ITAC6 Parallels Session Info

How to communicate with schools and cultural organisations

by Ronald Kox (Netherlands)

This session aims at a better communication and understanding how arts professionals can contribute to arts education in schools. Ronald Kox, Head of Cultural Education, at the Netherlands Centre of Expertise for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts (LKCA) explains the model. Participants then use issues cards to simulate a conversation between an artist and teachers in primary or secondary education on what an arts professional can contribute to the schools’ education. The cards are based on a proposal written by teachers in the Arts as part of the Dutch National curriculum development.

"I am Historical!"

by Ingvild Rømo Grande (Norway), Cecilie Haagensen (Norway)

What are the hidden stories in a particular garment? This session explores how stories can reveal from family clothes and photos. The workshop connects cultural backgrounds beyond borders, and create bridges between the past, the “now” and the future.
We would kindly ask each participant to bring your mobile phone and one piece of garment from your grandparents’ generation (for example a blouse, hat, shirt, scarf, dress, bra, etc..). Please register to the Instagram account before the workshop starts to get more information. Username: historicalITAC6, Password: ITAC6OSLO.

Re-intergration Through Artistic Engagement:

The use of folk media for peace building by University Students

Workshop led by Bryson Otieno Omwalo (Kenya)

Dancing the polarising interpretation of imagery. The workshop proposal derives from the experience of Maseno university students using multiple media such as song, dance, mime, graphic arts to interrogate polarizing dynamics and champion a depolarizing perspective, a perspective that re-integrates the divided society. The intention is to integrate the various art forms natural to participants and convert them into vehicles for peace building Bryson Otieno Omwalo is a Lecturer in the Department of Literature in a Public University in Kenya.

We walk alongside you for life:

Sharing and discussing how Kaupapa/philosophy allows for change, growth, and longevity by Samantha Scott (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

This discussion will unpack how 31-year-old Massive Theatre Company walks alongside its company members for life. We will use this as a provocation for others in the discussion group to share their experiences of working in transformational and intergenerational creative environments.
How do you build relationships with company members and maintain these through both the creative work and understanding their lives? How do you allow the creative work to reflect the needs of the company members? How a kaupapa/philosophy is imperative for this?

Collective Artivism + Global Possibilities to Catalyze Change

by Erica May-Wood (Canada), Simon Sharkey (Scotland), Pawel Pokutycki (Netherlands) and Peter Atsu Adeley (Ghana).
Virtual: Puneeta Roy, Sudip Chakroborthy, Abdur Razzak, Duke Redbird
Fraser MacLeod

During the pandemic, locked in/down and isolated, the Conference of the Birds project found ways to connect and create across seven countries; we utilized a hybrid of virtual and live – SafeLive* - practices to make art and more importantly engage citizens in exploring and naming the change that we feel the world needs to be a safe, thriving place. In this active, rapid-fire session we will explore how community-engaged art turn artists into activists? Artivists?
We will co-explore the borders/divides/boundaries that a range of community groups face and how can they break those down and find connection and become agents of change.

Interconnected Grassroots:

How do connected teaching artists change the arts education environment? by Jeehye Suh and Hwan Jung Jae (Republic of Korea)

In this discussion-based session, we explore how connected teaching artists may transform the arts education environment to a more organically diversifying and sustainable environment for the teaching artistry practitioners. Illustrating Korea teaching artists’ interviews and cases, we share our efforts and struggles towards shaping the interconnected and grassroots network of teaching artists and socially engaged artists in Korea. We aspire to meet with participants who might have diverse challenges and a spectrum of initiatives in search of possible connections.

How can we learn from African dance traditions and perspectives for a sustainable and peaceful life?

by Bechio A J Berenger (Cote d’Ivoire)

The objective of this workshop is to provide participants and delegations coming to this international conference of artist teachers with the technical means to interpret all the dances of the African continent in general and Ivorian dances in particular, whatever the proposed rhythm. This workshop aims to familiarize the learner with the music and vocabulary of movements that accompany African choreographic practices, with an emphasis on dance practices from the Ivory Coast. An introduction to traditional Ivorian dances through playful exercises, games and simple movements led by an artist from the conference program. Participants are invited to get in touch with their bodies and to experiment while respecting their abilities.

Joyful theatre making through a trauma informed lens

by International Girls Ensemble with Jacqueline Raymond (USA) and Amanda McDowall (USA)

This session is an experiential applied theatre workshop intended for participants with all levels of theatre experience. Participants will be guided in theatre making using techniques including Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, to create an original piece of theatre. You will be led through a series of scaffolded educational theatre techniques to bolster critical thinking, point of view, and encourage safe risk taking within the group. Throughout the session the questions proposed to participants to investigate will be: How can we use theatre to amplify student voices of those suffering from anxiety, depression and bolster self esteem? How can a student-led workshop create safe risk taking celebrating their unique contributions and foster ensemble through culturally responsive teaching.

"I want to talk about it …"

by Borghild O. Aasebøstøl (Norway)

In this workshop participants will be met with a personal story used in different Teaching Artist settings, told by presenter and storyteller Borghild Otelie Aasebøstøl. Together the participants and the storyteller will do a dialogical analysis of the story, exploring what is told in the story (the story’s content) and what happens as a result of telling that story (its effects). The goal of the workshop is to let participants examine how (or if) personal anecdotes can be a gift and/or a burden in Teaching artists praxis.

Just the Right Climate for Metaphors

by Caitlyn Kamminga (Trinidad and Tobago), Eric Booth (USA), Simon Sharkey (Scotland)

How can artists engage young people with a complex topic that is contributing to growing feelings of eco-anxiety and hopelessness, without dumbing down the stark fact that without radical change we will literally cook the planet? Metaphors are vivid, creative interpretations of reality that communicate on multiple levels. In this roundtable discussion, led by Caitlyn Kamminga, with guests Eric Booth and Simon Sharkey, participants will explore powerful metaphors about the climate crisis, compare fear-based appeals to those based on hope, and identify strategies for pathway thinking and creative agency for arts projects to imagineer a new future.

Using the arts to promote change in mental health research in Latin America (CANCELED)

by Paul Heritage (Brazil)

How can the arts raise the voices of young people in the mental health debate? What are the tools arts practitioners can use to create safe spaces to address mental health issues? These questions emerged from two research projects about youth mental health conducted in partnership with five Latin American arts organisations in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Colombia. In this presentation, we will address how the arts can contribute to mental wellbeing, reflecting on how we - as artists, teaching artists, and practitioners - can empower young people to talk about, cope with and recover from mental distress.

Can Art be key to the development of Executive functions in children?

byproject manager Marie Othilie Hundevadt (Norway) and program artist Shelli Lake (USA/Norway).

The international research program Art of Learning (AoL) is integrating art, creativity and national curriculums in a long-term in-school intervention, combined with a long-term research component on the brain’s control functions (EF). This participatory workshop is designed to reflect the content of the AoL, showing how physical, emotional, social and intellectual engagement in an educational, art-based setting might look like, and showing how to connect EF to everyday arts- and school practice.

“You, Me, Us: Making Connections through a Collaborative Practice"

by Gowri Savoor and Heather Bryce of Teaching Artists Connect (USA)

“You, Me, Us: Making Connections through a Collaborative Practice” is an interactive workshop that inspires ideas and provides a catalyst for building vibrant and successful collaborations. Following a participatory arts activity integrating visual art and movement, the presenters will illuminate how teaching artists from different disciplines can work together to create rich experiences that engage multiple skills and perspectives. The session will include a sharing of tools and strategies that teaching artists can take away and use in their own practice, including suggestions for building successful virtual collaborations.

CHANGING THE FRAME: Teaching Artistry and the SDGs

by Tricia Tunstall (USA)

This session, led by internationally known author and music educator Tricia Tunstall, explores how teaching artists can reframe our work, to increase its reach and potency. Instead of thinking of ourselves as artists working on the borders of civic life, teaching artists should begin to think of our work as a robust contribution to the global Sustainable Development Goals.Our session will briefly present current research in this area and will invite delegates to explore the question: What is the relationship of my work to the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals?

Teaching Artists Administrators (TAA´s): The future of educational leadership

by Adrián Nájera-Coto (USA/Mexico)

Workshop to collectively explore the benefits of soft skills developed through arts instruction and their application in the context of educational leadership and administration.

Climate Change(s) Pedagogies

by Pawel Pokutycki (The Netherlands)

Climate change is a global problem, yet there are many different, specific local environmental issues and various ways of dealing with them in the practice of teaching artists, depending on the chosen methodology and media used in their work. The session aims at sharing and comparing various pedagogical strategies on the topic with teaching artists around the world in order to stimulate innovation, knowledge transfer, multidisciplinary cross-overs and other forms of educational exchange among the session participants. Also teaching artists new to the topic, but willing to bring in environmental perspective into their activities are very much welcome to join!

Art + Advocacy: Teaching & Empowering Students towards Social Action

by Cathy Lasam Ballo (Philippines)

Join Cathy Lasam Ballo, founder of ARTguro Philippines and principal of SoFA Design Institute Senior High, in this participatory discussion on inspiring students towards social action through arts education. She will share how integrating the arts with regular curriculum can build student character, initiative and action. This workshop will discuss Filipino artist-led advocacies; the power of the arts as a catalyst and carrier for change; and explore how teaching artists can empower youth towards initiative and action as responsible citizens. The talk features a talk and a simulation where participants will experience the arts and advocacy teaching method as ‘students’.

Insect Protein Pals - cross sector partnerships in the change ecosystem

by Fié Neo Wen Jing (Singapore)

We are in an environmental emergency. Globally and locally, we’ve seen lots of conversations but not enough action. How can we move beyond talking about problems to start facilitating climate action? This session is an exploration of cross sector collaboration through insect protein. We will make Norwegian lefse with cricket powder as we chat about behaviour shifts and community activation through art. This will also be an opportunity for a larger conversation around cross sector partnerships and the opportunities for collaborations in the larger change ecosystem.

It’s a game (changer)

by Marika Crête-Reizes (Canada) and Marco Pronovost (Canada)

How can we relate differently to our environment? How does a renewed look at our surroundings change us, or could change us? How can we accompany others towards a more open, attentive, and critical look at things? What does the intimacy of a solo or small group experience allow that the presence of a teaching artist hinders? Co-hosted by Marika and Marco this session invites delegates to experience a card game currently in development and to reflect on its construction, use and possibilities of improvement, making connections with their own teaching artistry practices.

Sheets and lnks

by Adaletey Peter Atsu (Ghana)

This is a 100% participatory workshop that seeks to spark change in the EDUCATIONAL APPROACH; using the arts (arts integration) to fuel total development in learners and facilitators. It is a flexible platform for all engaged to acknowledge/appreciate the diversity of approaches to arts integration, which will offer all an equal opportunity to deepen their understanding. Peter is a Teaching Artist and performer with strong background in Dance Composition and Performance, Theatre, Poetry, Film, Creative Writing and Story Telling. With over 23 years of experience on, I have extended artrich programmes to schools, communities and churches across Ghana

The African Connect Playback Theatre Project

by Bonface Beti (Kenya)

This group interactive workshop will include playing theatre of the oppressed games to reflectand explore links between theatre, peacebuilding and social justice as well as sharing the story of “Africa Connect Playback Theatre” a pan-African creative response to what being African means in a COVID-19 pandemic world.

Theatre for Development (TfD) as Effective tool for Promoting Rural Community Education

by Binji Seidu Zakaria CEO/Founder of Nasanba Community Theatre (NCT), Ghana

This paper seeks to bring to light the significant role of Theatre for Development (TfD) or Community Theatre in rural communities’ advocacy and activism. It draws the attention of Community Theatre Artists or Catalysts to the rural communities on why rural areas matter in global development.
This paper took inspiration from the catalyst’s experiences with TfD projects witnessed as a student, his final year practical TfD project conducted in the Warabeba community.

Arts for Identity

by Abueng Mkhon-za (South Africa) and Sibusiso Khambule (South Africa)

We are Abueng Mkhonza and Sibusiso Khambule from Soweto, South Africa. We both have been arts facilitators and theatre performers working with different organizations (Assitej South Africa, Clowns Without Borders South Africa and many more). We use arts based activities to develop and empower young ones and adults. In our work we have travelled extensively working in theatre. In this opportunity we will explore ARTS tools to help overcome challenges under the ME THROUGH ARTS on the topic of Arts for Society. We will be core facilitating workshops. On our three sessions we will explore Games, Music and Storytelling to how young ones can overcome challenges.

Disrupt: ideas to cultivate a creative generation

– an interactive live podcast recording

by Heleya de Barros (USA) and Jeff Poulin (USA)

Dive deep with your peers while creating an aural documentation of ITAC 6! Join us for a live podcast recording of DISRUPT; ideas to cultivate a creative generation, where YOU are the special guests! Participants will engage in creative warm-ups to spark ideas and connections from the conference sessions and theme; art as a catalyst for change. Then, we’ll pair up and interview each other. The conversations will later be edited into an episode of DISRUPT, a podcast from the Creative Generation, where we break down big ideas and connect them to your daily practice as an artist, educator, or organizational leader.

Encompass

by Primavera Gomes Caldas (French Guiana) and Daniela Sellen (Germany) from the project space Twali, Marseille, France.

The collective invites the participants to a workshop reflecting on our positions as cultural worker and/or educator in the cultural and artistic projects we are active in. We will work ourselves through different activities starting with ice breaker-exercises. The main focus will be given to a brief Theater of the Oppressed session followed by discussions. In this way we hope to open a process of reflection that questions intertwined problematics in cultural productions such as power relations, gender issues,varying notions of labor, discrimination or precarity. Encompass is an attempt to decenter ourselves and to question processes of art production and of cultural work.

ART4DEM: Mantle of the Expert as an Arts-based Practice for Citizenship Education

by Bob Selderslaghs (Belgium)

How can we help students shape our challenging society? Working on citizenship means searching together for meaning; for society and for one's own role in it. The dramatic-inquiry approach Mantle of the Expert contains strategies and conventions that enable us to mirror vivid social encounters. In this way, we can explore and draw parallels with our real-life experiences in a no penalty zone, and perhaps even better understand our choices in cultural encounters. After all, the premise of drama is to explore "what it is to be human" (Heathcote, 2002).

FARGESPILL

by Alma Bø and Mariama Ndure/ Anine Smith (Norway)

The Fargespill-method is resource-oriented and based on some simple principles for how we meet as human beings: Instead of asking “what are you missing?” we ask, “what do you have to give?”, and by meeting each other with a positive expectation where everyone has something to contribute, we create a strong and unique community.
In this session we will start with an introduction to Fargespill and the «Fargespill-method», which is inspired by the ancient tradition of exchanging gifts, where the participants are invited to share something of themselves like a song, a dance move, or a rhythm. Together we will explore what happens when we meet each other with respect and curiosity, using dancing and singing as our tools? When we focus on people as resources? How do we create safe spaces for different cultural heritage and how to merge and create new cultural expressions?

Raise Your Hands Only if You Know the Right Answer

by Chetna Mehrotra (India), Karkera Roshan (India) and Anurag Ramachandran (India)

The performative piece devised on the techniques of Image theatre and Forum theatre by Augusto Boal explores the “pressure of performance/results’ in systemic education cycle. The performance also explores the “Banking model” of education as defined by Paulo Freire in his writings in “Pedagogy of The Oppressed”, where a teacher teaches and a student listens. Freire speaks about creating an equal dialoguing opportunity between the various stakeholders in a school system- school management, parents, children, teachers. The child is not just a “spectator”, but a “spect-actor”. Re-imaging schools to be a place of true exchange of learning, encouraging critical thinking, and thus becoming spaces of societal transformation

Choreographing education

- Can a dance performance be defined as a back & forth movement in the gravitational field?

by Zdenka Brungot Svíteková (CZ/SK)

Put on your physics goggles and welcome to our physical laboratory for choreography! Zden Brungot Svíteková is a moving artist: dancer, performer, collaborative artist, dance maker working internationally. One of the leading interests in her artistic approach is to create and to cultivate a space for personal, embodied expression of each individual. Her artistic reflection is being nourished by interest in natural and human sciences (physics, psychology, geology, language and communication a.o.) and always, with greatest curiosity and respect, by encounters with different beings, cultures and landscapes. theme: dance, physics - art form: choreography

sens-sing

by Laura Guarch (Spain)

sens-sing is an embodied listening and singing with nature experience. Through a participatory immersion into field recordings of glaciers, storms, wetlands and rivers we will connect to our voice and our inner sensuous power. We will explore the sounds of our voice, sing together and create interspecies dialogues. Laura Guarch is a singer, composer, field recordist and performance maker based between Spain and the UK. In the last year, she has been recording the sounds of glaciers in Iceland and of wetlands and migratory birds in Menorca (Balearic Islands, Spain). She released her debut album Krëodylia in 2021. Through her live shows, immersive experiences and records, Laura Guarch expresses themes of environment and spiritual connection.

What’s Your Blend of Spices?

by Venus-Tyane Kuya (USA)

Change happens by building community ties and connecting strengths through personal stories. My workshop is a practical exploration on how to do that. In this workshop we will look at identifying the key elements that create the unique community that you have or are working in, and how to connect people and their stories to increase awareness, strengthen, and unite.We will ask the questions: What of your experiences and personal culture have you not been utilizing and how can you bring it into your work? Who are the people in your community or the community you're working in?

Celebrate Art Celebrate You: Stupid Outside Workshop

by Tracy Morgan (Scotland), Bea Makan (Scotland), Heather Marshal (Scotland)

The Celebrate Art Celebrate You: Stupid Outside workshop aims to deliver a fun participatory workshop, offering a safe place to discuss mental health issues and a creative activity which can help support young people who might be experiencing trauma or mental health issues. The Fruitmarket want to change how contemporary art galleries engage with and represent young people. Celebrate Art, Celebrate You is a weekly youth project held in the Fruitmarket Studio providing trauma informed creative sessions for young people aged 16 – 25, who are not in education or training, with the focus on working with participants who have experience of mental health issues, Asperger’s, ADHD or Autism.

Call to Action -Teaching Artist Edition

by Clara Bloomfield (Scotland) and Khairina Khalid (Singapore)

Through the crossing of geographical and cultural borders, this project can ‘influence, interfere and contaminate the relationships of their immediate group’ (Alrutz, 2015) providing the arena for both the participant and the viewer to explore their relationship with the young makers perspective and experience of their world, which may lead to acts of personal and social change.This workshop will share the approach and ‘making’ techniques of the living newspaper / call to action to provide the teaching artists the opportunity to create their own own ‘teachers edition’ of the digital newspaper through the exploratory frame ‘challenges of being a Teaching Artist in a ‘post covid’ world.’

Shaped by community

by Karen Dick and Chrissie Ruckley, Creative Scotland, Kathryn Welch, Programme Lead, and artists and co-ordinators Beth Godfrey, Stellar Quines and Ruari Gordon, Seall will be your hosts. (Scotland)

Join a team from Culture Collective, a network of 26 participatory arts projects in Scotland, for a creative conversation.Culture Collective supports communities to shape projects alongside artists and creative organisations. How could your practice shift to do this? What challenges and opportunities arise? Can you embrace an open brief?

In this session we will share the principles of the programme and project examples before diving into a collective inquiry with you!

Interactive Matter and art:re:public: interactive performance-conference

by Nikunja Chris Ebner and Mannee Seeta (France)

Swiss/French trans-media artist NIKUNJA’s performance-conference introduces INTERACTIVE MATTER, a new trans-media and interdisciplinary art/human science concept for social and societal problem solving and evolution. Transcending dialectics/dialogics, allowing the formulation of the “new third” by a multilayered complex phenomenological field IM opens in between oppositions, beyond compromise or domination/submission. The progressive process is addressing everyone appealing his/her creative energy in context to a chosen subject.

Discovering gender: Can Dance make a difference?

by Louise Marshall, Producer for Dance & Accessible Arts, Eden Court, Inverness. (Scotland)

In this session participants will engage in short tasks exploring how movement can be a tool to explore gender identity, exploring the pitfalls of pedagogies that create unspoken expectations. Discussion will focus on questioning how we, as facilitators, can unwittingly reinforce or actively discourage the binary gender construct. Though based in movement the session will be relevant to anyone concerned with challenging gender stereotypes.

"Cuerpos, espacios en resistencia" (Bodies, resistive spaces)

by Maria Jose Rivera

Have you ever thought how many experiences may construct the other self in front of you? Did you take the time to consider how are you "built"? (physically, biologically, physiological, culturally, emotionally...)
Are you afraid of the other? May the other be afraid of you?
Is it important?

Reimagining Our World through Revolutionary Retreats

by Patricia Cruz (Panama) and Zoë Lintzeris (USA)

The world has gone through a radical shift into virtual space - how do we use the arts to bring people together in a communal space to create work that elevates the human condition? Pat Cruz and Zoë Lintzeris present “Reimagining Our World through Revolutionary Retreats”: a commitment to simultaneously yet jointly form communal learning retreats in Europe and beyond for creatives. Through meditation and community art-making, our plan is to build connections that will be the foundation for future partnerships to develop sustainable spaces. Through these conversations, we will better understand the needs of international teaching artists.

Dance for change in a juvenile prison/secure context

by Kelly Shearer (Scotland)

This practical session will look at the practice developed by YDance artists to engage and cultivate the confidence, resilience, wellbeing, and creativity of young offenders. Each activity will be underpinned by the learning and/or new questions garnered from our work. We will look at how can dance help young people to change their self-perception and how we give "freedom" to incarcerated young people, through dance. The session will be delivered by Kelly Shearer (Head of Participation) and Linzi McLagan (Head of Education) from YDance, Scotland's National Youth Dance Organisation.

Privileging the parents in early childhood music sessions

by Yvonne Wyroslawska

In many 'baby music groups', adults are passive experiencers. At the same time, 1 in 5 new mums and 1 in 10 new dads experience a mental health condition.  In this session, we will explore ways of creating opportunities to privilege parents within active music sessions, considering how small but significant changes to our arts practice may benefit parental mental health and wellbeing through arts.  Initiating this change will have true impact on strengthening parent-child interactions and building a sense of community amongst adult participants in early childhood music sessions.

De-esculation in an esculated world

by Heather Marshall (Scotland)

Whilst creating a piece of street art that responded to the polices response to the vigil for Sarah Everard, I was jumped by a group of boys. People hurried past, heads down, ignoring that I was being attacked. I had two choices react or stay calm? I chose the latter. I chatted to the boys. We spoke about the street art I was creating and why I was creating it. Where they were from. Where I was from. How our two areas generally didn't get along. We spoke about Sarah Everard and our distrust of the police. We spoke about how angry we were, especially when people perceive things about us. They asked if they could have some tape (I had been using it to create the street art provocation) I agreed but said they had to use it to create art that challenged people and opened up conversations.

A Score for an Empty Swimming Pool

- movement research practice for a collective body

by Yasen Vasilev

The session offered by dramaturg Yasen Vasilev explores the possibility to form a collective body with five to ten participants. They feel each other as an extension of the self, coordinate thoughts, actions, movements, search for new approaches to touch in the post-pandemic situation. The practice is inspired and informed by the many-headed slime (physarum polycephalum) – a complex unicellular organism that doesn't have a brain or central nervous system but is able to coordinate, strategize and remember.

Dissolving Fear, Trusting Transformation

by Sangeeta Isvaran (India)

During the pandemic, working on the frontlines in hospitals with desperate families, in railway stations with 1,000s of fleeing migrant workers, in villages that demonised doctors and vaccines, the common thread running through these situations is blind fear. I fell back on my skills as an artist to work with these communities, developing strategies to deal with fear before we even addressed the issue at hand. In this session I would like to share powerful artistic tools developed from traditional practices to dissolve fear and anger and create an atmosphere of trust and compassion where life changing decisions can be made calmly, collectively, with whatever knowledge is available. Techniques include our signature 'Bridging the Gaps through the Body' module; the ancient art of Netrabhinaya or empathetic communication through the eyes/focus; Mythology and Sacred Landscapes as communal repositories of knowledge and memory; circular perception of time (Tala) vs linear progression and other practices that we have developed working with vulnerable communities and volatile situations alongside the health systems and police force.

Inner Musician - The Way To The integration

by Mariana Atamas

This workshop will explore and increase our awareness as well as address and optimize some key aspects involved in a balanced, successful and healthy performance. We will focus on how to achieve a more optimal physical, mental and emotional state leading to unleash our full performance potential. The workshop will be presented in an interactive-conversational format where students will be asked to participate in Alexander's and complementary techniques such as: relaxation and centering routines, biomechanics, posture, breathing and attention control as well as learn how to apply them to their instruments and everyday life.

Flow with Flourish (making with meaning)

by Jewellery Artists Lisa Arnott (Scotland) and Jessica Howarth (Scotland) Co Founders of The Flourish Jewellery Project

Through a hands-on workshop, we invite delegates to interact and explore key benefits and outcomes that craft making can provide as a pathway to better mental wellbeing for individuals and communities recovering from trauma. As a group will explore and reflect on the different facets that are involved when delivering a socially engaged craft project to vulnerable and marginalised communities who face social/economic/health barriers to accessing craft process, practices and professional spaces.

We can be heroes (storytelling)

by Dylan Russell (USA)

Dylan is a director, educator, and community engagement specialist whose passion for interactive storytelling has guided her work with Laguna Playhouse, American Conservatory Theatre, and CA Public Schools. Dylan is Associate Director of the School of Theatre at Berkeley Rep.
Through her company STORY613, Dylan created OUR STORIES, a theatre engagement program utilizing storytelling to reduce stigma about mental health by amplifying the voices of youth 16-25.

Traditional Indigenous Drumming, Songs and Storytelling

by Chantal Chagnon (Canada)

Storytelling, Songs and Drumming connects us as people. Drums carry powerful significance in Traditional Indigenous cultures, for healing, ceremony, celebration, with each drumbeat carrying the messages and intentions of our Ancestors. Drums are a traditional instrument found in Indigenous cultures throughout the world. Chantal shares Stories and Traditional Songs as we play together. Participants will learn how drums are made, teachings behind the Animals used, the significance and history of weaving styles from North American Indigenous Nations, and lessons we can relate to our own lives for our Future Generations and Mother Earth.
*Traditional Indigenous Hand Drums provided*

Why improvisation matters?

by Stein Helge Solstad (Norway) and Øystein Salhus (Norway)

What is musical improvisation, and how is it related to expertise? By playing and interacting with co-presenter Øystein Salhus on the violin, I want to show how musical material and context affect decisions made in the moment. What can be defined as explicit and implicit in this process is of particular interest. Participants are invited to engage both in playing and in a discussion around the artistic result of such a process. The session will be 360-video recorded for zooming in on particular moments of interest in this session.

Creative Wellbeing: A co-creative exploration

by Wenche Torrissen, Sir Grand Lear and Ann Iren Jamtøy (Norway)

In this co-creative exploration, we will see an excerpt from the theatrical performance How are you? and discuss how theatre can support wellbeing and public mental health. The performance examines the mental health of the general population post-COVID and is a Danish-Norwegian collaboration initiated by the theatre company Sir Grand Lear. The performance invites the audience to participate in an active co-creative process, where questions concerning the value of art and theatre in the process of nourishing human wellness are addressed.

Energy shifting through interactive sound creation

by Cobus du Toit (USA/South Africa)

In this session, flutist Cobus du Toit and audience participants will collaborate on a meditative new work for flute and Tibetan singing bowls, commissioned from composer Nathan Hall. The session explores artistic contribution based on internal self-investigation, promoting the balancing of energy centers. Participants will contribute via simple text and image prompts by connecting deep listening, call-and-response, and the experiences of collective joy and wonder. South African native, Cobus du Toit, serves as the Associate Professor of Flute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Past engagements include a year-long interactive exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art.

What if: A collaborative exploration of the Futures of Teaching Artistry

by Sudebi Thakurata (India) and Probal Banerjee (India)

WHAT IF’- is a part of the larger work on Future Literacy, Fluency, Competency and Consciousness that Sudebi and Probal have been working on for the last few years at their transdisciplinary global Design-led systems innovation Collective, D.epicentre, in a diverse range of contexts, including the work Sudebi has been doing as an ITAC Innovator Think Tank. In this highly engaging, reflective, provocative, facilitated, immersive and dialogic workshop, using novel and unique approaches, tools, frameworks and methodologies designed at D.epicentre, Sudebi and Probal would open up possibilities for people to reflect on their own experiences, identify where the gaps are and share perspectives around futures.

Creating Music: A World of Unity and Universal Transformation

by Laura Maria Calderon Cuevas (Greece) - Project Manager and Music Workshop Senior Leader at Musicians For Human Rights in Greece

Creating music in refugee camps and understanding its power and impact drove me to study some philosophical perceptions of reality that could explain the value of music in our lives and the collective.

Together, we will discuss it and experience an example of a community music workshop using body percussion, voice, and movement, to explore sensations and new concepts of freedom, creativity, spontaneity, and unity.

Videogames for change

by Thomas Grønvoll (Norway)

The session is two-fold, with a presentation of how we can use videogames as artistic and cultural expressions to facilitate change, and will also present Kulturtankens 2021 pilot of videogames as an artistic and cultural expression in the Cultural Schoolbag program.

The last part of the session will be a workshop, where attendees will have the chance to try out several games and there will be discussions of how games work as an artistic medium in regards to change, and how videogames are percieved.

Artistic Language Dictionary for Coexistence

by Yunji Gong (Republic of Korea)

<A Coexistence Dictionary> is a workshop that expresses and visualizes animal gestures with the human body. This workshop will allow you to imagine what an animal that has experienced the COVID-19 pandemic wants to tell us and to express their stories through body movements and colored paper collages. In this workshop, you will also get to experiment the potential of non-verbal language in art communication. The results of the workshop will be compiled into an art book, which will be used to share a sense of coexistence with many other species.

From Embodied Awareness to Action: Water Scores (CANCELED)

by Shana Habel (USA)

In this session, we will explore the potential of embodied experiences to inform awareness and inspire action towards meaningful change. Looking through the lens of the global water crisis, participants will co-create and embody “water scores,” exploring how we move beyond “pretty dances” to movement that speaks to the issue and inspires a spirit of action. Using movement notation tools from the Language of Dance®, we will jump into the problem kinesthetically and reflectively with the hope of deepening and heightening thoughts and feelings around the issue, and providing clarity, insight and inspiration towards next steps. Let’s move towards action!

Teenagers’ Wind of Change

by Frédérick Moreau (Canada)

How can teenagers perform to be a “wind of change” for their society? In this collaborative and explorative session, led by Frédérick Moreau, teaching artist and theatre director, the co-participants will work in multidisciplinary teams to create different workshops. In those, we will invite teenagers to use their favorite means of expression to find solutions to their world’s “main problems”. In order to allow teenagers to express themselves, we will first discuss about the results of a survey, filled by 300 teenagers. Back at home, the co-participants will be able to experiment with the result material to create together a further performance.

Coup de Mot: Using Poetry to Reimagine Our Mental Health

by Steven T. Licardi (USA)

is an Autistic social worker, spoken word poet, actor, writer, and performance activist working at the intersections of art and social policy. He travels internationally using the power of performance to create empathic dialogue around, to confront the realities of, and to assist communities in dismantling notions of mental health and madness. He will lead the participatory workshop "Coup de Mot: Using Poetry to Reimagine Our Mental Health". Steven will playfully explore our individual and collective mental health, offering various creative techniques designed to build a more loving relationship with ourselves and our lived environments.

Theatre As a Dialogue Between Identities

by Chen Alon (Israel)

The workshop offers a set of tools for a “Polarized Theatre of the Oppressed Model” that integrates theatrical and social work processes between two polar (actual and imagined) communities. The theory and practice of a polarized Theatre of the Oppressed has relevance for every polarized society or community, and the fieldworkers working with them. By challenging the homogenous models of social theatre and the Theatre of the Oppressed, the workshop proposes alternative ways of thinking and acting together.he workshop offers an examination, deconstruction, and reconstruction of the social relationships as power relations, by means of a theatrical process that considers the unique political connections and context of specific communities.

The workshop aims to examine the potential inherent in the theatrical processes and events for the development of a dialogue on non-violence, while establishing political-activist alliances, with the aim of acting to change reality.

Co-create learning experiences with students in the arts classroom

by Tan Cheng Hung (Singapore)

This workshop explores ways for teachers to collaborate with students to co-create learning experiences. Why are playfulness, ambiguity and experimentation important in the process of artistic creation and learning? What happens to how students learn when they have a say in their classroom experience? How would a collaborative learning space work?
 
Join me to discuss and envision these classroom experiences and artistic practices. What can we learn from one another and from our students?
To the session bring a notebook, pen and a device with internet connection (mobile phone or tablet or laptop)

Rollerism

by André Batista (Sweden)

The main idea is to contribute, deliver and suggest alternatives into the realm of muralism/streetart with the use of roller painting.

Questions raised:

- How to explore reality? - How to defy reality without disconnecting to it? - A brief history of roller paint in street art and graffiti - The different uses of a roller paint / different materials - Lettering / Forms workshop - Express yourself with a roller (performance / illustration)

Story Circles and Learning Exchanges

by Jeff Mather (USA)

A participatory workshop that will have ITAC delegates in small story circles with a prompt to tell stories about how their work has addressed social justice or how and why the want it to. Story circles are a way to establish trust amongst collaborators and community partners. Atlanta, Georgia based transdisciplinary teaching artist, Jeff Mather, will share a method that was developed by New Orleans theater maker, John O’Neal, a co-founder of the community-based art for social justice organization in the southeastern US, Alternate ROOTS. ROOTS artists use the term, Learning Exchanges, as a non-hierarchical frame.

ARTS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

by Beatrice Alvestad Lopez (Norway)

In this session I will elaborate on my recent teaching experience in relation to my artistic practice. My work as an artist moves between practices of performance, poetic cinematography and installation of crafted objects. Central to my practice is a connection to place and openness toward non-human, vegetative and planetary bodies through performative engagements. I like to place an emphasis on pedagogical aspects throughout my practice so in 2021 I was part of the DKS Testlab at Kunsthall Trondheim organising a workshop on soil for school kids. I will elaborate on my experience as an artist and the workshop on soil in this session.

Let's PLAY on-line and off-line

by William Yip

The ways that children and young people communicate and interact with the others and the world have changed. With the impact of the COVID-19, our next generation are even more used to "learning online". Can educational drama programmes ON-LINE be as engaging, enlightening and empowering as the ones OFF-LINE? I would love to share with the participants my humble experience in the past 2 years, working on live interactive online educational drama programmes with children and young people. I wish we see more possibilities of the "medium of instructions" in the future of "meta verse".

Pursuing the Good Living (Sumak Kawsay in Quechuan language) through Classroom Design

by Juan Fernando Yanqui Rivera (Ecuador)

I believe the discipline of art should offer practical solutions to the societal problems we have inherited and are facing now. This being said, in order to improve our immediate social circles my session leads individual thought processes, that have as its ultimate goal empathy and common welfare through the exploration and improvement of our work areas. We will turn our places of habitation into pleasing learning environments; this, by performing Waldorf type exercises, that use the physicality of objets to understand our physical surroundings.