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8th Biennial International Conference

Monday and Tuesday, August 10-11 - Social Action Project
Wednesday, August 12 - Pre-conference
Thursday, August 13 - Conference
Friday, August 14 - Conference
Saturday, August 15 - Post-conference

Registration will be open from 8-9 am in University Hall, 1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge.

(Schedule subject to change)

Social Action Project

Before the conference officially begins, we invite you to be a part of an exciting initiative - a locally based community arts project in the Boston area, Peace Arts Zone: Peace-ing our Communities Together. We define Peace-Arts Zones as personal vision and action plans to create healthy and safe communities. Read about creating a Peace Arts Zone in your own community >

Monday, August 10
12:00 pm – 4:00 pm

On day one, we will invite youth groups from the greater Boston area to Lesley University to share an arts-based experience focused on violence prevention and healthy and safe communities. Lunch is included.

Tuesday, August 11
9:00 am – 12:00 pm

On day two, we will take these youth groups to visit elder centers in the area to share our experience of creating a Peace Arts Zone. This interactive and inter-generational morning will include a multi-arts-based project. Youth, facilitators and volunteers will then return to Lesley University campus for a short de-briefing and celebration (cake and ice-cream).

Pre-Conference Workshops
Wednesday, August 12
9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Please choose one:

PRE-1 - SOLD OUT
Expressive Arts Therapy as a Process of Change
Shaun McNiff
With movement acting as the basis of expression in all of the arts, this workshop will explore how authentic and spontaneous artistic expression in various media embodies the core dynamics of change – the embrace of uncertainty and risk taking; accepting vulnerability, resistance and fear; taking advantage of mistakes and improvisational discovery; and the engagement of difficulties as fuel for creative transformation. Experience how repetition, rhythm and an overall commitment to simplicity will generate natural changes and successive phases of creation emanating from the movement source. Learn what leaders do to create safe spaces where participants can practice letting go of inhibitions, witnessing and supporting the expression of others, and fostering the innate ability of the creative process to heal and transform individual persons and communities.

PRE-2 - SOLD OUT
Creating Change in the World: Expressive Therapy Approaches
Vivien Marcow-Speiser and Phillip Speiser
The presenters have developed and implemented expressive arts therapy-based social change projects nationally and internationally for more than 30 years. Committed to making a difference, Vivien and Phillip will share images, stories, strategies, activities and approaches they have used in the many programs they have developed. They have learned to take risks and to commit to an issue and a project. They will summarize their social transformation projects within historical, personal, interpersonal, cross-cultural, local and global perspectives. Participants will learn about crossing personal, social and cultural bridges, and the development of strategies for uniting people though their common humanity and need for creative expression.

PRE-3 - SOLD OUT
Social Action-Transformational Processes for the Collective:
Resiliency, Attunement and Attachment
Robert Macy and Dicki Macy
Severed attachment from the social and environmental bodies is a root cause of worldwide violence and ecological destruction. This form of psychosocial disintegration manifests in three primary ways: spiritual immobilization, alienation and fragmentation of the body, and the expression of post-traumatic growth. Deep and consistent connections to the self, the collective and nature form the necessary bedrock that develops relationship between the individual and the collective, augmenting trust, resiliency, adaptation and spiritual evolution. This session will use archetypal ritual circles, theatre, Taoist sound and movement meditations, discussions and film to encourage the experience of the healing functions of attuned neuroception.

PRE-4 - SOLD OUT
Voices from the Underground: A Bouffon Workshop
Stephen K. Levine and Ellen Levine
Bouffon is a physical theatre form that allows the excluded and marginalized to find their voices and speak truth to power through parody and satire. In this daylong workshop, we will provide a basic training in Bouffon and give participants an opportunity to find the camaraderie and joy that comes from standing up and speaking out together. Please bring old clothing to share, rags, a blanket and a willingness to be outrageous.

PRE-5 - CANCELLED

PRE-6 - SOLD OUT
This Is How We Do It 
RAW Arts:
Jason Cruz, Beau Diehl, Chris Gaines, Susannah Horwitz
Laura Menucci, J.P. DiSciscio and Silvia Lopez Chavez
Since 1988 Raw Art Works (RAW) has passionately pursued its mission to ignite the desire to create – and the confidence to succeed – in underserved youth, using the power of the arts to transform young lives, one artist at a time. This workshop will present how RAW’s art therapy-based programs successfully have used varying art modalities to create countless opportunities for youth to dream bigger dreams and work hard to make those dreams a reality. Participants will meet at the registration table at 9:00am to ride to the RAW Art Works site in Lynn, MA. Participants can either bring their own lunch, or purchase a provided lunch for $8.00.

PRE-7 - SOLD OUT
Creating Collective Resonance: Toward Healing Seven Generations
Natalie Rogers, PhD REAT, and Mukti Khanna, PhD
Person-centered expressive arts will help us embody greater interconnectedness and compassion when responding to difficult personal, political and cultural events. As we heal in a conscious collective, we can begin to halt the repetition of intergenerational patterns of psychological injury. Healing through movement, art, interactive theater and deep group resonance can shift long-held perceptions and change how we behave both individually and collectively in the world. We’ll explore such questions as “How does the neuroscience of perception inform transformative social action?” and “How does the creative process bridge inner healing to social action?”

PRE-8 - SOLD OUT
Seed of Change: Cultivating a Community Expressive Arts Practice
Expressive Arts Florida LLC:
Kathleen Horne, Victoria Domenichello-Anderson, Elizabeth Bornstein, Tamara Knapp
Through multimodal presentation and deep experiential process, participants will be introduced to Expressive Arts Florida, a vital community practice. In this workshop, individual and collaborative expressive arts will foster personal wellbeing, connection with others, community building and social change. Be inspired and guided by this consultant-educator partnership as you nurture your unique personal expressive arts vision and grow it in your own community. The art forms of the mandala, mandorla and collaborative Flower of Life will be guiding principles throughout the workshop. Come ready to make art, meditate, move, go deeply within, be witnessed, and connect with others and with the community. Learn a new model of cultivating the expressive arts as rich seeds of change on many levels.

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Conference Workshops
Thursday, August 13

Please choose:
One Series A workshop (1:30-5:00 pm)
OR
One Series B workshop (1:30-3:00 pm) AND one Series C (3:30-5:00 pm)

1:30 - 5:00 pm – Thursday Series A
(3.5-hour workshops and panels)

A1
Using Expressive Arts Therapies with Children Who Have Experienced Violence
(panel, lecture, experiential)
Ellen Brochmann
Graça Duarte Santos
Anna Marie Weber
This panel will look at various ways to use the arts to address the effect that violence can have on children. Included will be perspectives of children living in war zones, clinical and school contexts in the U.S. and abroad, and the role of revenge and retribution.  

A2
The Transmutation of Symbols from Symbol Abuse to Political Action
(experiential)
Kate T. Donohue
Linda Hammond
Our Expressive Arts skills will be used in the service of critical political thought. We will focus on symbol abuse – the manipulation of political symbols. We can use our strongest skills to help people create their own images and thoughts to empower our political discourse. Seven theoretical ideas will be interwoven: Boal, Brecht, Jung, Kimbles, Reich, Lakoff/Brook and Winnicott. We will create a theatrical piece reflecting these theories and the use of expressive arts skills. Participants, who are interested, will present a short piece of theatre we created in the workshop to the community to stimulate discussion, self-reflection and critical thinking about our work and our world.

A3
Follow Your Heart to Jerusalem – Crossing Borders with Expressive Arts Therapies
(experiential, film)
Tamar Reva Einstein
Tamar Einstein is an artist and arts therapist who crosses the invisible borders of religion, ethnicity, gender and language in Jerusalem. This intimate documentary film follows Tamar’s day-to-day journey with Christian, Muslim and Jewish clients in need of healing. Working in collaboration with social workers and caregivers, Tamar demonstrates innovative approaches to expressive art therapies with special needs kids, at-risk teens, drug users, educators and patients with chronic and terminal illness. Following the screening, Tamar Einstein invites the viewers to follow their hearts in an expressive art- making experience that will provide time for both introspective work and sharing with the larger group.

A4 - SOLD OUT
Sociodrama Art Therapy
(lecture, experiential)
Rosalie Minkin
In this session, attendees will have an opportunity to experience the theory, practice and integration of sociodrama and art therapy. Sociodrama, the drama of the group, is a form of group psychotherapy where the roles, themes and issues are enacted in the session. Art therapy practices will offer participants an opportunity to use various media to illustrate the possible sociodrama themes, roles and issues. Participants also will explore how to combine these two therapeutic modalities in their private practice.

A5
Creating Growth with Elders
(panel, experiential)
Anne Foley Alper
Donna Newman-Bluetsein
Danielle O’Brien
This panel will explore effective ways that expressive arts therapy has been used in elder settings. Discussants will talk about how the arts and mindfulness practices can transform treatment methods and enhance an empathic posture, bridging isolation within the whole community.  

A6 - SOLD OUT
Cultivating Peace and Compassion:
Focusing-oriented Expressive Arts and Meditation
(experiential)
Peggy Langley
Laury Rappaport
This workshop presents an overview of Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts Therapy and demonstrates how it is useful for cultivating peace and compassion within oneself, with others and the world. The workshop includes didactic information and experiential exercises to teach the Focusing Attitude of being welcoming of inner experience; basic steps to symbolize the felt sense in various art modalities; clearing a space with expressive art for dis-identifying with stressors and accessing a place of inherent wholeness and peace; and meditation practices to deepen states of equanimity and peace.

A7
Tools for the Peace-Maker: Honoring Deganiwidah in the World
(experiential)
Jane Goldberg
Mollie Shea
Interweaving history and myth, we turn to the legendary tale of Deganiwidah, (Man from the North), who, with his allies, Hiawatha, (the Great Orator) and Jigonhsasee (the Great Peacewoman), brought about a peaceful democratic society here in these Northeastern Woodlands by uniting five tribes to form the Iroquois Nation (1000 A.D.) Their story became the founding model of our national democracy. You're invited to re-enact and deeply experience this powerful archetypal, social, psychological and cross-cultural journey of the Peace-Maker, with art, music, poetry, ritual, dance and story-telling. Discover how you can design, build, clearly embrace and carry forward your message of peace-making out into the world. This presentation is based on the book by Jean Houston with Margaret Rubin, “Manual For The Peacemaker: An Iroquois Legend To Heal Self and Society.”

A8 - SOLD OUT
Enhancing Inner and Outer Diversity through Voice Movement Therapy
(experiential)
Deborah Crane
Learn the fundamentals of Voice Movement Therapy (VMT) and experience this approach to investigating and integrating the many aspects of the self through vocal and physical exploration. Voice is the bridge between our internal and external worlds. The expressive power of sound and words allows us to understand each other more fully. VMT provides a framework and reliable tools for accessing the power of voice in expressive arts therapy sessions. All sounds, movements, creative works and parts of the self are treated with equal respect during exploration and integration of inner diversity, thus creating respect for all ways of being.

A9 - SOLD OUT
Embodying Peace through Mask and Other Expressive Arts Processes
(experiential)
Sophie Glikson
Marina Strauss
In this workshop, participants will embellish pre-made masks to “unmask” their internal paradoxes with the intention of experiencing deeper presence and acceptance of their internal tensions. Participants will be invited to embody their masks in a way that allows “characters” to emerge – characters representing the different and often contradictory forces that can cause tension. Participants will then explore and integrate these characters toward reaching a sense of wholeness and “being peace” (Thich Nhat Hanh, 1996). A selection of modalities will be incorporated into the process including body-mind centering, the interplay with metaphorical, visual languages, sound, movement and enactment.

A10 - SOLD OUT
Mindfulness-based Expressive Therapy:
Empathic Presence, Sensory Awareness, Meditation and Metaphor
(panel, lecture, experiential)
Daniel Herring
Rosa Granadillo-Schwentker
Carol Marks Stopforth
This panel will look at how to use mindfulness techniques including yoga, meditation and relaxation with a variety of populations, such as adolescents with substance abuse, day treatment facilities and multicultural settings.

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1:30 - 3:00 pm – Thursday Series B
(1.5-hour workshops and panels)

B1
Peak Performance: Be the Best That You Can Be
(experiential)
Jean Winslow
Stirring the imagination through art, psychodrama and visualization, this workshop will focus on affecting change, growth and healing. Matching images with action, we will experience ways of enhancing spontaneity and creativity as we flow between the contemplative and the active, the personal and the collective, to reach optimal levels of performance.

B2
Body Casting for Personal and Social Healing and Transformation
(lecture)
Celine Hunt
Michaela Kirby
Shannon Stevens
In our modern culture, many outside forces often leave women feeling detached from the felt experiences of their physical bodies. As expressive therapists, we have found body casting, the process of using plaster and gauze to create a mold of the body, to be a powerful vehicle for helping us transform the social constructs that keep us from experiencing a positive, felt sense of our own bodies. Three expressive arts therapists will present on their own phenomenological experiences of using body casting to explore these issues.

B3
Re-inventing Whatever Our Lives Give Us – A Workshop About ‘Zines and Blogs
(experiential)
Eve Lyons
This experiential workshop invites participants to explore the world of ‘zines and blogs. ‘Zines are cheaply published, mass-produced chapbooks of art and writing, designed to connect with other people, and inspire and challenge people about things with which the creator is struggling. Blogs, their technological heir, are online journals and can include memoir, fiction, poetry or photography, and again the common denominator is the need of the creators to put their art out into the world. This workshop will be an experiential opportunity to explore the therapeutic value of both making art and receiving feedback, validation and connection with your audience.

B4
Mandala Circle Dance:
Linking with Peace – Spiritual Environmental Expressive Arts
(experiential)
Cenira
Mandala Circle Dance and Links process uses movements and patterns inspired by the cyclical and circular movements found in nature, world culture, ceremonies and children’s play. It facilitates individual and group integration, and personal and social transformation by nurturing the inner child, deepening creative intuitive perception, supporting the creation of positive compassionate links with others in the process of community building, and raising consciousness. In this experiential workshop, multi-modal expressive arts, meditation, creative bioenergetics, dance, movement and recycled material are used to connect with the authentic selves and cultivate the inner peace that is the necessary basis for promoting peace and for strengthening our relationships with the self and others.

B5
Through this Art, Peace: Desearte Paz
(experiential)
Gene Diaz
In this interactive workshop, participants will first learn about the arts and pedagogy community change project, Desearte Paz, taking place in Medellin, Colombia. Participants will be asked to construct concepts of pedagogy of peace by working with rice paper and watercolors. Viewing peace as a transparent process in which a group of people work together to construct a climate of acceptance and respect, we will offer our visions of a pedagogy of peace.

B6
Processing Grief through the Arts: Reconnecting to a Lost Healing Wisdom
(panel, lecture, experiential)
B. Alicia Diaz
Emily Johnson
This panel will examine how arts-based interventions in a clinical setting can help clients and therapists process grief and loss through self-care techniques. The panel will emphasize cross-cultural perspectives and includes multimedia visual aids.

B7
Exhibits and Public Arts Shows as a Social Change Agent for Clients
(panel, lecture)
Shalene Hatton
Jordan S. Potash
This panel will look at exhibitions of artwork, including gallery and community spaces, as well as online resources. Participants will learn how clients can enhance social change and wellbeing. The panel also will discuss the results of a research project designed to help viewers more fully engage in the art therapy viewing experience.

B8 - SOLD OUT
Peace-ing: “A Way of Knowing” through Metaphoric Words and Images
(experiential)
Diane J. Guelzow
Marisa Cornell
In this experiential workshop, participants use metaphoric words and images in collage form, taking the stages of “knowing” from “experiencing” into “presentational” into “propositional” and finally into “practical.” By exploring the stages of knowing through visual journaling with collage, workshop participants will utilize this lens as they continue to engage in personal self-care and assist clients and groups in cathartic journeys. Participants will walk away with a handful of therapeutic activities to engage themselves, their clients and groups.

B9
Intercellular Peace, Healing Intergenerational DNA Utilizing Somatic Therapies
with Psychodrama
(experiential)
Rebecca M. Ridge
Peace begins within our cells and cellular memory. Hatred and fear can change the cell structure and cause a war within our own body mind, which can result in breaking down the body’s immune system and closing the heart from meaningful relationships. One can reorganize the psyche on a cellular level, however, by experientially integrating the somatic therapies of body mindfulness and cellular breathing, and finding the resonance with the heart cells. By incorporating the interplay of psychodrama, we can identify the destructive patterns laid down by past generations and consciously re-create new messages, thus restoring peace within our cells and opening our hearts to more sincere and compassionate relationships.

B10
Bridging Cultures: Music Therapy for Social Action in Argentina
(lecture)
Irene Antonellis
Jessica Kaptcianos
Jared Leaderman
The expressive therapies hold powerful potential for effecting positive social change. Presenters will demonstrate the application of the expressive arts for social action through a music therapy project in rural Argentina aimed at facilitating cultural awareness, personal and group expression, and cross-cultural community. They also will explore multimodal arts approaches for designing and implementing multicultural immersion experiences for social action around the world. Additionally, they will discuss the role of these experiences within the cultural competencies training for expressive therapists.

B11
Council Practice as a Path to Peace and Social Justice
(experiential)
Stella Bay
A simple, effective strategy for facilitating heartfelt communication and inclusive group dynamics, Council Practice is the perfect tool for breaking down cultural barriers and misperceptions when combined with playful, safe and inclusive Expressive Arts Therapy exercises. This experiential workshop will focus on bringing unconscious cultural conditioning to awareness.

B12
Quilting and Social Change
(panel, lecture, experiential)
Anna Densert
Michelle Harris
This session will focus on specific uses of quilting and needle arts as agents of social awareness and change. The panel also will present Journal Quilting and a traveling quilt exhibit titled Incest Survivors Speaking to the Next Generation.

B13
Multicultural Expressive Arts for Global Peace:
Acknowledging differences with mindfulness-compassion
(lecture, experiential)
Rosa Granadillo-Schwentker PhD, DTR, CMB, CMT
Personal voices and histories are shared with the Other within a compassionate atmosphere. Delving into their narratives, different art products, and processes, participants explore self-formation and personal history.

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3:30 - 5:00 pm – Thursday Series C
(1.5-hour workshops and panels)

C1 - SOLD OUT
Three Drama Therapy Approaches to Family Conflict
(experiential)
Becca Greene-Van Horn
Greta Schnee
Daniel Wiener
Empathy training is a foundational skill in dealing effectively with interpersonal conflict. Families are social systems in which accurate empathy is difficult to attain, due to the intensity of the family projection process. Participants will learn three different Drama Therapy action approaches to empathy training that reduce interfamilial conflict: psycho-educational coaching for parents to teach their children empathy language and skills; embodied, enacted play that allows children to deal better with family violence; and staging displacement scenes that help conflictual couples better identify with each other’s perspectives.

C2 - SOLD OUT
Using Group Art Therapy to Build Self-Esteem
(lecture)
Stephanie Brooke
The presentation will focus on critical information related to research using art therapy to raise self-esteem. This presentation will focus specifically on the results of research using art therapy to empower and elevate self-esteem with a group of sexual abuse survivors. The introduction will examine common myths surrounding sexual abuse in our culture that serve to perpetuate abuse. Given that low self-esteem is a common characteristic of survivors, this presentation will focus on one treatment approach that has been shown to significantly and positively impact self-esteem – art therapy.

C3 - SOLD OUT
Empowerment from Art and Dreams: Visual Self-Balancing
(experiential)
Ann Sayre Wiseman
To bypass the sensors that words or the lack of words control, you will create a visual symbolic map of a troublesome dream or problem on paper as though it were your stage. This visual mirror allows you to see feelings, relationships and affinities through the use of colors, form and relationship. Our inner observer sees us from a different angle, offering us a metaphor to better understand blind spots and possible options. You can test alternatives, reverse roles, negotiate change and rebalance obsolete life strategies.

C4
Going Upcountry: Applications of Poetry Therapy in Sierra Leone
(lecture, experiential)
Cameron Marzelli
In 2007, Cameron traveled with her colleague, a United Nations Special Court psychologist, throughout remote regions of Sierra Leone to develop psychosocial services for former refugees and war-wounded. The process of writing and responding to poetry in a cross-cultural therapeutic context depends on the creative properties of language to engage hard-edged questions. How might poetry build bridges among people at odds, at war? How are we meant to be alive after the unthinkable has happened? This presentation includes video footage of poetry therapy training sessions in Sierra Leone, a display of poems written by Sierra Leonean adults and adolescents and an imaginal writing process.

C5 - SOLD OUT
Healing Through Art: Working with Trauma, Domestic Violence and Eating Disorders
(lecture)
Becky Fleetwood
Nicole Hahna
Michal Shanti-Canetti
This presentation will focus on the use of the expressive arts therapies for working with survivors of trauma, intimate partner violence and eating disorders. The presentation will provide examples of expressive arts therapies interventions that can be helpful when working with these populations. Clinical examples will be provided for both children and adult survivors.

C6
Navigating Personality Differences Through Art and Conversation: Pathways to Peace (lecture, performance)
Haley Fox
Tina Marie Thomas
The two presenters met in graduate school, part of a loosely structured but tightly bonded interdisciplinary “dream team” dedicated to nothing less lofty than World Peace. The arts-based approach to therapy and learning of the lead presenter, and her counterpart’s dynamic presentation style and in-depth knowledge of the Enneagram, a nine-point personality system, combine to ensure a powerful influence on the way people think about personality and human conflict. They explore ways to move toward a deeper appreciation of differences, understanding and ultimately peace. The presentation will include multimodal demonstrations, including original songs.

C7
Transforming the Bullying Cycle through the Expressive Arts
(experiential)
Maryam Mermey
This workshop will use the languages of the expressive arts to provide effective strategies and techniques to prevent bullying in schools. Participants will learn definitions of the four major roles in the bullying cycle and strategies to raise student awareness of the different kinds of bullying. Participants will learn about Forum Theatre and movement techniques as a means of transforming the witnesses into heroes, and then have the opportunity to practice these drama and movement techniques through small-group improvisations and performances. Group members will gain theatre arts skills that they easily can use in classrooms to transform the bullying cycle.

C8 - SOLD OUT
Exile, Identity and Creation: Empowering Immigrant Women through Art
(lecture)
Vera Heller
This presentation draws from the author’s experience as an immigrant artist, art therapist and social worker. Its purpose is to describe an arts-based research with immigrant women, focusing on the contribution of artistic creation in healing the fragmentation of identity inherent in the transition between two – often radically different – cultures. Heller will explore the reconstruction of the participants’ identities during an art therapy workshop through the joint approaches of image-making and narrative storytelling. From the perspective of the Hero’s archetype, both the migratory and creative processes are envisioned as journeys leading to the development of individuality.

C9 - SOLD OUT
EnVision:
Creating Transformation through the Art of Intention and Visual Journaling
(experiential)
Sheri Gaynor
In today’s turbulent climate, it is important to support clients and communities in creating intention to live peacefully both within and without. The presentation focus will be Creative Awakenings: Envisioning the Life of Your Dreams through Art, a book by Sheri Gaynor, published by North Light Books. This visual journaling workshop will show you an exciting way to support clients and communities in a unique, transformational process known as EnVision Art of Intention. Students will learn methodology, simple techniques and suggested approaches. The workshop is experiential and open discussion style. A journal is helpful, all supplies included.

C10
Using Expressive Media in Virtual Reality: New Multi-Cultural Paradise
(experiential)
Niela Miller
The possibilities for cultural exchange, collaborations on projects that promote peace, goodwill and understanding, and the ability to endlessly explore in a creative playground can trump any technophobia that lingers in the participant. Come find out about the joys and interesting challenges of participating in a virtual world without geographical boundaries – and the possibilities for social change.

C11
The Ethics of Care: Connecting Personal and Societal Actions
(lecture, experiential)
Denise Malis
Amy Morrison
As practitioners of the creative arts therapies, we are often in the role of giving and caring of others, resulting in a gradual decline of awareness regarding our relationship to care and the caring profession. Participants will engage in a dialogue/discussion around the philosophical roots of contemporary caring and how caring connects to ethical decision making. Attendees will explore the extension of care/caring through a creative process that includes movement and art making. Personal and collective movement and image making will allow participants to define their personal and embodied relationship of our caring habits, knowledge and imagination.

C12
The Veil: The Symbol of Islamic Covering
(experiential)
Gloria Mahin
In this workshop, we will explore the symbol of the veil from a positive point of view to understand its value both as a religious practice and as an artistic image in the expressive arts. The experience of “covering” relates to numerous therapeutic processes, including self-protection, boundaries, authenticity, containment and self-confidence. Through discussion and experiential activities, we will learn ways of incorporating this powerful symbol into our personal and professional work, and also increase our appreciation for diverse cultures and practices in our communities and in the world. 

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Conference Workshops
Friday, August 14

Please choose:
One Series D workshop (1:30-5:00 pm)
OR
One Series E workshop (1:30-3:00 pm) AND one Series F (3:30-5:00 pm)

1:30 - 5:00 pm – Friday Series D
(3.5-hour workshops and panels)

D1
The Use of Expressive Arts with HIV+ Women Prisoners in Nairobi, Kenya
(experiential)
Gloria Simoneaux
Ms. Simoneaux has been leading expressive arts groups for HIV+ women prisoners in Nairobi, Kenya since May 2008. This experiential workshop includes narratives about the women’s experiences within the prison, a PowerPoint presentation, and exercises and theory developed in response to the needs of this unique population.  

D2
Building and Arts with Post-Conflict Communities
(experiential)  
Joanne Robinson
Dot Walsh
Alan O'Hare
Colleen Brown
Through interweaving theory and story, this program will explore models of healing reconciliation and arts through international community partnerships in Northern Ireland, U.K. (Corrymeela Center for Peace and Reconciliation) and Greater Boston, U.S. (The Peace Abbey/The Girls Center). The presenters also will journey through a multi-arts presentation into the history of conflict-based interrelationships in each of these areas, and the resulting generations of hurt, hate and oppression, particularly within the lives of young people. Workshop participants will develop the creative processes of storytelling and visual arts to transform learned experiences of power-over relationships to power-with relationships for individuals and communities.

D3
Moreno’s Codes and Formulas for Awakening Consciousness and for Social Healing
(experiential)
Edward Schreiber
This workshop presents a psychodramatic understanding of the forces impacting all human life, the planet and the natural world. The workshop offers psychodramatic, sociodramatic and sociometric processes as formulas and codes for group and personal renewal, and the awakening of consciousness. These codes and formulas, called “sociatry,” facilitate the discovery and strengthening of the autonomous healing center in each of us and within groups. You are invited to share the experience of a creative force manifesting within us and within the group.

D4
Knowing the Cultural Self: Multicultural Competencies in Clinical Practices
(experiential)
Mariagnese Cattaneo
This presentation will focus on the multicultural competencies relevant to the creative art therapies. It will highlight how Eurocentric tradition, worldview and education can conflict with the client’s sociocultural and sociopolitical reality and experience. The awareness and understanding of our personal cultural values and biases in the aesthetic experience, as a creator or an onlooker, are an essential competency for a creative arts therapy clinician. We will examine our personal appreciation for the arts and sense of what is beautiful and/or pleasing. This presentation will include exercises that bring forth parts of our cultural tapestry.

D5 - SOLD OUT
Nourishing the Roots of the World Tree/Sanando Las Raices del Arbol Mundial
(experiential)
Maria Gonzalez-Blue
Graciela Bottini
Kyoko Ono
Our world is made up of many cultures, each human being unique, special, seeking to find a way toward authenticity. At the root of the self lies a soul needing connection, longing for kindred spirits while hoping to stay true to the self. A soul that is nourished, held with deep respect, can grow to not only experience greater joy and fulfillment, but contributes to the whole. Join us as we share our collective cultural experiences in guiding individuals through the universal language of Person-Centered expressive arts. Using movement, art, sound and ritual we will nourish the soul and celebrate community.

D6 - SOLD OUT
New Song Long Dance: Creative Cauldron of Individual and Community
(experiential)
Deborah Koff-Chapin
The “New Song Long Dance” is a multimodal expressive arts structure that offers participants an empowering experience of being part of a generative social organism. The Long Dance has a unique mandalic structure that contains a great range of expressive modalities in a manner that supports the unified field of the community. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the elements of the New Song Long Dance and then be guided into an experience of immersion in the Dance. Participants will receive written support materials and be empowered to incorporate the process into their particular work or community setting.

D7
Social Action in Expressive Arts with Developmental Disabilities
(experiential, lecture, in two sections)
Barbara Devaney, Ellen McManus, Victoria Buckley Michaela Kirby, Kristin Falvey, Carylbeth Thomas

D7-1 (1:30 - 3:00)
Expressive Therapy's Transformative Power for Individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities
Michaela Kirby 
Kristin Falvey
Carylbeth Thomas
Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities have long been a marginalized group in society. We will present on one organizations use of expressive arts in work settings that has helped to empower the programs and the individuals. The inclusion of the arts in these programs has inspired self confidence and pride, developed social skills, as well as the capacity to relate and interact with others. Over the years, we have seen the arts transform not only the individuals with ID/DD but also the staff and the community as the individuals are seen for their abilities and as creative, capable people.

D7-2 (3:30 - 5:00)
Collaborative Theatre Production – Promoting Unity and Disability Awareness
Ellen Mcmanus
Victoria Buckley
The presenters discuss their work as artistic caregivers in a state hospital. The two phases of collaborative theatre production are described. The first stage is pre-production, the formation of the diverse cast: people with medical issues, people with psychiatric problems, artists, healthcare professionals, and high school students. The cast works together in workshops to tap their creativity and write a play. During this process, traditional roles facilitate surprising therapeutic changes and help all participants value each other more. The second phase of the project is performing the play for 6th grade classes, as part of their classroom curriculum on disability awareness. Examples of exercises used in the first phase of the collaborative theatre process will make up an experiential part of theworkshop/discussion, and film clips of the work done will be shown.

D8
Imprisoned by Concepts of Manhood: Freeing the Man Behind Bars
(experiential, lecture)
Nicki Koethner
Suraya Susana Keating
Evan Hastings
This workshop will show how to use the Expressive Arts in correctional facilities to bring about inner growth and social transformation among male inmates. Through drama therapy, movement, music, poetry, writing and drawing, workshop participants will experience the approach of the Theatre for Change program of the Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP), a unique Restorative Justice program in San Francisco County Jail. Participants will engage in dialogue about the challenges of using the arts with predominantly working-class men of color to address their violence in a structure that often paradoxically perpetuates violence.

D9  
Aesthetic Action: Arts-based Research Panel
(panel, lecture. experiential)
Ellen M. Landis
Marisa Cornell
Diane J. Guelzow
Sally Atkins
Helaine Sheias
Hadass Harel
This panel will present a variety of arts-based research practices and projects, including arts-based research basics; Sharevision: a collaborative reflective model used with secondary trauma; indigenous ritual and art in Hindu India; and ethno-autobiography.

1:30 - 3:00 pm – Friday Series E
(1.5-hour workshops and panels)

E1  
Empowerment through Drama: Theater of Witness for Validation and Change
(lecture)
Rachel Brandoff
This session will explain the Theater of Witness model used in a project designed to explore the experience for adults with developmental disabilities of telling their stories in a community setting. Participants confirmed that the transformative powers of the arts in the Theater of Witness project provided an opportunity for empowerment and social change. This presentation will present the findings that participants felt empowered, validated, connected and proud of themselves after sharing their experience through play. Furthermore, this research explores the value of educating the community about developmental disabilities, and the strengths of persons who carry this label.

E2   
“El Tendedero” The Clothesline: Different Faces with One Pain, Through Breaking Silence we Recreate Consciousness
(lecture)
Michelle Contreras
Michelle Harris
Erika Lally
From 1960-1996, Guatemala experienced a civil war where torture, genocide and mass killings were practiced. Approximately 150,000 to 200,000 people were killed or “disappeared.” Today, Guatemalans continue to struggle with ongoing societal violence as the aftermath of 36 years of internal conflict. The “El Tendedero” project provides training to Guatemalan clinicians as they collectively work to define trauma healing as culturally relevant and specific to their many diverse regions and ethnic populations. Art-making is a fertile complement to the didactic trauma training in Guatemala, functioning as both a source of containment and a nonverbal means of communicating what is only beginning to be expressed. Trauma-informed art therapy work in Guatemala requires an understanding of historical, intergenerational, complex and acute trauma, all of which will be defined in the presentation.

E3  
Artsbridge, Inc.: Making a Difference Through Art
(lecture)
Deborah Nathan
This presentation will outline the groundbreaking work of Artsbridge, Inc., which brings together Palestinian and Israeli high school students through expressive therapy, art and reflective dialogue. Participants will view the student’s joint artwork, which includes two- and three-dimensional art as well as photography and film. Deborah also will provide an overview that details this unique model of working with youth in conflict.

E4 - SOLD OUT
The Use and Transformation of Archetypes Along the Road to Peace
(experiential)
Shelley A. Jackson
This workshop will explore common archetypes in literature, music and film in relation to their messages about peace. Using storytelling and poetry, participants will construct their own pathway to peace guided by their archetypes. Participants also will work with multiple mediums to create a champion for peace that will be shared in a closing ceremony.

E5  
Weaving a Web Around the World
(lecture)
Meredith Casper
Leanne Maloo Haynes
Betsy Naylor
Lindsey Smith
Connie Carringer
With the expansion of the arts into global education, wellness and justice, there is a call for action and organization. Appalachian State University offers its expressive arts honor society, Orchesis, as a model of community and as a foundation that links student, professional and personal development across the region, country and globe. It is our hope that Orchesis, on an international level, can be a space in which to share creative endeavors, as well as a forum to voice passion, practices and promise for the expressive arts therapies.

E6 - SOLD OUT
Intention, Direction, Action: Imaginal Processes and Creative Change
(experiential)
Dorit Netzer
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to a creative process that facilitates desirable change on personal, interpersonal and transpersonal levels. Through a series of imaginal processes – mental imaging, embodied writing and expressive arts – participants will engage in identifying their intention for change, clarifying a direction of movement, and gaining experiential knowledge of the seed action in their creative expression. Participants also will have the opportunity to share their experience with others and consider how might they apply this transformational process in their daily lives and professional practices.

E7  
Artistic Expressions of Marginalization and Tolerance:
A K-8 Public School Community Arts Project
(lecture, experiential)
Liz Rose
Teresa Lee
Anna Ward
Through experiential and presentational formats, participants will be introduced to an educational community arts model that was implemented in a K-8 public charter school as part of a year-long research project funded by a university grant. Faculty from history, English, visual arts, music and theatre collaborated to construct and implement this project with public school students and teachers, culminating in a final performance based on student writings and artistic expressions of marginalization and tolerance. The presenters will discuss and model the project’s goals, process and findings through an experiential format.

E8 - SOLD OUT
Action Theater Improvisation: An Experiential Workshop in Movement, Sound and Language
(experiential, performance)
Billie Jo Joy
Action Theater is a unique form of physical improvisational theater in which one practices the art of presence. In this experiential workshop, we will warm-up the body and voice to engage in fun and rigorous exercises that isolate and then re-combine movement, sound and language. Working in solos, duets, trios and ensembles, we will learn about our creative impulses, habits and perceptions. We will uncover links (and missing links!) between mind, body and spirit. When we are “in the moment,” every cell of our being responds and the environment we are in changes as a result of it. Action Theater is a practice that cultivates this awareness.

E9  
Motherblood, a Short Play and Interactive Process Exploring Middle East Peace (performance)
Susan Nisenbaum Becker
Saphira Linden
The play is an encounter between two mothers – one Israeli, the other Palestinian. Both survived significant losses. They struggle with each other, sharing a wide range of feelings regarding their complex personal and political situations. This meeting changes these two women’s lives. After this short performance, workshop participants will experience a sociodramatic experiential process, creating the “next scene” toward creating solutions for peace in the Middle East.

E10 - SOLD OUT
The Hand that Rocks the Cradle: Peacemaking Begins at Home
(experiential, lecture)
Suzanne Laberge
Can children grow up to be peaceful adults if they have had no experience of peace? When parents are divorced, separated or in transition, children are often caught in the middle. Unhappy children are unequipped to deal with internal or external conflict productively. Uncertain of who they are, they get in trouble in school, cannot concentrate, and learn to lie to avoid trouble, saying what they think an adult wants to hear. Parents and children all need help. This workshop includes lecture, slides, case examples and experiential exercises that explore how the magic of Expressive Therapy works for family members of all ages.

E11  
A Year of Long-Distance Creative Exchange and Regeneration
(lecture, experiential)
Rebekah Windmiller
Adriana Marchione
What would an ongoing artistic practice accompanied by long-distance community support mean in the lives of practitioners of the expressive arts? Two expressive arts therapists addressed this question by conducting an informal research process from separate shores of the United States, challenging themselves to commit to consistent studio practice and then reflect through a meaningful dialogue across the miles. This presentation will provide a review of their yearlong creative exchange, discussion about the role of personal creativity for expressive arts practitioners, and inspiration to begin a more connected, global expressive arts community. 

E12  
Community Action through Art in El Salvador
(lecture)
Ruth Guttfreund
This workshop will focus on the presenter’s three different projects in El Salvador that share the common thread of being social interventions in a deeply troubled society and culture. The pieces of work include a Prevention of Violence and Juvenile Delinquency Project in seven districts in semi-rural, high-risk areas, a Learning to Live Together Project in a semi-rural area, and a Project of Social Interaction between children from a rural public school and children from bilingual-private school.  

3:30 - 5:00 pm – Friday Series F
(1.5-hour workshops and panels)

F1  
Mentoring, Social Action and the Expressive Arts
(lecture, experiential, performance)
Nancy Beardall
The Mentors in Violence Prevention Program (MVP) is a high-school mentoring program that promotes gender respect and helps prevent bullying, sexual harassment and teen-dating abuse using the expressive arts in middle and high schools. Relation to self, other and “we” are all multiple ways of coming to the center of inner or embodied knowing, and of transferring that knowledge into action. Participants will explore the “Integrated Pedagogical Process” and how it applies to this mentoring program and the wellness/prevention work in public schools. Discussion will follow, culminating with viewing a DVD of students who were involved in the mentoring and social action process. Several former high school mentors will share their experiences and contribute to the dialogue.

F2       
Creative Process as a Catalyst to a Group Performance
(performance)
PhD group:
Ethelyn (Mila) Anguluan-Coger
Rachel Brandoff
Jodi Brereton Souter      
Susan Firestone         
Rebecca Fleetwood     
Nicole Hahna
Hod Orkibi     
Michal Shanti-Canetti            
Ralitza Vladimirov
This performance is presented as an homage to the individual and group creative process that emerged over the course of the first year of study for a group of international expressive arts students. The creative process featured in this presentation emerged through the students’ collaborations, both in-person and online, and served as a catalyst to fuel each other’s creative processes. This presentation will share the participants’ process and some outcomes of their creative work in art and performance.

F3  
Transforming a Shadow World:
Expressive Arts to Enhance Empathy and Promote Pro-social Behavior
(panel, lecture, experiential)
Lisa Merrell
Travis Merrell
Amy Pfenning
This panel will present case studies to explain how to use Expressive Art Therapies with adult sexual offenders to create a new self-concept and to achieve greater safety for our communities by facilitating access of emotions, verbal expression and demonstration of empathy. This experiential workshop also will focus on maximizing the potential of each person and how these therapies complement different treatment modalities.

F4  
Living Newspaper as a Vehicle for Intergroup Dialogue
(lecture, experiential)
June Rabson Hare
Ofra Armoni-Faiman
The Living Newspaper is often a warm-up technique in Playback Theater, drama therapy, creative drama and sociodrama. In this presentation, we shall review the history of the Living Newspaper during the 1900s and then give a contemporary example of how Living Newspaper is used with a group of actors in the Negev region of Israel. The session continues with an experiential module in which participants will be invited to explore some techniques derived from Living Newspaper, which can be adapted for peace-building and intergroup dialogue in situations of hot or ongoing conflict.

F5  
Looking Beyond the Veil: Can You Know the Other?
(experiential)
Kendall Dudley
The abaya, the black, body-concealing garment worn by traditional Iraqi, is a potent image that highlights the differences between “us” and “them,” self and other. The war in Iraq has created a minefield of imagery of its own while indigenous images of Iraqi culture further widen the perception of difference. By putting ourselves in the “shoes,” or, literally, the abayas, of others, what can we learn by looking in the mirror, and by writing, moving and creating images in response? Small groups will process their findings, synthesize them onto murals, and widen the language and tools for peace and reconciliation.

F6 - SOLD OUT
Body Eloquence: The Healing Power of Storytelling
(experiential)
Nancy Mellon
Drawing together creativity, medicine and the power of imagination, this path-breaking workshop will inspire all who tell and work with stories. Exploring new ideas about the therapeutic power of stories, you will discover the transformative healing potential of the story process, with guidelines for research and practice. The world’s stories are gateways to the body’s intuitive wisdom. Discover plot lines, characters and landscapes that reflect exact physiological conditions, as described in the award-winning book, Body Eloquence: The Power of Myth and Story to Awaken the Body’s Energies.

F7 - SOLD OUT
Arts and Healthcare:
Finding Hope and Overcoming Illness through Rituals and Imagery
(panel, experiential)
Heather Cameron
Aya Kasai
This panel will discuss how to use the arts in healthcare to foster social awareness and support. Presenters will introduce awareness of how visual images (i.e. photographs) allow for non-verbal communication and exploration of hidden or unrealized feelings and emotions. Participants will explore the use of expressive arts for pain management through experiential activities.

F8  
Staying Light on Our Feet: Forbidden Responses to Oppression
(experiential)
Lisa Herman
Rowesa Gordon
How do we allow ourselves a full range of feelings toward the “other?” And how do we learn to be accountable for our response? How do we not sound like pedantic, politically correct bores? Instead of politically correct, how can we be poetically correct? In this workshop, we’ll play around with our own pre-conceptions and possibly worn-out perceptions of oppression. We’ll begin to explore our capacities to use and abuse power, and find an image to call upon as an inner resource to work for change.

F9  
Confronting Domestic Violence through Expressive Arts Therapy:
Finding Hope in Safety
(panel, experiential)
Lisa Silveria
Janet Novotny
This session will look at the complex dynamics found in incidents of domestic violence and expressive arts interventions that can be used to educate, empower and heal. The panelists also will present research on activism in the healing process through an interactive performance piece.

F10  
Move On! Social Paralysis into Social Action Using Expressive Arts
(experiential)
Shoshana Simons
Urusa Fahim
How many of us have ideas in our heads about what we might do to interrupt the social injustices we see around us, and yet feel paralyzed to act? In this workshop, we use expressive arts modalities to free up our ability to respond in fresh ways to the multiple challenges facing us individually and collectively in our social world. Drawing from their ethnic, national, religious and sexual-orientation differences as sources of strength, the presenters introduce playful and creative ways through which we can “thaw” the effects of social paralysis and become more effective allies against injustice.

F11  
Crossing Borders 30 Years Later: Two Muses Reunite in Story
(experiential, performance)
Terri Halperin-Eaton
Colleen Hillock
Tap into the power of storytelling as two best friends from different countries impart how each of their creative processes have unfolded since graduating from their shared days in expressive therapy studies. Witness a performance that will explore the challenges and victories they have experienced separately within their own cultures as they set out to transform themselves and their families, clients and graduate students. Participants will engage in an experiential process to reflect upon their personal journeys of transformation, and explore the power that story plays in peace-ing their world together.

F12 - SOLD OUT
Introduction to the Non-Directive Approach to Play and Expressive Arts
(experiential)
Anna Clarke
Charlotte Yonge
This session begins with an introductory talk about the therapeutic, non-directive approach to play and expressive arts, and a demonstration of reflective listening and how to do it through play. Working with a sand tray in pairs, participants then will practice reflective listening in turns with each other, receive brief verbal feedback and journal their insights. Discussion will follow to explore and contrast participant experiences and views. The presenters also will explain the non-directive approach’s particular therapeutic role in social change, and describe its use for individual children, parenting training, professional child-care training and community groups.

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Post-Conference Workshops
Saturday, August 15
1:00 – 5:00 pm

Please choose one:

POST-1 - SOLD OUT
Rituals of Compassion
The Appalachian Expressive Arts Collective:
Sally Atkins, Joan Woodworth, Harold McKinney, Liz Rose, Jack Weller
For centuries, many peoples worldwide have used the arts in ritual practices to create community, to restore both intrapersonal and interpersonal balance, and to suggest appropriate ways to live through daily and seasonal ceremonies of storytelling, music, movement and art making. In this experiential workshop, we will practice and discuss arts-based rituals to support peace and foster the sustainability of human and non-human life. We will share individual and community rituals, their sources, and applications for self care of the artist/therapist and for the creation of peace and community.

POST-2
Inner Peace, Serenity and Passion through Japanese Culture
Kyoko Ono
In this experiential workshop, we will explore our sense of inner peace, serenity and passion through Japanese traditional arts including music, dance and sumi-e painting. We also will discuss how different cultures stimulate and arouse different parts of the self. When we can respect other cultures and find our own sense of peace within, we can build more peace in the world.

POST-3 - SOLD OUT
The Sound of Community: Midwifing the Voice
Nina (Anin) Utigaard
Having a voice is a powerful resource that many are uncomfortable using. Not being able to use one’s voice, for whatever reason, can result in feeling unheard, invisible or devalued. This can happen on an individual or community level. How can we support others to find their true voice? How is the voice linked to our own health and our community’s health? Using the person-centered approach with movement, drama, music, sounding and art, we will explore the power of the voice and ways to use the voice in therapeutic settings. Participants also will experience the “Authentic Voice” technique.

POST-4
Peace-ing the Roots
Graciela Bottini and PCETI Argentina
Peace-ing our world together is a purpose, an opening to the future. History is not an abstract concept – it’s alive. Like a wheel in movement, it has a rhythm, a pulse, a past, a present and the unknown future. Peace-ing the roots is a purpose that opens the future, unthreading the ancient, mute knots of the past that mysteriously are actualized building obstacles in the present moment. We, like human “somebodies.” keep old memories in our cells, in our blood, in our bones. It is time to release and transform them! Participants will have the opportunity to clear past hurts alchemically through the “possible magic” of Expressive Arts.

POST-5
The Expressive Body: The Work of Tamalpa Institute
Adriana Marchione and Anne Foley Alper
This workshop in movement-based expressive arts therapy brings to participants one of the first approaches to shape the field, developed at Tamalpa Institute more than 30 years ago. Body and imagination will be brought into creative dialogue using movement, drawing, poetic writing, reflective questions, improvisation and performance rituals. The metaphors of our body will generate artwork relevant to the narratives, challenges and burning questions of peoples' daily lives. Following the experiential portion of the workshop, graduate Anne Alper will lecture about her client work with Tourette's Syndrome to further demonstrate the Tamalpa approach and its relevancy to the practice of expressive arts as an educative and transformative process.

POST-6
A Piece on Peace
Keren Barzilay-Shechter and Yousef Al-Ajarma
With the war in their home country waging on, the presenters – an Israeli Jewish woman and a Palestinian Moslem man – met in Lesley University’s expressive therapies Ph.D. program. During their studies, they used the healing powers of art and delved together into a journey of self-exploration, from which an interactive theatre workshop has emerged. The session includes a short performance about their personal narratives presented through verbal dialogues, movement and national songs/chants. The workshop concludes with an experiential process based on expressive arts techniques.

POST-7
Coming From Somewhere Else: Experiences of Transparency in “Waiting”
Julia Byers
Inspired by clients from the Cambridge Legal Services and Counseling Center, this workshop explores social action advocacy for immigrants and refugees who must wait in abeyance as they seek legal status in U.S. The presentation is for expressive arts therapists, mental health professionals, educators and students who would benefit from a greater understanding of this social issue. Through the medium and metaphor of “Scotch Tape,” a tool for expression and community building is used as a “polymerization of hope” (Byers, 2004). This workshop focuses on the extraordinary strengths of a minority population who have multiple talents, skills and character attributes to share compassionately toward peace initiatives.

POST-8
The Arts as a Catalyst to Spark Civic Dialogue
Lisa Donovan and Prilly Sanville
In this session, the presenters and participants will co-create a space for civic dialogue through an interactive exploration using drama, movement, image and text. Participants will explore an issue of significance to them through role-play, tableaux, movement, collage and short performed phrases. Through performance-based work, participants will raise questions, explore context and reveal the subtext of a variety of issues.

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