All Power To The Developing!

Ep.22 ”Finding My People!” Neurodiverse young people steal the show at ActionPlay

Meet ActionPlay, a bold and brave performing arts program empowering young people on the autism spectrum. Carrie Lobman talks to founder Aaron Feinstein and his creative collaborators, Jackson Tucker-Meyer and Edison Weinstein, about the wondrous ActionPlay zone where neurodiverse ensembles (mentored and cheered on by their friends, family and professional theatre and film supporters) sing, dance and perform their hearts out to create a playful space where no one must conform and all can belong. “It’s my social spot…my happy place! A place to feel new emotions."
https://actionplay.org/
https://www.today.com/video/how-actionplay-is-empowering-actors-with-autism-112455749808

Ep.21 “Performing a Future Where We Own What We Make….”

Meet Ben Fink and Tiffany Turner— virtuoso community organizers mining the rich heritage of communities from the coalfields of East Kentucky and the ash pits of Alabama, to the sidewalk stoops of Baltimore and Milwaukee — and helping working class Americans tell their stories of hard work, love and abandonment. Their Performing Our Future empowerment coalition (spearheaded by the famed Roadside Theatre along with Black Belt Citizens United, Arch Social Club and Rural/Urban Flow) organizes diverse, cross-community ensembles in which locals can create with strangers and, in so-doing, re-imagine themselves and their communities. “Performance builds trust and power — it helps us own all we are and all we make.” Ben and Tiffany talk to cultural/political historian Dan Friedman about a tradition of community organizing tracing back to the populist movements of the 1890s.
https://www.performingourfuture.com/
https://roadside.org/asset/secular-communion-coalfields-populist-aesthetic-and-practice-roadside-theater 

Ep.20 All Stars Project’s Operation Conversation: Playing with What Divides Us

All Stars Project CEO Gabrielle L. Kurlander and Dallas City Leader Antoine Joyce join Lois Holzman for a wide-ranging conversation about the All Stars’ latest bridge-building initiative, Operation Conversation—how it came into being; how it works to help adults from different backgrounds, cultures and belief systems perform conversation, discover each other, and explore the constraints of identities of all kinds; and how directing Operation Conversation is helping the two of them to grow.  
https://allstars.org/
https://allstars.org/locations/dallas/

Ep.19 Artists ”Lift-Up” the Stories of Americans on the Fringes

Mauricio T. Salgado  (Artists Striving to End Poverty & New York University professor of Arts and Applied Theatre — has shaped a myriad of powerful social justice initiatives. In this intimate conversation with Castillo Theatre Artistic Director (Emeritus) Dan Friedman, Salgado, born in the US to proudly subversive Colombians and raised in the migrant camps of South Florida, recounts how dance, storytelling, community-based performance and ritual are indispensable to cultural healing. “Performance helps people embrace who they are and who they want to be."
www.mauriciotsalgado.comwww.remember2019.org

Ep.18 American Ninjas: How Ordinary Americans Are Combatting the Ugliness of US Politics

John Opdycke, democracy activist and president of Open Primaries, talks to ESI faculty Jan Wootten about how he sees the dawning of a new day in American politics: millions are on the move, demanding a meaningful role in shaping policy and institutions. "Yeah, it's also a mess. The professional political class won't lead; the American dream of progress is dying. But our people are fighters. They're stepping up to topple the barriers that leave them frustrated, divided and disempowered.”
 
www.openprimaries.org
 
https://twitter.com/jbopdycke?lang=en

Ep.17 Imagination & Resistance in South Africa: Young Activists Find Their Voice

What if young people ruled the world? What would that world look like? Applied Theatre educator and ESI Associate Alex Sutherland talks to Dan Friedman about a performatory, whole-body, arts-based approach she and colleagues have developed at the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education in Cape Town that helps young social activists find their social and political voice. 
http://www.tshisimani.org.za
https://www.ru.ac.za/search/?q=Alex+sutherland
https://eastsideinstitute.org/about/our-people/institute-associates/alexandra-sutherland/

Ep.16 Improv & Democracy: Can Improv Make It Harder to Hate?

Can improv make it harder to hate?...make it easier to be (and create) with others in all our diversity? Communications professor and improv aficionado Don Waisanen -- author of Improv for Democracy -- talks (and has some fun) with fellow performance activist Marian Rich, to show how improv can help us find our voice, unlock the politics of gridlock, and make us better citizens of the world.
https://www.sunypress.edu/p-6960-improv-for-democracy.aspx  (book)
https://twitter.com/donwaisanen?lang=en  (Twitter)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-waisanen-99bb0816/ (LinkedIn)

Ep.15 How a ‘positivity strategist‘ helps groups grow!

Robyn Stratton-Berkessel works with groups large and small — non-profit and corporate — to grow supportive, relationships and build with all that's working well. In this lively chat with Performance of a Lifetime’s Maureen Kelly, Robyn introduces an Appreciative Inquiry approach to helping groups "grow their positivity,” as producers of all that “we want to see in the world."
 
https://positivitystrategist.com/
 
https://performanceofalifetime.com/

Ep.14 An Activist Biologist, Out to Change the World

Raquell Holmes is a Harvard-trained cell biologist, computational scientist and social activist. Founder of ImprovScience and Cultivating Ensembles in STEM Education, Raquell is recognized for her organizing prowess in bringing improvisation, performance and social therapeutics to fellow scientists and educators. In this intimate conversation with Dan Friedman, she recounts her innovative approach to introducing the wonders of physics and biology to working class adults, and describes her most recent project — Uncomfortable Independent Conversations  — a series she’s organized with friends and colleagues shaken by racial injustice in America and seeking new ways to come together to develop.
https://www.cultivatingensembles.org
 
http://www.improvscience.org/welcome
 
http://improvscience.org/UIC

Ep.13 Developing Young Leaders on the Streets of Lagos and Abuja

There is a remarkable development project for young people happening in Africa’s most populous nation. Rita Ezenwa-Okoro the Founder and Chief Visionary of Street Project Foundation in Nigeria, shares her work of building environments where young people can use the creative arts to foster their own development—and that of their nation and world.  As Rita Ezenwa-Okoro often tells the youth she works with, “Talent is not just talent.  There must be more to the song you sing. … You have to learn how to lead.”   Hosted by Jan Wootten.
http://onlinewithreo.com
http://streetproject.org.ng