest presenter at the 2014, 2016 Performing the World Conference respectively.

Nick Fesette

(Atlanta, GA, USA) is an Assistant Professor of Theater Studies at Oxford College of Emory University, where he teaches and researches prison studies, theatre and social change, critical theory, acting and directing. More info can be found by stalking him on social media or on his website: nickfesette.net

Diana Feldman

(New York, NY, USA) LCAT, RDT-BCT, is the founder and CEO/President of ENACT Inc. (www.enact.org) that has brought social and emotional education through interactive theater and drama therapy techniques to hundreds of New York City schools for 30 years. A recipient of a five-year Ford Foundation grant, NADTA Research Award, and frequent presenter at national Arts in Education and Mental Health conferences, she is a drama therapist and author. Ms. Feldman has worked on developing original theater pieces that have run at the acclaimed Lortell Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, and the Tribecca Performing Arts Center in New York City. She is also a published songwriter.

Lynn Fels

(Vancouver, BC, Canada) is Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada. Lynn was Academic Editor of Educational Insights (www.educationalinsights.ca). She co-authored Exploring Curriculum: Performative Inquiry, Role Drama and Learning and has written about performative inquiry, arts across the curriculum, arts and leadership, arts and technology, and curriculum as lived experience. Lynn is also co-editor of Arresting Hope: Women Taking Action in Prison Inside Out (Inanna Press, 2015). Lynn is one of six co-investigators in a five-year Canadian SSHRC Partnership Grant, researching arts for social change in Canada. www.performativeinquiry.cca

Shari Foos

(Los Angeles, CA, USA) (M.S., M.A., M.F.T.) is a Marriage and Family Therapist, adjunct professor, and founder of The Narrative Method, an experiential program that uses personal narratives to increase empathy and compassion for others. Shari received her MS in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University and her MA in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University, Los Angeles, where she founded the Bridge Program (1999), a free humanities program for underserved adults. Seeing the need for meaningful connection in our increasingly dehumanizing world, she founded The Narrative Method™ in 2013 to provide training and programs for healthcare, corporations, youth, veterans and at-risk populations. Prior to her career as a therapist and entrepreneur, Shari was a television and radio writer, guerilla improv artist, comedienne and host of cutting edge salons and events that brought together artistic and intellectual communities for entertainment and creative dialogue.

Lydia Fort

(Atlanta, GA, USA) has directed at Cygnet Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, Perseverance Theatre, Women’s Project Theatre, Women Center Stage, Urban Stages, McCarter Theatre YouthInk! Festival, New Federal Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem, freeFall Theatre, Hangar Theatre, Planet Connections Festivity (where she was honored with the 2103 Best Director and Greener Planet Awards) as well as other festivals including the New Black Fest, 48 Hours in Harlem and the Fire This Time Festival. She was a Time Warner Foundation Fellow of the 2012-2014 Lab at Women’s Project Theater, a TCG New Generations Future Leaders Grantee, New York Theatre Workshop Directing Fellow, and Drama League Directing Fellow. Lydia received a B.A. from New York University and an M.F.A. in Directing from the University of Washington. She is an Assistant Professor at Emory University where she teaches directing, acting, African American theatre, and eco-theatre.

Patti Fraser

(Vancouver, BC, Canada) is the 2013 recipient of the Vancouver Mayor’s Art Award for Community Engagement. Currently she is a Research Associate with The Art for Social Change Research Project with Simon Fraser University and Co-Artistic Director of The Housing Matters Media Project. She is a founding member of the nationally recognized Summer Visions Film Institute for Youth. Her work has been recognized as best practices in diverse fields, within Indigenous Health and Education, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and the Canada Council for the Arts. www.pattifraser.com

Mary Fridley

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) is currently the pro bono Director of Special Projects and a member of the faculty at the East Side Institute, where she practiced social therapy for over a decade and continues to use social therapeutics in her work as a teacher and trainer. She is the co-creator of two popular workshop series: Laughing Matters and The Joy of Dementia. A long-time independent activist and community organizer, Mary makes her living as a fundraising consultant for non-profits in New York City and nationally. She is also a playwright and on the directing staff of the Castillo Theatre, where she has been helped to direct more than 25 productions. Mary has also produced an award-winning feature film, Nothing Really Happens (Memories of Aging Strippers).

Lenora Fulani

(New York, NY, USA) has long been active in creating change through political action. She has twice run for president as an independent. In 1988 she became the first woman and first African American in U.S. history to appear as a presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states. In 1994 she co-founded the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, a national strategy center for independent voters, which currently has networks in more than 30 states. She is a founder of the Independence Party of New York State and co-founder of the All Stars Project.

Selma Regina Pato Vila Granado

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a founding partner and pedagogical director at DEEP TRANSFORMAR PARA GERAR, working in four different areas: Deep School, offering a clinical psychoanalysis course; Deep Help, offering therapy assistance to the community, Deep Corp, using psychoanalytical tools in order to enable behavioral change inside companies and Deep You, offering clinical treatment to psychoanalysis students and the public. She was previously a Professor of History and Economics for 29 years at several educational institutions in São Paulo. She holds a degree in History and Education from the University of São Paulo, a degree in Psychoanalysis from Centro de Estudos em Psicanálise Clínica in São Paulo, and is also certified in Hypnosis from the Erikson Institute in Chicago. Other relevant activities include: the foundation, coordination and teaching of History and Economics at APROVE, a non-profit organization preparing low-income students for university entrance exams and active member of a non-profit organization CLUBE DE MÃES DO BRASIL, teaching and offering aid to the homeless in São Paulo.

Salvatore Greco

(Martano, Italy) has been working over the span of many years in diverse environments, ranging from a kitchen, to a radio station, to founding a cultural youth organization when he was 20. He has spent his life networking, creating, designing with people and NGOs, working to develop institutions, schools and communities. Over this span of time he has dedicated himself to many local and international projects, trainings, seminars and events.

Marilyn Green

(Hempstead, NY, USA) has taught art, music history, art history, writing and aesthetics at universities including the University of Cincinnati, New York University, Hunter College and Bellarmine University. She has been awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship, a Millay Colony Fellowship and numerous grants in the arts and humanities, including a two-year CETA grant for a three-gallery installation. After performing with Fanchon Shur’s modern dance company, she went on to choreograph solo and ensemble works in New York and to explore the movement choir concept in Europe. Her work combines dance, music, video, painting, batik, theater and lighting. At Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City, she creates environments for the improvisational dance company she directs, with elaborate painted faces and bodies, costumes and sets. Her work, including Reconciliation, The Phoenix, Book of Job and The Doors, has been performed from New York to California and Canada to New Mexico.

Jamie Gutiérrez Vélez

(Bogota, Colombia) is an engineer and anthropologist, who has always been interested in creating spaces of play, personal growth, social change. Born and raised in Colombia, his passion is in building bridges between seemingly opposite worlds. He has been trained in Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed in Belgium, the UK and Colombia and has worked as a social innovation consultant. After studying Social Therapeutics at the East Side Institute in 2012, Jamie began researching how to introduce the performative psychology methodology to the corporate world. He has also been trained in Theory U and Social Presencing Theatre by Otto Scharmer and Arawana Hayashi at the Presencing Institute (MIT) and currently offers social innovation workshops in Colombia.

Cheraé Halley

(Johannesburg, South Africa) completed three years of South African Sign Language studies, and received Master’s degree in Dramatic Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand with Honors. She creates theatre with both deaf and hearing people with a particular interest in HIV/AIDS, gender and human rights, and using drama as process to educate and create a dialogue. Similarly, she coordinated the HIV/AIDS Deaf Awareness Project at Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action, using theatre as an educational outreach tool for HIV/AIDS awareness in deaf schools around Johannesburg. She teaches Applied Theatre at Wits University. Through a Drama for Life scholarship, Cherae completed her practice-lead, M.A. research. She performed and collaborated with directors such as Warren Nebe, the controversial Pieter-Dirk Uys and Jade Bowers. The production received a Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award and a Naledi Award Nomination for Best Production: Cutting Edge (2015). Cheraé is a member of the DFL Playback Theatre Company in South Africa and trained with the founders practitioners.

Lalenja Harrington

(Greensboro, NC, USA) is currently the Director of Academic Program Development and Evaluation for the Integrative Community Studies Certificate at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she also recently received her Ph.D. in Educational Studies and Cultural Foundations. Lalenja has been involved in music and performance for most of her adult life and has been writing and performing poetry since 1992. She is most excited about the collaborative artistic process and exploring the ways in which “the creative can inform/enrich scholarly work.” Lalenja is a graduate of Princeton University with a B.A. in Psychology and a graduate of UNC-CH with an M.A. in Journalism and Communication Studies.

Peter Harris

(Tel Aviv, Israel) Ph.D., Chair of the Theatre Studies Department at Western Galilee Academic College and Lecturer at Tel Aviv University Theatre Arts Department. His current research centers on inter/multi-cultural dialogue in the dramatic space. Harris has international experience and expertise in applying a variety of applied theatre practices for empowering human rights issues, dialogue in conflicted communities, relations in the work place, prisoner and substance user rehabilitation.

Yasuko Hasegawa

(Osaka, Japan) is a London trained theatre designer and community artist, with a passion in community theatre and devised theatre. Her interest extends to exploring the relationship between the arts and well-being, leading her to the recent collaboration in the field of healthcare. She now lives in Osaka and works both in the UK and Japan.

Lainie Hodges

(Denver, Colorado, USA) founder and owner of Improv Alchemy, uses the power of play and improvisation to create environments where people can grow and develop. With over 15 years of experience in youth, athletic, professional, and personal development fields, she leverages everyone’s unique talents and assets to make them more innovative, agile, creative, and responsive. Her work includes the public school systems in NYC and Denver, former prisoners reintegrating into society, and numerous NFL teams. She also developed the Denver Talent Show Network, after volunteering at the All Stars Project in NYC, which gives young people a stage to shine with the support of their community. Lainie received her BS in Health and Exercise Science from Syracuse University and her MA in World History and Culture from the University of Denver. She is a also a graduate of the 2017-2018 International Class with the Eastside Institute.

Marisa Holzapfel

(Essen, Germany) is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Chemistry Education at the University of Duisburg-Essen and works in the working group Stachelscheid. The main topics of this working group are health education, humor and individual learning. For her doctoral thesis, she developed learning material for health education using humor. She then worked to discover whether elementary and secondary school students who were taught with the material with humor learn more about and develop interest in sun protection, and whether they behave in a more health-conscious manner than the students who were taught with the same material without the elements of humor.

James C. Horton

has served as Director of Learning and Leadership Developmentfor the National Guild for Community Arts Educationsince 2012. With over a decade of experience in youth development, arts education, and community engagement, James previously worked as program director for the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Employment & Technology Center and video & performing arts coordinator for their TRUCE Arts & Media program, a 2005 recipient of the prestigious Coming Up Taller Award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. He is the founder of The Cure summer program which teaches community members about HIV/AIDS through the arts, and has produced numerous events showcasing the artistic achievements of NYC youth. James studied theater at Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA and is a graduate of Columbia University’s Institute for Not-For-Profit Management.

Katharine Houpt

(Chicago, IL, USA) is an artist, board certified art therapist, and licensed clinical professional counselor in Chicago. For the past eight years, she has worked with people facing life transitions ranging from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, to grief and loss, to sense of purpose. Katharine facilitates individual and group art therapy sessions as well as socially engaged community-building experiences using improv, creative writing, “zine” making, comics, puppetry, video, fibers, and a variety of visual arts. Katharine is a Lecturer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she teaches a course she created, “Comics Narratives: Illness, Disability, & Recovery.” She is also a consultant and trainer for a University of Indianapolis Center for Aging & Community Expressive Arts in Long Term Care project which aims to collaboratively immerse expressive arts into nursing home environments. Katharine is passionate about promoting the strengths of individuals and communities, particularly those who are marginalized due to age, ability, mental illness, chronic disease, race, gender, and other factors impacting identity.

Ruth Howard

(Toronto, Canada) is an interdisciplinary artist, theatre creator/designer and founder and Artistic Director of Jumblies Theatre, based in Toronto. She has created multi-year residencies in a series of neighborhoods, resulting in large-scale productions and lasting Offshoot organizations. She has worked as a theatre designer, taught at many universities, colleges and schools, mentored many artists and organizations, and won awards for her work. Some of Ruth’s recent projects with Jumblies include the west-to-east-coast Train of Thought tour, the 2016 Touching Ground Festival of new works on a theme, and the 2016-18 Four Lands travelling project.

Ginger Hsiao

(Taipei, Taiwan) is an actress, a tap dancer, and a senior tap teacher at Ludi Community University. In her relationships with the students during teaching and learning activities, Hisao realized that learning tap is not only learning tap, but also encompasses building relationships with himself/herself and the other learners. Tap Dance Class is an environment for community building.

Morteza Jafari

(Thessaloniki, Greece) is an accredited film director from Iran, currently based in Greece. He was born in 1975 in Teherane, where he studied as a film director. In 2008, he moved to Greece as a refugee. Since then, he has made four documentaries and three films, many of which documented the refugee crisis and travelled around Europe participating in various festivals. Through the power of image and sound, Morteza wants to capture and share the refugee crisis from humans, to humans.

Chloe Jang

(Waterloo, ON, Canada) is a pre-med student at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Her interest in imagination and play was inspired by a clowning trip she went on with Dr. Patch Adams. She is now working with Syrian Refugee children in her ESL program called ASCEND and is hoping to incorporate elements of play and improvisation into her program. Her other research interest regards how play is interconnected with personal and community health.

Camilla N. Jensen

(Tempe, AZ, USA) Ph.D. is the founder and President of InterPlay, LLC, a company of innovation facilitators in Phoenix AZ that delivers creativity workshops, innovation consulting, and coaching to multinational corporations (including Bayer and Freeport-McMoran) as well as to local startup companies. Camilla specializes in amplifying the creativity and communication of cross-functional teams grappling with complex problems. She uses playful methods to help workshop participants open up, get human with their colleagues, and unleash creativity to see challenges from a new perspective, and thereby accelerating knowledge sharing and innovation. Dr. Jensen is a licensed trainer of the open source LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) facilitation method.

Ginger Hsiao

(Taipei, Taiwan) is an actress, a tap dancer, and a senior tap teacher at Ludi Community University. In her relationships with the students during teaching and learning activities, Hisao realized that learning tap is not only learning tap, but also encompasses building relationships with himself/herself and the other learners. Tap Dance Class is an environment for community building.

Elisângela Janoni

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a Pedagogical Coordinator at “João Domingues Sampaio” public elementary school. She works with Latin American immigrant students, mainly Bolivians, and has worked as a pedagogical coordinator for 10 years in the municipal public education of São Paulo. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education from the State University of São Paulo (UNESP/SP), and a post-graduate degree in Literacy from the Federal University of São Carlos and in School Management from University of Fortaleza. She is currently a graduate student in Education at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and her research line is teacher education for ethnic racial relations.

Tamara Estefanya Jimenez Florez

(Bogotá, Colombia) leads Magicians Without Borders, a group of young magicians and entrepreneurs who are willing to change the world through magic. They are committed to the world and every day giving the best of themselves to the vulnerable communities where they come from. The world needs change, it needs people to rise up and bring more creative and innovative ideas to the table, which means more work. Tamara is delighted by magic’s capabilities in making the impossible, possible, in changing sorrows into joys and by changing the mindset of people from Ciudad Bolivar, his home.

Elias Paulino da Cunha Junior

(São Paulo, Brazil) is an educator, researcher and professor at the Federal University of São Paulo. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies, from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, in the line of research: Language and Education. Under Professor Fernanda Coelho Liberali, he has a Master’s in Education, Stricto Sensu, by the University Nove de Julho in the line of research: Policies in Education. Lato Sensu, in Bilingual Education for the Deaf, by the Deaf Institute, Education, Language, Inclusion / Faculdade XV de Agosto. Training in Brazilian Sign Language by the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. He has Lato Sensu from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, in History, Society and Culture. Participated in the project, from the Department of Post-Graduation in Education of Scientific Initiation and Degree in History, Degree in Literature-Literature by the Federal Institute of São Paulo and Pedagogy by the Brazilian Institute of Formation / Faculdades Integradas de Cruzeiros. He is also part of LACE Research Group.

Adaire Kamen

(New York, NY, USA) is a New York based playwright, performer, and theatre educator. She graduated in 2014 from Fordham University with a bachelor of arts in theatre. Her plays have appeared in the New York Fringe Festival and the United Solo Festival, and she perform s on the improv team “Big Kitten.” She is also a producer and curator for the annual Halloween short play event, The Bite Sized Theatrical Spooktacular.

Michael Kamen

(Georgetown, TX, USA) completed a Ph.D. (1991), in Science Education, exploring creative drama in teaching science. Michael began his teaching career in a small democratic school on Long Island. He earned an Undergraduate degree in Elementary Education (SUNY, Stony Brook) with specializations in Psychology and Early Childhood Education, a Masters in supervision and administration (Bank Street College of Education), and a Doctorate (The University of Texas). He has 30 years of experience as a professor educating pre-service and in-service teachers.

Katlego Kolanyane-Kesupile (Kol-Kes)

(Francistown, Botswana) is a groundbreaking, Trans* ARTivist from Botswana, who uses various art forms for human rights activism and advocacy. Her areas of interest are humanizing stories of marginalized persons and developing avenues for community to drive social change. Kol-Kes is a graduate of Sociology at Goldsmiths University of London, UK, with an M.A. in Human Rights, Culture, and Social Justice, as well as of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, with an Honors degree in Dramatic Arts. Kol-Kes is a TED Fellow, the author of On About the Same Old Things, founder and Creative Director of the Queer Shorts Showcase Festival (Botswana), an alumnus of the Young African Leadership Initiative and a member of the Mellon Mays Fellows Professional Network (MMFPN).

Pia Kontos

(Toronto, ON, Canada) Pia Kontos is a Senior Scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network and Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She is a critical scholar committed to the transformation of long-term dementia care so it is more humanistic and socially just. She draws on the arts (e.g. music, dance, improvisational play) to enrich the lives of people living with dementia. She also creates research-based dramas to effect personal and organizational change. She has presented and published across multiple disciplines on embodiment, relationality, ethics, and dementia.

Kat Koppett

(Schenectady, NY, USA) is the Founder & President of Koppett a training, coaching and consulting company specializing in the use of theatre and storytelling techniques to enhance individual, group and organizational performance. Her book Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership and Learning, is considered a seminal work in the field of Applied Improv. Kat’s diverse clients have included Apple, Facebook, Prezi, the Clinton Global Initiative, Chanel, GE, Ellis Hospital, JPMorgan Chase, Eli Lilly, SUNY, the American Heart Association, and Havas Health. Kat is also the co-director and a performing member of the Mopco Improv Theatre and has lectured at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, RPI and Skidmore. A board and founding member of the Applied Improv Network, Kat has given two TEDx talks and been names to Theaterweek’s “Unsung Heroes of the Year” list for her creation of the completely improvised musical format, “Spontaneous Broadway”.

Lisa Kramer

(Auburn, MA, USA) M.F.A., Ph.D., co-authored Creative Collaborations through Inclusive Theatre and Community Based Learning (Palgrave Macmillan 2017), a non-fiction book that explores the power of communities working together to share stories. She has spent her life learning, creating, and exploring the world through directing and teaching theatre, writing, travelling and collaborating as an educator. She loves to inspire others to find their own creative outlets and believes in the power of the arts to change the world, an idea that she explored in her debut novel P.O.W.ER (Word Hermit Press). When not writing, she teaches as adjunct faculty in theatre and performance studies at various schools throughout New England, spends time with her family and dog, and runs workshops in creativity, theatre and writing for people of all ages and abilities through her company heARTful Collaborative. For more information, visit her at www.lisaakramer.com or www.artsintransition.org.

Deborah Kronenberg

(West Roxbury, MA, USA) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performing Arts Department Coordinator at Pine Manor College. In addition to earning her Master’s in Educational Theatre from NYU, she has spent close to 20 years teaching theatre for social change in public schools and urban communities. She has published “Towards an Empowerment Approach” in Youth Theatre Journal and “Sixth Graders Bring Ancient Civilizations to Life” in Contours of Inclusion. She is currently working towards her M.F.A. at Goddard College in Interdisciplinary Arts. Deborah focuses her research in how the arts can build community in educational settings, increasing student engagement, retention, and highlighting the power of performing arts to develop collaborative, creative, critical citizens.

Richard Krysztoforski

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) is a professional development expert and internationally trained improviser. He has studied and performed at Upright Citizens Brigade (NY/LA,) Magnet Theater (NY,) IMPRO Amsterdam Festival, and the Gothenburg Impro Festival in Sweden. He has worked with master instructors Anders Fors (Sweden/NY,) Jason Geary (Australia,) Amey Goerlich (NY/LA,) Felipe Ortiz (Columbia,) Daniel Orentia (Columbia,) and many more. In his professional development work, Richard looks to update classic professional development techniques through applied improvisation, placing particular emphasis on reducing the anxiety and fear that comes with career related exploration. The result is a “fun over fear” approach that allows individuals to engage in their own personal and professional development with confidence and peace of mind.

Sanjay Kumar

(New Delhi, India) is a practitioner of activist theatre. As the founding President of pandies’ theatre and the director/chief-facilitator of its productions since 1993, he has been creating performances with and for the marginalized in India for over 20 years. His work comprises: scripting and directing over 30 proscenium performances, creating protest theatre and using the workshop mode for creating theatre with young people. A resident of the Bellagio Centre, Bellagio, Italy (2010) and a participant of US Government’s IVLP program – Promoting Social Change Through the Arts (2011), he has published in several journals, presented at seminars and conducted workshops all over the world. He wrote and directed Offtrack, which was staged at the PTW in 2012. He has been an Associate Professor of the Department of English, Hans Raj College, University of Delhi since 1984. His Ph.D. thesis covers a PaR (Performance as Research) on Activist theatre from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Gabrielle Kurlander

(New York, NY, USA) is an innovative non-profit entrepreneur, community organizer, actor, and theatre director. As president and CEO of the All Stars Project (ASP), Ms. Kurlander has transformed ASP from a grassroots all-volunteer effort into a national model for engaging poverty through afterschool development. Under her leadership, All Stars has expanded to reach over 50,000 young people and their families each year in six cities across the country. Ms. Kurlander has decades of training in performance and theatrical producing and has performed in and directed dozens of plays and musicals. Her direction of the 2012 production of Sally and Tom (The American Way) won five AUDELCO Awards, including a Best Director award.

Marisol Patrícia Saucedo Revollo Lage

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a graduate student in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from the Postgraduate Program of PUC/SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo). She is also a member of the LACE Research Group (Language in Activities in School Contexts) and is involved in the Digitmed Program. Her research focus is on Volunteering, in which she is responsible for a project titled “Quixote Solidário: Volunteering Towards Social Intervention”, carried out in the bilingual school in which he works as a resource teacher. She develops teacher training and assists students with special educational needs.

Ellen Lambert

recently left her triad role as PSEG Chief Diversity Officer, President of the PSEG Foundation and Senior Director, Corporate Responsibility and Culture, to take on different challenges – maternal mortality, inclusion training, sculpture creating and grandmother-hood. Now serving as Humanitarian Officer for Mothers’ Monument, Ellen works to identify, accurately track, and end the causes and consequences of maternal mortality. At her company, EW Lambert LLC, she motivates and challenges business-critical corporate and non-profit teams with inclusion training experiences and problem solving ideas labs. Ellen holds a J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law and has been recognized for her work by Women in Media/Newark; Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and The Newark Arts Council. She is a member of the All Stars Project of NJ Afterschool Development Working Group.

Alexander Lancaster

(Arlington, MA, USA) Ph.D. is an evolutionary biologist, engineer, writer and consultant. He is a Research Scholar at the Ronin Institute, and a Partner at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based digital biology consulting firm, Amber Biology.

Bashiru Akande Lasisi

(Ibadan, Nigeria)is a playwright and director for both stage and screen. He has over 20 years of experience using drama and film to promote human and societal development. Bashiru teaches Sociology of Drama and Film as well as Theatre Management in the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan Nigeria. He has several stage and radio drama for agencies like UNICEF Nigeria, The World Bank supported programs and many other national agencies. He also has many technical papers on health, education, cultural and organizational management.

Julie Lassonde

(Toronto, ON, Canada), originally from Montreal, is a performance artist who is interested in subjects such as gender, intimacy, socio-legal norms affecting daily life and processes related to performativity, such as repetition. Trained in corporeal mime school, she presented solo performances and improvisations in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, Berkeley, San Francisco and Edinburgh. She also studied law at McGill University. She is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Barreau du Québec. In 2006, she was awarded the Law and Society Graduate Fellowship and an interdisciplinary master’s degree in law and the visual arts at the University of Victoria (see http://law.uvic.ca/lassonde/). She received the Innovative Electronic Theses & Dissertations Award from the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations for her thesis, in 2007, in Uppsala, Sweden. Julie published “Performing Law” in The International Journal of the Arts in Society (2006) and co-edited the book Collision: Interarts Practice and Research (2008). From 2015 to 2016, she was Chair of Le Labo in Toronto.

Justean Lebel

(Toronto, ON, Canada) is a family mental health counselor providing group and individual support. She practices from a bedrock of recovery principles with experience in CBT, DBT and ACT modalities. Her work is complemented by her experience as a daughter of a survivor which drives her passion for supporting parents, siblings, and involved friends. She is delighted to share her knowledge of family work with St. Joseph’s Health Centre, currently working as the Family Navigator. In this position, she innovatively advocates for family member inclusion, thereby striving for meaningful system change.

Powpee Lee

(New Taipei City, Taiwan) after working several years on the streets and in the factories as an organizer in the labor movement, Lee realized the necessity and influence a community has to develop strength in relationships between people and deepen the learning process. From this discovery, Lee participated in developing a community school for adults over 19 years ago, Ludi Community University. During the process, he grew to learn that what really matters is not knowledge shared but about rather accomplishments shared, thus creating a school playground for adult learners.

Bongile Lecoge-Zulu

(Johannesburg, South Africa) is a multi-faceted artist practicing in music, writing and performance. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of the Witwatersrand School of Arts, a Master’s with distinction in Music Research and DipABRSM & LRSM in flute performance. A performer in live orchestral and band performances, her work is collaborative and interdisciplinary, involving directors, writers researchers and choregraphers such as Kabi Thulo, Warren Nebe, Theogene Niwenshuti, Krisy Suttner and Kieron Jina. Her most recent performance Dear Mr Government, Please May I Have A Meeting With You Even Though I Am Six Years Old? (dir. JessicaLejowa), won the Standard Bank Ovation Award. Her latest work has been the tribute musical Divas of Kofifi. She teaches flute at Brescia House School, St Stithians College and the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy. She is a member of Drama for Life Playback Theatre.

Jessica Lejowa

(Tlokweng, Botswana) holds a Bachelor of Arts from Rhodes University, a Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Art with Honors, and a Master of Arts in Dramatic Art from the University of the Witwatersrand. She teaches Performance, Drama and Film and Research Project Portfolios at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has directed productions with student and professional theatre makers, including Kabi Thulo, Jenni-Lee Crewe and Tamara Guhrs. As a facilitator, director and performer, Lejowa’s work revolves around the investigation of ritual in theatre and power dynamics in gender, race and religion, focusing on the lived experiences of women in Africa. She is the author of Auto-ethnography as Performance Practice in an African Context: Negotiating gender and culture through performance practice (LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. USA and UK. 2011). Jessica was the head of the Drama Department at Machabeng College, Lesotho and is now currently the Head of the School of Live Performance at AFDA Botswana.

Arielle Lever

(Rockaway Park, NY, USA) is a co-founder, the Director of Programming, and a Teaching Artist at CO/LAB Theater Group. In addition to working at CO/LAB, Arielle is also a Teaching Artist at The New Victory Theater, a theater dedicated to theater for young people and their families. She has also worked as a consultant and professional development facilitator for several theater companies on inclusive arts practices including Classic Stage Company, Trusty Sidekick Theater Company, and The Children’s Museum of the Arts. Arielle was also the former Director of Education at The Deconstructive Theatre Project’s Integrated Theatre in Education program. Arielle continues to perform, both on stage and on screen. She was recently seen at The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival and Trusty Sidekick’s Up and Away, which was part of Lincoln Center Education’s Big Umbrella Festival, a festival dedicated to theater for audiences on the autism spectrum.

Bruce Levitt

(Ithaca, NY, USA) is a professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University. For the past eight years, Levitt has assisted the Phoenix Players Theatre Group in their training and in devising five original pieces that the group has performed for invited audiences. Levitt has served as faculty director of the Cornell Prison Education Program that provides men in four regional correctional facilities the opportunity to earn an associate’s degree while incarcerated. Levitt has collaborated in community-based projects with the Lehman Alternative Community School, John O’Neal, Roadside Theatre, Urban Bush Women, Michael Keck, and members of the American Festival coalition. He co-teaches a course in community engagement with Scott Peters, a faculty member in Development Sociology and Shorna Allred, a faculty member in Natural Resources. In the fall of 2016, Levitt was the inaugural recipient of Cornell’s Engaged Scholar Prize.

Kristen Lewis

(Victoria, BC, Canada) is a life-long performance artist and dancer, with 15 years of devoted practice in performance creation, experimental theatre and dance improvisation. From 2010 to 2017, she built an innovative, child-centered, community-engaged dance teaching practice in the small, vibrant arts community of Salt Spring Island, B.C., while continuing to create and perform original, boundary-pushing performance work concerned with making visible the intersection of the mythic and the mundane. Kristen is now a law student at the University of Victoria, interested in family law as a site of innovation, improvisation, liberation, and peace-building. Her artistic activities continue unabated, with a lively artistic practice rooted in daily dance improvisation, writing, and interdisciplinary study. Kristen’s performance activities are currently focused on bridging worlds: academic and artistic, legal and performative, theoretical and practical, spiritual and activist. Kristen honours her many teachers across disciplines: dance innovator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, ballet teacher Clare Bader, painter and creative mentor Jim Gordaneer, performance studies critic and guide Thomas Taylor, and ceremonial elder and long-time collaborator David Westcott, as well as many others—especially the many dancing children she has taught and learned from over the years, whose innocence and goodness inspire her to believe that better worlds are always possible.

Clarissa Liberali

(São Paulo, Brazil) is an English teacher at Oswald de Andrade School and an assistant-teacher at Maple Bear Canadian School – Alto de Pinheiros. She is also a member of LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) Research Group and is actively involved in its project entitled Digitmed. She holds a degree in Education from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC – SP) and in Languages from the University of São Paulo (USP).

Fernanda Liberali

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a teacher educator, researcher and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, in the Postgraduate Programs of Applied Linguistics and Language Studies, and of Education: Mentorship Education. She holds a degree in Languages from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, a Master’s and a Doctorate degree in Applied Linguistics from PUC-SP, and postdoctoral degrees from the University of Helsinki and from Berlin Freie Universität. Among her relevant academic and administrative activities are: national coordination of the DIGIT-M-Ed International project, funded by Marie Curie Actions, Brazilian representation of the international Vygotskian association ISCAR, participation as an associate of the East Side Institute, coordination of projects for the continuing education of principals, coordinators, teachers and councils of municipal public schools of São Paulo and participation in boards and editorial commissions of scientific journals.

Amia Lieblich

(Jaffo, Israel) is a Professor Emerita of Psychology at the Hebrew University and is the President of the Academic College for Society and the Arts in Israel. She works as a gestalt therapist and group facilitator who has recently focused her interests in Death Cafes.

Elly Litvak

(Toronto, ON, Canada) is a wellness and recovery specialist with over 25 years’ experience in mental health. She has established a variety of recovery programs within the Canadian mental health system and currently holds the position of Family Navigation Coordinator, a partnership program between CMHA-FOR in Toronto and St. Joseph’s Health Centre. A trained actor and comedian, Elly’s highly acclaimed one woman show Now Who’s Crazy Now? chronicling her experiences living with and recovering from serious mental health issues, has played to audiences across North America. Elly delivers a variety of recovery-oriented workshops to mental health professionals, families and people with the lived experience.

Carlos López

(Bogotá, Colombia) is the Magicians Without Borders Director for LATAM. He is the Founder of the Smiling League, a Colombian nonprofit that uses magic and entrepreneurship to empower underserved youth in Colombia.

Sandra Paola López Ramírez

(El Paso, TX, USA) (B.F.A., Ed.M.) is a latinoamericana dancemaker, improviser and performance activist. Her community-based interdisciplinary work plays with gender, identity, and sociality, and it has taken her through the US, Colombia, Brazil, Cyprus, France, Canada and Mexico. Since moving to the United States from her native Colombia in 2004, she has developed her practice to integrate her creative process and her community organizing efforts. Driven by her commitment to social transformation, Sandra Paola co-founded and directs the Institute for Improvisation and Social Action (ImprovISA) – an organization empowering diverse populations to develop through performance and improvisation in the U.S.-Mexico border. She is currently dance faculty at the University of Texas at El Paso and is completing her M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts with a Performance Creation concentration at Goddard College.

Tim Lord

co-founded DreamYard in 1994 with Jason Duchin. An arts and social justice pedagogy-based organization, DreamYard works with Bronx, NY students, families and schools to build pathways to equity and opportunity. Tim is a graduate of Brown University and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco, California. He was a member of the acting company at A.C.T. before moving to New York City. Tim has taught in public schools, after school programs and social service organizations. Tim was a 1993 Echoing Green Fellow, and has spoken on education reform panels at the Harvard Business School, Yale School of Management and other institutions. He served on the NYC Task Force on Quality Arts Education and has served on funding panels for the NYS Council on the Arts and Center for Arts Education.

Gwen Lowenheim

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) M.S. Ed., is a learning design specialist, a TESOL instructor and East Side Institute faculty member. She is co-founder/co-director of The Snaps Project, an educational consulting firm. Gwen trains and supervises educators and social entrepreneurs around the world in a social therapeutic, performance-based learning approach that brings creativity and innovation into classrooms and community-based programs. Her programs introduce theatrical improvisation, philosophical exploration, remix and group play in developing collaborative teams, language learning and stress management.

Abigail Luna

(Hutto, TX, USA) is a junior at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She is majoring in Elementary Education and minoring in Theatre. She is an active member of Southwestern University’s acapella group Sailors and Sirens as well as a member of Kappa Delta Pi, a National Honors Society for students in Education. She plans to use her theatre experience in the classroom to enhance learning.

Sarah Lyons

(Richmond, NY, USA) is Director of Communications at Independent Voting, a national strategy, communications, and organizing center working to connect and empower the 44% of Americans who identify as independents. Since 1995, she has played a leading role in making Independent Voting recognized as the premier advocacy center in the U.S. for independent voters and advancing its mission to reform the U.S. political system and create a new culture of politics. Lyons leads a spokesperson training program that has trained over 400 independents to act as spokespersons for issues of concern to independents.

Maria Cecília Camargo Magalhães

(São Paulo, Brazil) holds a Doctorate degree in Education by Virginia Tech. She is currently a Professor at the Linguistic Department and the Applied Linguistics and Language Studies Post-Graduation Program of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil. She works with theoretical-methodological issues in Teacher Education mainly focused on critical collaborative research within the theoretical frame of the Socio-Historical-Cultural Activity Theory. Her main research interests are also related to language dialectical organization related to teaching-learning processes and citizenship education, as well as multiliteracy, community and community building issues.

Andres Marquez-Lara

(Reston, VA, USA) is the Founder and Passion Catalyst at Promethean Community LLC, a social enterprise that facilitates systemic change in Latin America and the Caribbean through customized programs that develop socio-emotional skills for innovation, aimed at leaders and change makers. These programs help leaders engage complex problems in ways that are more inclusive, participatory and systemic. Andres is Faculty at the Executive Master in Policy Leadership at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, and a Guest Lecturer on leadership at Georgetown University Institute for Transformative Leadership. He is also a Senior Fellow at the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. He is also an East Side Institute Associate and has been connected to ESI since 2010. He earned a B.A. in psychology from Duke University, and a graduate degree in clinical community psychology from the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Caracas, Venezuela.

Jim Martinez

(Jersey City, NJ, USA) is an associate professor of interdisciplinary studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies and Education at the New York Institute of Technology. He is also the department chair of Interdisciplinary Studies and Urban Administration. His active research interests include STEAM/STEM learning, service-learning pedagogy, and collaborative Vygotskian approaches to human development and learning. Dr. Martinez is a graduate of City University of New York Graduate Center with a Ph.D. in Urban Education. He is a permanently certified New York City public school teacher. Prior to teaching Dr. Martinez was a managing director in an internet start-up and a corporate information technology manager. He has published two books, A Performatory Approach to Teaching, Learning and Technology and The Search for Method in STEAM Education.

Susan Massad

(New York, NY, USA) is a retired primary care physician educator who has researched and taught doctor-patient communication for over 51 years. As a faculty member of the East Side Institute, (ESI) she continues to pursue a life-long interest in the experience of illness for all those involved in the health ensemble: patients, family, friends, and providers. Through conversations and workshops she has been exploring how to support people to grow and develop in the face of serious illness, aging or memory loss. Over 30 years ago, alongside colleagues at the ESI, she created a social collaborative approach to health and healing called The Health Team that is now being used successfully by people to create new performances of health. She is the founder of the All Stars Project where for the past eleven years she has led a senior performance group called the New Timers that is now a regular offering at ASP’s UX.

Smita Mathur

(Harrisonburg, VA, USA) is an associate professor in the department of Early Elementary and Reading at James Madison University. Her professional interests relate to learning through culturally-responsive play-based activities.

Julio Agustin Matos Jr.

(Harrisonburg, VA, USA) has performed on Broadway in the original companies of Fosse, Steel Pier, Never Gonna Dance, Bells Are Ringing (revival), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and was featured opposite Bebe Neuwirth in Chicago, the musical. He recently released his book, The Professional Actor’s Handbook: From Casting Call to Curtain Call (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). Award recognitions include: Audelco nomination for Best Director (La Dulce Caridad, a Latina adaptation of Sweet Charity at New Haarlem Arts Theatre, NYC); Best Choreographer nomination by the Syracuse Area Live Theatre (In the Heights at Hangar Theatre); Shelfer Eminent Scholar Chair from Florida State University. Bachelor of Music, FSU; M.F.A., Penn State. Julio is a Certified Practitioner with the One Voice Centre for Integrative Studies, and runs The Transition Workshop, a monthly audition studio in New York City (JulioAgustin.com).

John McCarty

(Harrisonburg, VA, USA) is the Director of Choirs and an Assistant Professor of Music at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Virginia. At Bridgewater, Dr. McCarty conducts two curricular choirs, directs three extra-curricular choirs, and teaches courses in music history, ethnomusicology, and music education. He is also the conductor of the Crozet Community Chorus, a non-auditioned community choir of 70 voices in Crozet, Virginia, and is the music director at Clover Hill United Methodist Church in Dayton, Virginia. In the fall of 2017, Dr. McCarty was invited by the Harrisonburg Harmonizers, a barbershop

choir based in Harrisonburg, Virginia, to be the master teacher for their “Ready, Set, Sing” program, a six-week series of classes teaching the basics of singing to members of the community. Dr. McCarty’s research interest in choral pedagogy for adult community choirs has resulted in him giving several masterclasses, workshops, and conference presentations throughout Virginia.

Kelli McLaughlin

(Austin, TX, USA) is a recent graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas with a Bachelor’s of Science in Education. She certified to teach early childhood through sixth grade general education and special education early childhood through twelfth grade. As a fresh college graduate, she is excited to see where the rest of her life takes her.

Maria Cristina Meaney

(São Paulo, Brazil) holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics from the Post-graduate Program of Applied Linguistics and Language Studies, PUC/SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo). She is engaged in bilingual education, resource development for English language teaching, integrated curriculum development, argumentation, and teacher education. She works as a bilingual educator at Stance Dual School teaching different subject areas in English as an international language. She worked as an English teacher and coordinator at CELLEP, a renowned language institute. She is a member of LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) research group and its projects, such as Digitmed, which proposes alternatives in school practices and curricular development using multiple media in collaborative and multidisciplinary practices.

Alys Mendus

(Lake District, U.K.) completed a Ph.D. (2017), in performing School Tourism, an autoethnographic rhizomatic journey in search of the ideal school around the world. Alys embodied her scholarship in Freedom to Learn by living itinerantly in a van whilst in the U.K. and then travelling to 180 schools in 23 countries.

Barbara Ann Michaels

(New York, NY, USA) Jester of the Peace, makes a career of the interplay of art, love and comedy. She is an audience-interactive performance artist who creates playful events and environments that evoke authentic connection and transformational experiences. Recent projects include Clown Curious: Adults at Play and Seven Senses Stroll with Air BnB Experiences, touring projects #IVOTE4U and the AND NOW: WOMAN expression salon, the annual Love Letter Lounge, and the Heartist Collective. She creates theatrical characters to entertain/educate for corporate/community events across the USA. She has performed at Museum of Fine Arts Boston, New York Clown Theater Festival, Miami Project, San Francisco Fringe, Boston Museum of Science, and Discovery Channel. She has been featured on The Learning Channel’s Four Weddings, in the New York Times, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, New York Magazine, Huffington Post, and more. She holds degrees from Brown University, Massachusetts College of Art, and One Spirit Interfaith Seminary.https://www.jesterofthepeace.com

Phil Miller

(New York, NY, USA) currently works as a paralegal here in NYC, and he recently graduated from Baruch College with a B.A. in Corporate Communications. He’s also a photographer who enjoys learning foreign languages, Tango, and good food. His next step will include graduate school, either for a Master’s or law degree.

Catherine Minton

(Greensboro, NC, USA) is a sophomore student at UNCG, studying Integrative Community Studies. Catherine shares that she has a certain disability known as Auditory Processing Disorder, but that didn’t stop her from going to school and going to different places everywhere. She wishes everyone to know she wants to inspire them all wherever she goes, and she is happy to share her creative ideas with you all.

Angelo Miramonti

(Trecate, Italy) is a participatory theater facilitator and a university professor of Community Theater in Cali, Colombia. He facilitated participatory theater workshops and plays in Italy, Hungary, Northern Ireland, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, Colombia, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa. He is the author of How to Use Forum Theater for Community Dialogue – A facilitator’s Manual (Lulu, 2017). Before becoming a full-time theatre facilitator, he coordinated NGOs’ programs for the rehabilitation of child soldiers in Uganda and Congo and worked for UNICEF in the protection of children from violence and exploitation in Senegal. He is also carrying out anthropological research on possession cults among women of the Lebou ethnic group in Senegal.

Tiera Moore

(Greensboro, NC, USA) is a poet and graduate student in international and global studies at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has served as Coordinator of Programming for Lloyd International Honors College and is a co-director of Community Play!/All Stars Project Alliance in Greensboro. She is of Nigerian descent and has done ethnographic fieldwork in West Africa and South Africa, where she has been exploring the phenomena of the ‘Higgler’—transnational entrepreneurial women. This is her second appearance at PTW.

Yuji Moro

(Tsukuba, Japan) teaches Psychology at University of Tsukuba. He started his academic career as a developmental psycholinguist at the National Language Research Institute, Japan, studying the developing process of words and its usage in children’s writings. This very boring work made him deviate from positivistic “scientific” psychology and project himself into reforming psychology. He organized a group of young psychologists that pursued alternative psychology, non-individualistic, non-ahistorical, and non-positivistic psychology. Moro has been a long follower of Newman/Holzman’s appreciation of Vygotsky’s psychology. Recently he founded Japan All Stars, aiming to build a think tank for developmental activists serving poor young people in Tokyo.

Etsuko Nakagami-Yamaguchi

(Osaka, Japan) is a patient safety officer, physician and psychologist who works in a university hospital. She also teaches quality and safety science to medical students as an associate professor. Her research and interests are in developing organizational learning for better quality management in hospitals.

Tamara Nikolić Maksić

(Belgrade, Serbia) works as an Assistant Professor at the Department for Pedagogy and Andragogy at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. She is East Side Institute’s Associate. In 2010 she joined International Class at ESI which sparked her interest in the intersections of arts, play and performance, adult learning and community building which she continues to pursue to this day. As an experienced educational professional, she teaches adult education related to leisure and recreation, communication and media, play and creativity, all applied drama and performance.

Nancy Maloy

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) is an educator, actor, language instructor and public speaking coach of 25+ years. Throughout her career she has been able to integrate these various disciplines with the goal of nurturing authentic communication; working with adults and children, corporations and artists, the physically and emotionally challenged and world language learners. She was the Director of the Whole Child program at the New York Open Center in the 1980’s and has also worked as an artist in resident in schools, using her professional background in theatre. As an educator she taught acting and playwriting where she directed and produced over 32 plays and musicals. She is also the founder of Speak UP Speak OUT with Confidence, a public speaking consultancy.

Wole Oguntokun

(Lagos, Nigeria) is a Playwright, Theater producer and Artistic Director of Renegade Theatre. He is also a Fellow of the International Society for Performing Artistes (ISPA). He was the founding producer and resident director of Theatre@Terra, a project he ran weekly for three and half years, staging plays at the Arts Centre known as Terakulture. He is the writer of stage plays such as Prison Chronicles, The Chibok Girls, The Tarzan Monologues and the head writer of The V-monologue, the Nigerian version of The Vagina Monologue. Worthy of note is his work as Asst. Director to Nigeria’s Nobel Laureatte, Prof Wole Soyinka in the Nigerian Premiere of The Beatification of Area Boy in the 2015 Muson Festival.”

Ezenwa Eleazar Okoro

(Lagos, Nigeria) is a Social Justice Advocate and volunteer consultant for Street Project Foundation. He is a renowned youth mobilizer and has 14 years’ experience working directly with communities focusing on community development, social entrepreneurship and skills acquisition for young people. He is the founder of the Enugu Youth Entrepreneurship Network(E-YEN). Ezenwa is a RiseUp Fellow and also a Mandela Washington Fellow of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). He is an Alumni of Pan-Atlantic University Nigeria, Galilee International Management Institute Israel and University of Wisconsin-Stout, USA.

Abiodun Olayiwola

(Ibadan, Nigeria) teaches drama and film at Obafemi Awolowo University. He has published articles on the Nigerian cinema, popular culture and dramatic literature in local and international scholarly outlets. He is a filmmaker and a theatre director with many works to his credit.

Everton Pessôa de Oliveira

(São Paulo, Brazil) holds a Master’s in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP) and works at the Mauá City Hall, as translator-interpreter in Brazilian sign language (Libras). He also works with the municipal pedagogical team in the development of trainers. He works at PUC/SP as translator-interpreter of Brazilian sign language and is working towards his doctorate at the same institution. He is a researcher with the LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) group, focusing on the following concepts: deafness, deaf community, CHAT (Cultural Historical Activity Theory), critical collaboration, multiculturality, argumentation, among others.

Eduvielawhe Olutimayin

(Lagos, Nigeria) is an Administrator who searches for efficient and effective ways to improve processes in administration and operations. She is an enthusiast for investing in people and enjoys working in dynamic teams that cut across various levels of management. She graduated from the University of Lagos with a B.Sc. in Banking and Finance. She has worked in notable organizations like MTN Nigeria, AD Consulting Limited and Zenith Bank Plc where she managed a loan portfolio in excess of $300million at the time. She was also the lead for the automation process of the department and worked on mapping the process flow for an easier transition. She also has an MBA from the Liverpool John Moores University, UK where she volunteered as a Gateway Assessor at the Birmingham branch of the Citizens Advice Bureau and Chara Trust, UK. Here, she was introduced to the concept of Social Entrepreneurship and went on a study visit to Poland to witness a social enterprise in action. She now serves as a Partner and Director of Operations for the Street Project Foundation.

Estefania Luciene Ortega

(El Paso, TX, USA) is a student at The University of Texas at El Paso, where she is pursuing a B.F.A. in Dance. Her passion for dance started at age of three with her first ballet class. Since then, she developed her training in her hometown, Ciudad Juárez, México. She has participated in ballet, jazz, contemporary, hip-hop, latin and aerial dance choreographies. In 2016, she moved to the United States to start her college education. Looking to expand her college experience and community service opportunities, she joined The National Society of Collegiate Scholars, where she currently occupies an officer position. She is a member of Desert Dance, a student organization in which she has continued growing in different fields of dance. Estefania is presently working in an internship at the Institute for Improvisation and Social Action (ImprovISA), an organization empowering populations to develop through performance and improvisation in the US/Mexico border.

Brenda Treco Padre

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a graduate student, a translator and an English teacher at Colégio Pentágono, a school in São Paulo – Brazil. She is a member of LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) research group and has been working as an English teacher over the past four years in different school contexts – language institutes, private bilingual and private regular schools. Brenda also holds a degree in Languages from Pontificial Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and is currently pursuing her M.A. degree in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies at the same university.

Ivan Pantelić

(Belgrade, Serbia) is a theatre director, collaborative artist and creative professional residing in Vienna and Belgrade. He holds a B.A. in Theatre Directing and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He helped re-establish “Abrofest”, once a cultural landmark and alternative theatre festival that ceased to exist during the 90s, and he has been actively working in theatre since. While directing fringe theatre, as assistant director he participated in productions in major theaters in Serbia such as National Theatre in Belgrade or Yugoslav Drama Theatre. As a presenter and workshop maker, he took part in a number of conferences throughout Europe, including Summer University of the European Left Party in 2017. His collaborative art works were exhibited at galleries, conferences and independent art spaces in three continents. He is currently freelancing as a professional writer while volunteering as an editorial board member and contributor at literary magazines.

Susan Parenti

(Urbana, IL, USA) is an experimental music and theater composer. (Why the qualifier “experimental”? While systems have the capacity to produce problems, they frequently don’t have the capacity to solve them. Therefore, it’s up to us!) Susan has been working/playing with ways to make language, gesture, sound and movement say what they haven’t yet been able to say, in hopes that new articulations could bring about the changes of thinking that change society. She is one of the organizer/teachers of the School for Designing a Society in Urbana Illinois, an educational experiment established in 1991, which takes the question “What would I consider a desirable society?” as serious playful input to creative projects.

Laurizete Ferragut Passos

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a teacher educator researcher and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, in the Postgraduate Studies Program in Education-Psychology of Education and Coordinator of the Program of Postgraduate Studies in Education: Mentorship Education of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. She holds a Ph.D. in Education from the São Paulo University. She coordinated the Teachers Training Working Group of the National Association of Postgraduate and Research in Education (ANPED). She is a researcher in the area of teacher training that works in the area of social vulnerability.

Mayarí Pérez Arroyo

(Belén, Costa Rica) is a social psychologist, educator and actress who believes in inner and collective potential for social transformation. She has experience working with adolescents experiencing difficulty adapting in the traditional educational system through group-oriented spaces of play and dialogue. She currently works at ILPPAL, an alternative high-school with a psychosocial and humanistic approach to education in Costa Rica. She is passionate about expression, body, art and development, so she also works creating spaces for personal evolution and collectivization of affection through art and culture workshops, using alternative methodologies as play, psychodrama, transformational theaters, art therapy and contemporary dance.

Tony Perone

(Tacoma, WA, USA) Ph.D., is a faculty member in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Tacoma. He teaches courses in introductory psychology, human development, and life-span imaginative play. His research and teaching interests include the life-span presence, development, and benefits of imaginative play activity and the role of improvisational theater activities in formal learning environments, in teacher education, and in community organizations.

Robin Post

(Wilmington, NC, USA) is an Assistant Professor of Acting with the Department of Theatre at The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). Robin specializes in Acting, Community Engagement Devised work and a program called Shakespeare and Autism. Robin was previously on faculty at The Ohio State University where she developed the Shakespeare and Autism programming and directed a longitudinal research study of the work. Robin most recently played Trinculo in an adaptation of The Tempest performed in Los Angeles, CA with and for children on the autism spectrum in May, 2016.

Kathleen Potts

(New York, NY, USA) is a nationally recognized playwright, dramaturg, and scholar. Alumna of Columbia University’s School of the Arts (M.F.A., Playwriting), and The Graduate Center, CUNY (Ph.D., Theatre), she is also a member of the Dramatists Guild. Other honors include: Eugene O’Neill Center Playwriting Fellow and Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival’s “Lorraine Hansberry Award” for her play Miss Nowhere Diner (Dramatic Publishing Company). She is a founding member of Crossways Theatre, a community-based theatre company with a vision of being an intersection where people of different races, backgrounds, and religions meet. She also co-authored Julio Agustin’s recently released book, The Professional Actor’s Handbook: From Casting Call to Curtain Call (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). She is an Assistant Professor in The Department of Theatre and Speech at The City College of New York, CUNY.

Josephine Quaye

is a graduate of Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Josephine has over 10 years of performance experience, both on numerous professional stages and as a vocal music teacher for the Newark Public Schools; a teaching artist at the NJ Performing Arts Center; program director at Soaring Scholars, Newark Public Schools 21stCentury Program; senior program director, the Future Project; and the director of choral activities with the Newark School of the Arts. She finds great pleasure in performing on stage for an audience as well as engaging young people through performance in the classroom and in after school group settings. Josephine is a member of the All Stars Project (ASP) of New Jersey’s Afterschool Development Working Group.

Joy Radish

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) holds a Master’s degree in drama therapy from NYU and currently works as a psychotherapist on an inpatient psychiatric unit in Brooklyn. As a life-long performer, radical theatre artist, and experienced yoga educator, Joy brings a variety of tools to her work, all of which are firmly rooted the clinical practice of psychotherapy. Joy has worked in hospitals, detention centers, jails, schools, settlement houses, and yoga studios. She specializes in the integration of yogic studies, ritual and ceremony as directly applied to drama therapy, and in generating self-scripted original therapeutic theatre performance. As a music and theatre artist she has performed at venues such as Joe’s Pub, Symphony Space and NPR.

Syed Mizanur Rahman Raju

(Dhaka, Bangladesh) known as Syed Raju, was born and brought-up at a remote village of Tangail, Bangladesh. He received the highest level of schooling from his mother after the passing of his father when Syed was five years old. He studied at three different institutions with three different subjects including Economics, Drama and Psychology respectively from Jahangirnagar University, Rabindrabharai University and East Side Institute. Mixing with diverse communities from different parts of the world has given him basic skills to learn how to learn. He has developed different curriculum at university level including “Art of Living”, a three-credited course in Bangladesh for tertiary level students to develop their emotional strength to carry on practices of ethics and values in life and living. He is working at Daffodil International University as the Director of Students’ Affairs and is the departmental Head of General Educational Development.

Sara Ramshaw

(Victoria, BC, Canada) was appointed Associate Professor at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law in 2017 following previous appointments at the University of Exeter (England) and Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland). After receiving her B.A. (Hons) from the University of Toronto, Sara obtained both a LL.B. and a LL.M. from the University of British Columbia. She then clerked at the Ontario Court of Justice (General Division) and was called to the Bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 2000. Sara worked for the Ministry of the Attorney General at the Superior Court of Justice, Family Court in Toronto before commencing postgraduate studies at the University of London (Birkbeck College) in England. Sara’s doctoral thesis, completed in 2007, examined the legal regulation of jazz musicians in New York City (1940-1967) through the lens of post-structural theory informed by feminism, critical race theory and critical improvisation studies.

Molly Raskin

(Maplewood, NJ, USA) is a freelance journalist with a special interest in global/mental health. Since 2004, she’s contributed dozens of stories to the PBS NewsHour. She’s also produced and written short films for non-profits including Timbuktu Renaissance (narrated by Morgan Freeman) and Strong Minds (narrated by Ashley Judd). Molly’s work has appeared in publications including Scientific American Mind and Psychology Today. She is also the author of the non-fiction book No Better Time. To learn more, visit her Website. www.mollyknightraskin.com, www.hustleunlimitedmedia.com

Muneebur Rehman

(Karachi, Pakistan) is an actor, drama practitioner, voice over artist and improviser working to establish drama-in-education and community drama as a formalized academic discipline in Pakistan. He received introductory training in TO and Forum Theatre from DramaBox, Singapore and was the recipient of Tina Sergeant Development Initiative Pass for Singapore Drama Educators Association Conference, 2015. With ten years of acting experience, he has to his credit Pakistan’s first-ever Drama Department in a school setting in Lyari, a violence-ridden, marginalized area in Karachi. He presented its story, Journey of the First Step, at the Singapore Drama Educators Association Conference, 2017. To apply drama meaningfully in all spheres of life, he has designed and executed programs for children’s theatre, schools and youth training programs. He is exploring inter-disciplinary interfaces of drama with other fields to make drama a fluid means of exploration and expression for all. Over the summer of 2018, he taught improvisation in theatres across Nepal, training first-time performers to perform shows for audiences at different venues.

Chris Reyman

(El Paso, TX, USA) comes from a musical family and began performing professionally with his father when he was fifteen. He performs in jazz and improvisation ensembles, most notably the Koan Ensemble. In addition to performing, he has composed scores for award winning short films that have been screened at over one hundred film festivals in twenty-five countries. His research focusing on improvisation has been presented in New York City, Paris, at the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium 2014 and 2016, New Mexico and throughout Texas. Chris Reyman is a dedicated professor of music at the University of Texas at El Paso where he works with students on creative music practices through performance, composition, and collaborative music making. He is the co-founder and Assistant Director of the Institute for Improvisation and Social Action (ImprovISA) an organization that uses performance and improvisation to empower communities.

Thomas Riccio

(Richardson, TX, USA) Professor of Performance and Aesthetic Studies, the University of Texas at Dallas. Artistic Director, Dead White Zombies, a post-disciplinary performance group. Previous positions: Professor, the University of Alaska Fairbanks where he directed Tuma Theatre, an Alaska Native performance group; Artistic Director, Organic Theater, Chicago; Resident Director/Dramaturg, Cleveland Play House; Associate Literary director, American Repertory Theatre. He works extensively in the area of ritual, shamanism, and indigenous performance, working in Alaska, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Korea, India, Nepal, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Ethiopia. He has taught at the University of Dar es Salaam; Addis Ababa University; University of Pondicherry; and the Korean National University. Current performance ethnography project is with the Miao of southwest China. The Republic of Sakha (Siberia) declared him a “Cultural Hero.” He has published two books; his academic writings have appeared in numerous international journals. www.deadwhitezombies.comwww.thomasriccio.com

Marian Rich

(New York, NY, USA) is a comic educator, coach and trainer. She is a co-founder of the Castillo Theatre and longtime builder of the All Stars Project. Her ongoing exploration of comedic forms includes improv, stand-up and humanitarian clowning with Patch Adams. The founder of Career Play, Inc., she brings 20-years of experience as a recruiter and improvisational performer/director to help clients see new possibilities. She is a member of the Committee for Independent Community Action, working closely with Dr. Lenora Fulani to empower NYC’s poor communities.

Sasa Rudan

(Belgrade, Serbia / UK) is a transdisciplinary researcher and artist (poet and painter) working to develop understanding, communication in improving society. He is researching and practicing with a wide range of community’s social mechanisms, ways of integrating and practicing art, performance and creativity in the process of innovation and scaling complex social problems. With his collaborators he is practicing a trans-domain fusion of both with real-world methodologies and artifacts together with online tools and services. He just delivered his Ph.D. thesis at Oslo University, Norway called: “Self-organizing Collective Mind – Paradigm Shifting in Designing, Developing and Practicing Collaboration”. He specializes in collaborative socio-technical systems (be it architecting and conducting research on them, leading transdisciplinary production teams, or taking on the role of an entrepreneur) that relates to social-processes, knowledge sharing, innovation, business-process management & optimization, and research modeling.

Sinisa Rudan

(Belgrade, Serbia) is an international speaker, educator, researcher, IT developer, and a poetry performer. His scientific research is in the domain of collaboration and creativity, applied on socio-technical and charity systems. By profession he is an IT M.Sc. He leads several art-science multidisciplinary projects. He was a participant, a mentor, and an organizer of several performance workshops and poetry courses. He’s performed his poetry across three continents and 15 countries. He pursues his interests through several regional and international positions: Co-founder of “ReMaking Tesla – Practices that make a Genius” – International Forum of Interactive and IT-Augmented Education; Co-founder of ChaOS – an NGO uniting artists and scientists on cultural and humane projects; Co-founder of Protopia Lab Serbia/Norway, and member of Protopia International Core Team; Project manager of “Poezin Slam Company” and performs as a one of its members.

Cathy Salit

New York, NY, USA) is an author, performer, executive coach, social entrepreneur, and CEO of Performance of a Lifetime (POAL), a global consulting firm that blends the art of theatrical performance and the science of performative psychology to help leaders and organizations close the gap between the current reality and their desired future. Cathy is the author of the Performance Breakthrough: A Radical Approach to Success at Work, (Hachette) in which she presents The Becoming Principal™, the revolutionary approach to learning, growing and change, and a contributor to Applied Improvisation: Leading, Collaborating and Creating Beyond the Theatre (Bloomsbury). A longtime member of the Applied Improv Network (AIN), and supporter and organizer of the Performing the World community from the beginning, Cathy is an artistic associate at the Castillo Theatre, lives in NYC with her crazy cats Benny and Belle, and sings jazz and R&B on any stage she can find…or create.

Camila Santiago

(São Paulo, Brazil) holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics from the Post-graduate Program of Applied Linguists, PUC/SP (the Pontific University of São Paulo). She has taught students from all ages and levels in different languages institutes. She has been working as a languages, linguistics and scientific methodology professor in face-to-face and distance graduation and post-graduation courses and also as a coordinator assistant in the Languages Center at UMESP (Methodist University of Sao Paulo). Besides, she has been been teaching English to third and seventh graders at Escola Villare. She is a member of LACE (Languages in Activities in School Contexts) and, in a social-historical-cultural perspective, her main research interests include bilingual education, knowledge production through critical collaboration, based on argumentation; English teaching-learning through social activites, and multiliteracy approach to education.

Naomi Shafer

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) was initiated to the world of humanitarian clowning when she performed in Russian orphanages as a 12-year-old. She splits her time between clown-wrangling and managing an environmental cleanup. Naomi holds an M.B.A. in Conscious Business (Marlboro College) and a B.A. in sociology and playwriting (Middlebury College).

Dr. Maryam S. Sharifian

(Harrisonburg, VA, USA) is an assistant professor in the department of Early Elementary and Reading at James Madison University. Her professional interests relate to war zone education, diversity and inclusion.

Kanika Shirole

(Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA). Kanika is a graduate student at Northwestern University where she is working towards a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health.

Sara Sibony

(Tel Aviv, Israel) teaches and directs at the Department of Theatre at Haifa University, in the The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and in the High Drama School of Nissan Native in Tel Aviv. She is a creative artist, actress, director and writer in the field of visual theatre performance, storytelling and devised theatre. Her work bears personal, social and gender-affiliated elements, and offers an approach that blurs the lines between creation, education and research. As an actress, she created a variety of theatrical works and solo performances while taking part in various productions with different ensembles and theaters. As a director, she works with marginalized communities, collaborating with students and professional artists. Her work Marketplace was performed at the Bat Yam International Street Theatre Festival in 2009 and was documented by the Professor Amia Lieblich in her 2010 book, Look at Me.

Barbara Silverman

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) has practiced the social therapy approach, a radically relational cultural approach to human development and leadership for 40 years. She trained with Fred Newman, Lois Holzman and Christine LaCerva in postmodern approaches to human development and community building. While on the faculty of the East Side Institute for Group and Short-term Psychotherapy, she founded Developing Across Borders (DAB), a weekly international online group activity. Barbara leads environments that play with differences to cross borders culturally, geographically, socially and emotionally. She has created innovative clinical collaborative practice and supervisory models with adults and youth in schools and community mental health centers that have received national recognition.

Mariana Soledad Loya Parra

(Juárez, México) is a psychologist and the director of Techo Comunitario and Casas de Cuidado Diario, two organizations committed to providing accessible child care for working class communities. Her programs prioritize early childhood and child development, parenting courses and actions, and spaces for play and learning, having both a community play center and mobile play van.

Alexander Stamm

(Vienna, Austria) is studying for an M.A. in German Studies and working as an assistant director and dramaturge since autumn 2017. His studies have concentrated on the intersections of politics and literature and his master thesis focuses on the political theater of Erich Mühsam and Ernst Toller. He has been involved with the PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO/FLEISCHEREI_mobil since early 2018 and has so far been working on the production of Refugee Stories by Bertolt Brecht.

Mayra Stergiou

(London, United Kingdom) is the Artistic Director of Vertebra Theatre, a Physical and Visual Theatre Ensemble of European Artists which creates and co-produces devising, puppetry and film work with diverse communities. With a taste of the Absurd and the Visual Storytelling we seek to explore the interplay between the dynamics of life, imagination and science creating original and socially inspired writing for stage and screen. Since 2012 the company collaborated with various theatres and festivals and been supported by The Arts Council of England and other organizations. Vertebra provides puppetry, dance and animation workshops for community building in UK and abroad. Other productions: Dark Matter (Little Angel Theatre 2017), Homeland Festival 2015, An Ice Thing to Say (Migration Matters 2017), Birdphobia (The Space, 2015), Walz of Lost Dreams (Film, 2014), Shell (Film, 2013). www.vertebrarts.com

Nicole Sumner

(San Francisco, CA, USA) plays in the intersections of activism, the arts, improvisation and play-centered learning. She teaches at SFSU and CSU East Bay, attempts bossa nova songs on ukulele and runs Artways Playways. Nicole founded the education arm of Delhi Poetry Slam, developing spoken word performances with youth in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Goa. She began learning about living democracy with the Seattle Nonviolent Action Group, via street theater and ACT UP in the 1980s, helping start Seattle’s Needle Exchange Program. Nicole holds Seattle’s first poetry grand slam title and founded a theater program at Purdy Women’s Prison, WA, now run by Freehold Theater. She has studied with US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera (poetry), Obie and Pulitzer Prize winners Maria Irene Fornez and Susan-Lori Parks (playwriting), Carlo Altomare (The Living Theater), Dr. Roland Wiggins (jazz) and Julia Marshall (master arts educator). She’s recently been certified as a Laughter Yoga Leader.

Alexandra Sutherland

(Cape Town, South Africa) is the coordinator of creativity in activist education at Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education in Cape Town. She is also a Senior Research Associate and Associate Professor at Rhodes University. Her artistic and research projects have included a long-term theatre project with street involved youth, and a theatre project with male inmates at a medium security correctional facility which uses theatre and performance for self-representation and political expression. Her published research focuses broadly on gender, masculinity and performance within forensic settings, and the links between performance and social justice with mental health care users in forensic psychiatry. She has worked closely with student movements and cultural activists and is passionate about the possibilities of the creative and performing arts for political expression.

Akiko Suzuki

(Bethesda, MD, USA) is a Japanese clinical psychologist and social worker. She has worked at a non-profit organization to support the unemployed and homeless, especially children and young people. Although based out of Maryland, she is still director and supervisor of several NPOs in Japan including NPO Panorama, Inclusion-Net Kanagawa, and Japanese Network of Support for Strained People.

Shoshanah Tarkow

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) is a scholar and conceptual artist whose work lives in the interstices between real/virtual, human/nonhuman, analog/digital. Her artistic digital interventions explore the way art, community, and experience function in a digitally mediated world. Shoshanah’s work creates spaces and opportunity dialoging about ethical responsibility and integrity online, and the need for “digital mindfulness.” Shoshanah is the creator, developer, and Chief Citizen Curator of the Digital Happening project (a community-sourced, durational, artistic experience modeled after Allan Kaprow’s 1960’s Happenings and presented on social media). Shoshanah received her B.F.A. in Theatre Studies from Adelphi University where she was the recipient of the Provost Arts Talent Scholarship, and her M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University, where she was the recipient of the Emerging Scholars Award. To find out more about the Digital Happening project check out DigitalHappening.org, for more information about Shoshanah and her work visit ShoshanahTarkow.com.

Guillermo Fabian Terisotto

(Santa Fe, Argentina) is the composer and lead singer of the band, After the Storm. He’s made audio perception, percussion and vocalization in the Crei of Santa Fe, Institute of Music for Children and Young People, and has received courses at the Superior Institute of Music. He participated in the musical show, Peace Child Habitat on behalf of Argentina and Latin America Like Habitat II, commissioned by the UN in Istanbul, Turkey in 1996. He was selected by the ONU to participate as a vocalist and musician, taking part in The World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg), obtaining the recognition from the President of South Africa, T.M. Mbeki.

Amelia Terrapin

(Tampa, FL, USA) is an educator and entrepreneur, committed to creating participatory learning environments in the fields of education, business and social change. After a career as a professional dancer and educator, she developed a movement-based K-12 STEM curriculum that blends academic content with leadership development. Through this project, Amelia envisions an equitable education system that cultivates the unique contribution of each person. She founded Mobius Method to use movement as a powerful learning tool for groups that range from schoolchildren and at-risk teens to engineers and business executives. Participants gain a deep understanding of complex ideas, build trust, and discover new ways to relate effectively. Amelia is a curriculum adviser and facilitator with Byron Fellowship, a leadership development initiative for change makers from around the world. She is a member of the Leading Change team, an effort to elevate the way organizations, teams and communities interact with each other to unleash more capacity for change. www.mobiusmethod.com

Carla Regina Sparano Tesser

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a Ph.D. student in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies at the Pontifical Catholic University PUC/SP, under a CAPES scholarship. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics from the same institution (2015). She is a specialist in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) and Special Education – Faculdade Eficaz (2011) and holds a bachelor’s degree from Guarulhos University (2004). She holds a Certificate of Proficiency in Translation and Interpretation of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS)/Portuguese Language/ Brazilian Sign Language – Higher Level (Prolibras 2008). She is a member of LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) research group and its Digitmed Program. With 10 years of experience, she works with interpretation in various communities and different educational levels.

Alicia Thompson

(Brooklyn, NY, USA) is an accomplished actor, theatre maker, and current Senior Teaching Artist with ENACT. She has participated in multiple years of ShowUP! development, helping students across New York City put words to their feelings and express their deepest concerns, dreams, and ideas. Alicia teaches for ENACT in regular and suspension sites across the 5 boroughs and currently leads the Student Advisory Committee, bringing current students together to discuss improvements and ambitions in education, policy making, and social justice issues.

Barbara Tint

(Portland, OR, USA) Ph.D. is the President of the Applied Improvisation Network. She is a Professor of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University and the University of Oregon Law School, USA. She has lived and worked in Australia, France, India and Israel (to name a few). Her main areas of training and focus are in Power & Status, Intercultural Relations, Gender Relations, Leadership Development, Conflict Resolution and Dialogue Processes. She uses improvisational methods in all of her work and believes that Improv can change the world.

Jo Tyler

(Pikesville, MD, USA) is Associate Professor at Penn State University. Prior to joining Penn State, Jo was a corporate practitioner in multinational environments for 25 years, most recently as vice president of organization and management development at Armstrong World Industries. Prior to that role she held various learning and development positions for Hewlett Packard, Otis Elevator, and Pratt & Whitney. Her research explores the interplay of visual art, stories, organizational narratives, and play in organizational contexts with a focus on organizational change. Her most recent exploration further connects these elements to notions of psycho-social spaces and the facilitation of small groups. She provides customized facilitation, workshops and keynotes on these topics and other issues connected to organizational development and change. She has published a variety of articles and book chapters topics related to organizational development, learning, and change. She can be reached at jat235@psu.edu

Marayah Angeliz Vigo

(El Paso, TX, USA) is a dancer/dance-maker, who is a Senior Dance Performance and Psychology major with a minor in Technical Theatre at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). She has studied Ballet, Contemporary/Modern, Jazz, Tap, and Bomba y Plena (Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance). During her third year, she was awarded a grant through the Campus Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives (COURI) at UTEP, to conduct research under the mentorship of Sandra Paola Lopez Ramirez. During this project she studied how the integration of community can affect the creative process. Upon completion of her degree she wishes to pursue a Master’s Degree in Dance/Movement Therapy.

Don Waisanen

(New York, NY, USA) is an Associate Professor in the Baruch College, CUNY Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, where he received the Presidential Award for Distinguished Teaching. He teaches courses and workshops in communication, including executive speech training, media and campaign strategy, and seminars on leadership/management and improvisation. He has published over 35 scholarly articles on communication, covering topics from strategies in public speaking to the ways that organizations and governments can better communicate with citizens. Previously, Don was a Coro Fellow and worked in broadcast journalism, as a speechwriter, and on political campaigns. He is the founder and president of Communication Upward, an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University, and received a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School.

Shatzi Weisberger

(New York, NY, USA) is a Certified Hospice Volunteer with NYC Visiting Nurse Service. She recently graduated from a 90-hour Art of Dying Integrative Thanatology Certificate Program at The Open Center in NYC which addresses the need for a cultural awakening around death, how we die, and consequences for how we live. She mentors students in the current program at The Open Center. She created and facilitates a monthly Death Cafe which strives to deepen our understanding of the spiritual, psychological, social and physical aspects of the dying experience. She is a founding member of The Art of Dying Threshold Circle, a forum for advocates and practitioners committed to improving experiences of death and dying by sharing resources, building support systems, and learning together. Shatzi was a passionate community organizer for over 25 years, building independent politics in New York, primarily in the Bronx, which was the poorest urban county in this country.

Micah White

(Kingston, NY, USA) is a lifelong social activist known for co-creating Occupy Wall Street, popularizing the critique of clicktivism and conceiving the debt-forgiveness activism tactic used by the Rolling Jubilee while an editor of Adbustersmagazine. In recognition of his contributions to the practice and theory of social movement creation, Esquire named him one of the most influential young thinkers alive today. Micah is the author of The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution. He is the Program Director of Activist Graduate School. Learn more at micahmwhite.com

Jon Wilkins

(Montclair, NJ, USA) Ph.D. is an evolutionary biologist, a poet, and founder of the Ronin Institute. He is committed to a more inclusive model of scholarship for the benefit of all of humanity.

Rachael Williamson

(Federal Way, WA, USA) is a Graduate Student at University of Washington Tacoma majoring in Interdisciplinary Arts and Social Sciences with a focus on play and performance within neurodiverse communities. She has been working with children and young adults on the autistic spectrum for the past four years and hopes to one day open a center in which she might facilitate playful performances in order to empower and transform the ways in which neurodiverse communities relate to themselves, others, and the world around them be helping them see both who they are and who they are becoming.

Jeremiah Wilson

(Seoul, South Korea) founder of The BK Seoul Collective is an art director, an artist, curator, activist, teacher, poet and a graduate of The Development School for Youth. The Development School for Youth (DSY), takes young people ages 16-21 to learn to perform as professionals as they partner with business leaders across the country who conduct development workshops and provide paid summer internships at their companies.

Esben Wilstrup

(Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Danish performance activist, psychologist, and community-builder. He works with schools and institutions to understand why so many kids (and adults) are struggling to thrive, learn and develop – and how we can improvise and play with(in) these systems to create communities that are more supportive, playful, and developmental. In 2015, he co-founded Efterskolen Epos, a boarding school in Denmark where students aged 15-18 study for one year towards their final exams, but through play, performance, and educational role-playing games – to study and practice what it takes to break with our current obsession with knowing, testing and the individual. A graduate of the International Class and East Side Institute Associate, he helped organize PTW in 2012 and 2014, and Play Perform Learn Grow (PPLG) in 2018 (in response to the refugee crisis). He is a lead organizer for “PTW on the Move Europe”.

Judy Wong

(New York, NY, USA) is a performing artist, a visual artist, a writer, and foremost an English teacher to speakers of other languages. Her extensive background, spanning over fifty years, in the arts is the basis of her unique teaching style. She is currently an ELI Adjunct Faculty at Pace University. When she isn’t teaching at the college, she has an active private student practice and has been known to occasionally teach collaboratively with her international colleagues around the globe. She is an online EFL talker, an advisory board member of EFLtalks, an active member of NYS TESOL, TESOL International, and IATEFL. Besides presenting at the annual conferences for NYS TESOL and TESOL International, she has presented in various professional development conferences online. Judy holds a B.S. in Liberal Arts /Teaching Academics through the Arts and a M.A. in TESOL from the New School University in NYC, USA.

Jan Wootten

(New York, NY, USA) is a senior PR professional, promoter and storyteller, and passionate about sharing the conceptual breakthroughs surrounding performance activism and development. She’s on the faculty of the East Side Institute and the national board of the All Stars Project.

Ruth Yamamoto

(Upper Marlboro, MD, USA) is a teaching artist, adjunct instructor for several community colleges, independent scholar, consultant, and author of Serious Fun: The Power of Improvisation for Learning and Life. She holds a Ph.D. in Education from Walden University, an M.Ed. in Education from Marymount University, and a B.A. in Drama from the University of Hawaii. Dr. Yamamoto has been a theatre educator for 20+ years in public and private schools and is a member for The Association for the Study of Play (TASP), Applied Improv Network (AIN), and SAG/AFTRA.