All Power To The Developing!

Ep.30 Identity, Trauma and Development in Taiwan

In 2022 the conflicted and shifting relationships between Taiwan, China, and the United States have gained worldwide attention.  Within that global frame, this intimate political conversation between East Side Institute co-founder and director Lois Holzman and Taiwanese social worker, activist, and political organizer Peiyu Kuo takes on a special significance.  As a young psychiatric social worker, Peiyu was shocked to see how mental patients were treated in her native Taiwan and decided she had “to do something different.” She has spent the next 25 years organizing, among others, people with so-called mental illness, immigrant women, and sex workers. Building on her deep organizing history, Peiyu and Holzman discuss identity politics, trauma, power, and development.
 

Ep.29 Performance of a Lifetime: Developing Leaders Through Play

Founded in 1996, Performance of a Lifetime (POAL)  has pioneered bringing play and improvisation into corporations, non-profit organizations and government agencies.  Working with clients as diverse as the Bank of America and the United States Olympic Committee, Jet Blue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, POAL has invited organizational leaders to develop by playing, philosophizing and supporting each other to take risks.    Sevanne Kassarjian, POAL’s Vice President of Global Client Solutions, and Associate Partner Christian Felix, discuss Performance of a Lifetime’s history and latest developments with the East Side Institute’s Janet Wootten.
 

Ep.28 Voice Arts, New Zealand: Giving a Performatory Voice to the Elderly & Unheard

Meet East Side Institute Associate, Nicola Pauling, whose Wellington, New Zealand-based Voice Arts builds community through play and performance. Most recently, bringing performance workshops into nursing and retirement homes for the elderly, Voice Arts takes theatre games and exercises used by actors to prepare for the stage and adapts them — “seeking the outcome of joy, laughter, emotional and spiritual well-being.”  In this conversation with the Institute’s Janet Wootten, Pauling recounts the history of community engagement projects she has created with prisoners, refugees, school children — evolving an approach to drama activities where there are “no stages, no audiences, and no lines to learn.” Playing, improvising and storytelling become the means through which all can give performatory voice to the stories of their lives and grow. Pauling is active in the Global Play Brigade and a founding member of the Reimaging Dementia Coalition. 
Short Film: The Echo Made Me Smile 
Tales of Belonging produced by Voice Arts in partnership with Ryman Healthcare. ( link below)
https://vimeo.com/581385349

Ep.27 Does Dementia Have a Future? Challenging the Tragedy Narrative with Play & Poetics

Dementia, for most of us, is associated with stigma, fear and dehumanization.  What if, instead of approaching it as a dreaded medical disease that we had to fight, we collaborated with it and found ways to help those diagnosed—along with those around them—to continue to be creative and grow?  That’s exactly what John Killick has been doing for thirty years, bringing poetry and other creative arts to people with dementia in hospitals, nursing homes and prisons with remarkable and moving results.  Join Killick in conversation with Mary Fridley, a member of the East Side Institute’s faculty and Coordinator of Reimaging Dementia.
http://www.dementiapositive.co.uk/

Ep.26 The Sound of Development: Ursel Schlicht Conducts a World-Music Sonic Exchange

Can music be developmental?  Probably not.  However, the creation of music—particularly when done in ensemble through improvisation—most certainly can.  Ursel Schlicht, an innovative music maker based in Kassel, Germany, shares her approaches to creating music across political and cultural borders. Her “Sonic Exchange” program is an international crucible of musical experimentation that for years has brought together strangers, including refugees fleeing the wars in Syria and Afghanistan, to create new music together.  “It requires listening, appreciating what the other is bringing to the process, and discovering together what new is being created,” says Schlicht.  “In the weirdest, most difficult circumstances we can be together in music and we can find joy in its creation.” Hosted by Janet Wootten.
Website:  https://www.urselschlicht.com

Ep.25 Let’s Talk About It – Part 2 “Evolving Into Who We Thought We Might Become” 30 Years Later

Continue the exploration of “Let’s Talk About It,” the daily social therapeutic drop-in group led by Barbara Silverman at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, NYC between 1994 and 2009.  Join early participants in the program— Chris Allen, Marcus Barton, Patricia Bendidi, Fabiola Desmont, Kepriece Lindsay, and Desire Wandan, along with the program’s founder Barbara Silverman—as they recall how they got involved and how it continues to impact on their development.  As one participant recalls, “Let’s Talk About It,” “…was the only time we were free to be who we were or who we thought we were, and after a while without even noticing it, we evolved into who we thought we might become.” Hosted by Desire Wandan.

Ep.24 How Do Social Therapeutics Impact Our Lives? “Let’s Talk About It” Alumni Report Back

What does social therapeutics look and feel like on-the-ground?  How does it develop throughout a person’s life? Join a group of young adults— Darnelle Cadet, Chauncey Espada, David Pierre-Louis, and Desire Wandan—all of whom grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn and participated in “Let’s Talk About It,” a daily social therapeutic drop-in group at Erasmus Hall High School led by the ESI’s Barbara Silverman.  How did “Let’s Talk About It” impact their lives and the development of their friends and families?  How are they using social therapeutic methodology today?  As one of the participants puts it, “Group didn’t end when we left that room; it’s stayed a part of my life to this day.” Barbara Silverman joins the conversation, hosted by alum Desire Wandan. 

Ep.23 Critical Revolutionary Hip-Hop Pedagogy Can You Dig It?

Meet Spiritchild—creative rapper, innovative educator, radical organizer—as he shares his work with young people on our streets and in our prisons from the U.S. to Europe, from Africa to Southeast Asia.  Spirtchild describes himself as a “revolutionary freedom artist conducting the energy and frequency of the people.”  He works to foster creative environments in which music and art open up conversations about the injustices facing the poor and the oppressed, inspires action, and, in his words, “develops young revolutionaries.”  Hosted by Desire Wandan.
https://linktr.ee/xspiritmental
https://linktr.ee/maroonparty
http://www.urbanartbeat.org/

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