PERFORMING THE WORLD 4
The East Side Institute Presents
Performing the World 4:
The Performance of Community and
the Community of Performance
October 12-14, 2007
Tarrytown, New York
* * *
"Performing the World 4" Attracts Grassroots Innovators, Researchers,
Scholars
& Activists from Dozens of Countries Working to Beat Poverty through
Peaceful
Cultural Change
* * *
To register online today go to: www.performingtheworld.org
The East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy invites
you to
attend its fourth biennial conference, Performing the World 4:
The Performance of Community and the Community of Performance (PTW4).
The conference, to be held from October 12-14 in Tarrytown, New York,
is
expected to draw hundreds of presenters and attendees from dozens of
countries
who will showcase out-of-box, performance-based projects and research
they
have created to address issues of intractable poverty, disease,
illiteracy and
ethnic violence.
A SAMPLING OF PTW4 PROGRAM OFFERINGS
Confirmation pending…
1. YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
"Youths and HIV/AIDS message: The impact that the lack of dialogue
around sex,
negotiating healthy relationship and inappropriate boundaries has on
the work
of HIV/AIDS service providers"
Keith Cunningham / Canada
"Soweto Children's Musical Games as Play and Performance"
Susan Harrop-Allin / South Africa
2. COMMUNITY AND YOUTH THEATRE
"Making Plays through Performatory Play"
Dan Friedman, Brian Mullin / New York
"Different is Beautiful: Building tolerance among youth in multiethnic
regions
in Serbia"
Svetlana Kijevcanin / Serbia
"Afro-Brazilian Dance and the instrument of capoeira"
Edmilton Reis, Vania Silva Oliveira and troupe / Brazil
"MYethiOPIA – Stories from the AIDS Education Circus in Ethiopia"
David Schein
"Story telling: Meeting our sacred clown"
Julie Vaudrin-Charette / Canada
"Love Drunk"
Gerard Veltre, Gemma Bishop / Australia
"Theatre of Liberation Community Project"
Simon Christopher De Abreu / Canada
3. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
"Transformance: Learning to perform personal and collective
self-determination"
Dan Baron-Cohen, International Drama Education Association / Brazil
"Communities of Practice and Performance: Improvising and creating
community
in the public space"
James Oliver, Jackie Sands, Julie De Simone / UK
"Performing Citizenship: Constitutional education and youth
development in
South Africa"
Betsi Pendry, Stompie Selibe, Fanito Masike, Ice Ngubane, Chiliza
Nkabinde /
South Africa
"Exploring Music as a Catalyst for Social Change Through the Lens of
the
Marginalized Merasi (musician) Caste of Rajasthan, India Caitie Whelan
/ Rhode
Island
"How Performance Art Interventions Contribute to the Field of Conflict
Resolution"
Dena Hawes / Virginia
4. EDUCATION
"Improvisational Teaching: Pre-service elementary teachers in the
pedagogical
dance"
Kristin Bratt / Pennsylvania
"Changing the 'Language Games' of Schools, Organizations and
Institutions"
Volker Bunzendahl / Denmark
"'Hey, I have an idea for a game!' Creating improv activities that
support
learning and development"
Carrie Lobman, Matt Lundquist / New York
"Using Story Acting and Play to Create Community in Classrooms: An
interactive
workshop for teachers Debora Wisneski / Wisconsin
5. SOCIAL WORK
"Improvisation in Psychology and Social Work Education (What is there
to
Teach?)"
Nancy Feldman, Rafael Mendez, Murray Dabby / New York
6. THERAPY
"Traumatic Performances: The Art of Silence; The Sin Eater; The
Bystanders"
Jennifer Hartley / UK
"Support Groups for the Humdrum"
Linda Duvall / Canada
"Performing Recovery"
Margo Edwards / Canada
"What We've Learned About Social Therapy Group Over the Last 35 Years"
Christine La Cerva, Joyce Dattner / New York, San Francisco
7. HEALTH CARE
"Culture and Health: Ethnic differences in health"
Prem B. Kuwar / Nepal
"Tricksters in White Coats: Hospital clowning in the international
play zone"
Nancy Smithner / New York
"Safe Sex, No Wahala!"
Gbenga Windapo / Nigeria
"Drama in the Hospital"
Karelisa Hartigan / Florida
A SAMPLING OF PTW4 PRESENTERS
Reflecting the focus on community building, 35 presenters work in the
area of
community development. Another 41 are educators, youth workers, and
therapists
working with refugee children. Others include artists, social
scientists,
researchers, health and helping professionals, social workers,
psychologists,
social entrepreneurs, business professionals, and activists. A
sampling of
presenters (confirmation pending) include :
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
Pamela Ateka (Kenya), founder of the Community Focus Group working
with
children orphaned by AIDS.
Jeff Smithson (NY), a professional clown, improviser and Hospital
Outreach
Specialist for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.
Elise Griede (Netherlands), a drama trainer with War Child Holland,
who has
helped develop participatory theatre projects for children in Sierra
Leone,
Uganda, and Afghanistan.
EDUCATION
Volker Bunzendahl (Denmark), a psychologist and educator who brings
carnival,
dancing, and play to "subvert" the everyday school routine in public
schools
throughout Denmark.
Laurent Ditmann (Georgia), a vice principal at Decatur Georgia's
International
Community School, a haven for refugee children from 45 war-torn
countries.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Edmilton Reis (Brazil), a police captain, who participates with 29
fellow
officers in a dance troupe that performs in neighborhoods across the
state of
Bahia to help allay citizens' fears and suspicions of police brutality
and
corruption.
Betsi Pendry (South Africa), a therapist, public health worker, and
founder
and director of The Living Together Project, an organization dedicated
to
helping communities in Johannesburg cope with HIV/AIDS.
Vera Erac and Aleksandra Jelic (Serbia), psychologists and activists
working
with the Roma (Gypsy) community in Belgrade.
COMMUNITY THEATRE
Andrew Burton, a community theatre director from British Columbia, who
uses
interactive theatre to explore issues of drug addiction, racism,
sexual
exploitation, and family violence.
Kennedy Chinyowa, a post-doctoral research fellow in Theatre for
Development,
who creates community theatre with disadvantaged youths.
ORGANIZATIONAL AND BUSINESSS DEVELOPMENT
John Findlay (Australia), an educator and founder of Zing, a
consulting
comp
any that helps corporate and organizational clients use wireless
keyboard
technology to facilitate group collaboration and creativity.
Kat Koppett (New York), an improv performer and training director with
the Mop
and Bucket Improvisational Theatre Company, which helps create
customized
performances for businesses looking to enhance workplace creativity.
CONVENING COMMITTEE
Dan Friedman, The Castillo Theatre and Youth OnStage!
Lois Holzman, East Side Institute for Group and Short Term
Psychotherapy
Sheila McNamee, University of New Hampshire, Durham
Fred Newman, East Side Institute for Group and Short Term
Psychotherapy
"Since its genesis in 2001, Performing the World has grown to have
real
significance for our participants and, more importantly, for the tens
of
thousands of people they work with every day in obscure villages and
urban
neighborhoods across the globe," said East Side Institute director Dr.
Lois
Holzman. "We are bringing together people who are using performance,
both on
and off the stage, to profoundly and peacefully change our world. They
seek to
transform themselves and their communities to creatively address the
economic,
social, and cultural problems they face. Most believe that mainstream
models
of community development are not working and that traditional funding
streams
are too restrictive."
REGISTRATION IS OPEN.
PERFORMING THE WORLD (www.performingtheworld.org) is a biennial,
three-day
international gathering. Begun in 2001, PTW is dedicated to advancing
the
global performance movement for human development and social change.
The first
three conferences (2001 and 2003 in Montauk, NY, 2005 in Tarrytown,
NY)
attracted a total of 1,000 participants from 35 US states and 27
countries in
North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Indian
subcontinent.
Each participant brings what they have learned back to an average of
1,000
adults, children and families in their communities and countries,
totaling
more than one million people who reap the benefit of this global
performance
community. From their many professional locations, they engage the
tough
social problems of our day – poverty, violence, AIDS, illiteracy,
mental
illness, intolerance, and social injustice.
THE EAST SIDE INSTITUTE FOR GROUP AND SHORT TERM PSYCHOTERAPY is an
international training and research center recognized for its cutting
edge
approach to human development. The Institute was founded in 1985 in
New York
City by a small group of professionals and academics who believed that
new
methods for human development required an independent location from
which to
build community. The Institute and the network of organizations,
institutions
and individuals it works with in the US and abroad serve over 500,000
people
annually and reaches thousands more through its professional
workshops,
seminars, conferences and training.
