PPLG 2021 Presenters
Click on the profile pictures for further details
Agostina Fantozzi
Agostina Fantozzi
Collective Gestos de Cuidado
Argentina
Aikaterini Gasteratou is Psychologist, graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and currently is master student in the field of special education, Master of Arts in Education: Special Education and Rehabilitation in the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki and also is a dramatherapy student in Epineio – Institute for Therapy and Education through Arts following the Postgraduate program of Drama and Movement Therapy (Sesame approach) and also she is participating in a 3-year training program of systemic psychotherapeutic approach under the title “Intervention and accompany for a person in crisis” focusing on the facilitation of people who experience serious personal crisis. She has worked during the first degree’s practice with autistic people in a day care center and also has participated in summer camps working and supporting autistic children. Currently is working privately with autistic children. Also, she is an active participator in assemblies that defend, promote and advocate the rights of psychiatric patients and is working on promoting the ideas of the Critical Psychology and the perception of the Health as a Whole. She has participated in seminars for people with addiction under the PPA program of Aristotle University. She is a column writer in the online magazine BANAL.
Aikaterini Gasteratou
Epineio Institute for Therapy and Education through Arts
Greece
Alex Sutherland worked as a professor in Applied Theatre for many years at Rhodes University, South Africa, where she specialised in the uses of improvised theatre in criminal justice settings and with many communities who wished to play with creativity as a means of self-determination. In June 2017 she left full time academia to work more fully in social justice settings (regretfully accepting that the academy is not the where the world is going to change), and she now co-ordinates the creative and performing arts in activist education and organising at the Tshisimani Centre in Cape Town, South Africa.
Alexandra Sutherland
Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education
South Africa
Aliki Dourmazer is an actress, performer, voice trainer, vocalist and a physical theatre teacher and director. She is a teacher of Physical Theatre in the Drama School of National Theatre in Northern Greece and she has founded the Physical Theatre & Performance School ‘Present Being Performer Laboratory’ in Thessaloniki where she teaches and directs. She was a co-founding member of the international theatre ensemble DUENDE . She has a Bachelor degree in Theatre Studies and an MA in Ensemble Physical Theatre (University of Huddersfiled (UK). She has worked as an educator on Physical Theatre and Voice through lessons, workshops and masterclasses in drama schools, theatre groups, Universities in Greece and around Europe and has co- organized and theatre Residencies. She is continuously researching and presenting artistic work as a performer and director in the areas of physical theatre and voice in creative artistic groups and in her Laboratory.
Aliki Dourmazer
Present Being Performer Laboratory
Greece
I was born in Afghanistan grown up in Iran now living in Greece, I describe myself as, a young man who loves and be loved specially by mother nature.
Currently I am living in a beautiful Greek island called Lesvos enjoying of all beauty that mother nature offers me and surfing of some bad things that some of us offering each other as human, some people calls me photographer!
Yes I do some landscape and wild life photography that’s what I love to do my goal is that one day I can call myself PHOTOGRAPHER too.
For seeing my work and supporting me in this journey here are my social media links:
Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/amerali.mohammadi
Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/amiraliphotography
Email. Amerlord2736@gmail.com
Amir Ali
Photographer
Afghanistan, Iran, Greece
Angeliki (Angelina) Chatzimisiou (b.1993) is a PhD Candidate in Music Therapy at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She holds a Master of Arts in Music Therapy from the Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge (2021), a Master of Music in Piano Performance from the Royal College of Music, London, U.K. (2018) where she studied with Ashley Wass and Nigel Clayton, a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece (2015) studying under Vinia Tsopela and Igor Petrin, and a Piano Diploma with Distinction (Performing and Teaching diploma) from the Conservatory “Music College” of Thessaloniki (2016) studying with Inessa Pavlidou.
As a pianist Angelina has performed in numerous concerts in Greece, U.K., Austria, Italy, and Japan. She was awarded the ARU bursary (2019), the RCM Award supported by a Hilda Houssart Award (2016) and the first prize at the H.O.N. Pan-Hellenic piano competition (2004). As a music therapist she has worked at a Special Educational Needs School in London with children with severe learning disabilities, autism, and profound and multiple learning disabilities and at an Adult Mental Health Hospital in London. As a qualified piano teacher, she has been teaching piano to children and adults in London since 2016.
Angeliki Chatzimisiou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – East London Foundation Trust
UK, Greece
Angeliki Karali (Tzella) is a drama facilitator, teacher, and playworker. She has an MA in Applied Theatre from Goldsmiths University of London and a Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Currently, she lives in London, where she is working in a children’s hospital implementing play and drama-based sessions with children and young people, as well as in a Greek school teaching Greek in creative ways. Parallelly, she is working as a facilitator in various projects. She has experience working with children and young people in the UK, in Greece, in Italy and in Romania. Her areas of interest include drama, puppetry, storytelling, nature, shadow theatre, movement.
Angeliki Karali
Drama facilitator, teacher, playworker
UK, Greece
Angelo Miramonti (Ph.D.) is professor of Community Theatre at the Institute of Fine Arts in Cali, Colombia and lecturer of Testimonial Theatre at the Social Work Department of Wolfsburg University (Germany). He is the founder and coordinator of the “Arts for Reconciliation” research program in the Department of Performative Arts in Colombia, focusing on the use of arts to accompany dialogue and reconciliation among former combatants and victims of the Colombian armed conflict. He authored a number of articles on Theatre for Reconciliation and the a Forum Theatre manual. He trained in Theatre of the Oppressed, Theatre of Witness, Drama Therapy and Ritual Theatre. He also coordinated rehabilitation programs for child soldiers in Uganda and Congo and carried out ethnographic and mental health research on healing and possession rituals in Senegal. His recent book on the biography of a woman inhabited by ancestral spirits is an account of this ongoing research.
Angelo Miramonti
Instituto Departmental de Bellas Artes, Cali
Colombia, Italy
Angie Ross
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
My name is Anja Dellner. I am a theatre practitioner based in Dresden, Germany. I facilitate courses, workshops and intercultural clubs. I am drawn to the realms of improv theatre as much as I love to create plays with my participants based on their topics and suggestions. During the current pandemic, my awareness for ecologically and socially sustainable ways of living heightened. The concern for our planet and her living creatures let me to Forumtheater and David Diamond’s Theatre for Living. I’ve been delving deeper into these methods as much as lockdown regulations allow.
I am committed to connecting people from different cultural backgrounds and opening up fields for exploration. With every new theatre project, I enter a space in support of resonating encounters to each other and the world as a whole.
I have operated in a number of jobs and roles in very different fields. For more than a decade now, I’ve been working in adult education, teaching literacy skills and German as a foreign language in integration classes. I began teaching when living for two years in London. I hold a university degree in linguistics and cultural studies as well as a degree in applied theatre.
Anja Dellner
Freelancer (transform theater), Dresden
Germany
Further to her private practice, Antigone is the Senior Arts Therapist at the Eden Academy Foundation Trust and Lead Therapist for A Space. She has recently begun working with the theatre company and community arts hub Tramshed and will begin her training as a clinical supervisor with the London Centre for Psychodrama in September.
Antigone has published contributions to the British Associations of Dramatherapists’ “The Prompt” and been invited to facilitate and perform at their annual conference. Furthermore, Antigone has facilitated and performed at the European Consortium for Arts Therapy Education and presented at the European Federation of Dramatherapy. Further to her therapeutic work in the UK with staff & students in mainstream & special education, and acute wards & substance rehabilitation centres within the NHS, Antigone has worked with migrant and asylum-seeking communities in Greece. As a performer Antigone has participated in musical, theatrical, story and comedy events across the UK, Croatia and Spain.
Antigone Ikkos-Serrano
Dramatherapist, voice specialist
UK, Greece
I am a biologist, high school teacher, theater facilitator, men coach and circles activator.
There are 3 happenings that pushed me to go deeper in my inner search for the meaning of life and to question to myself “Who I am?” and “Who I am as a man?”
The car accident of my brother that left him in a Vegetative State, encouraged me to search for the meaning of life.
The love and sexual union with my partner, helped me to move from violence to service in all my relations.
The birth of my daughter made me asking “who I am? Who I am as a man? Who I am as a father? Who I am as a son?”.
Today, I am I support personal and community growth trough circles and one-to-one work. I created the “Circle Work” a communication model for group facilitation and conflict management.
Antonio Graziano
Uomini Consapevoli
Italy
Antonio Starnino
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
Aphrodite (Freda) Antypa
A graduate of Anna Petrova Professional Dance School in Athens, Greece ,the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance( Trainee and Teaching Certification programs) and the Dance Education Laboratory of the 92nd street Y Harkness Dance Center in NYC
She taught in these and other schools performed and stage managed dance productions in Greece and NYC
She received the L.O.D.®( Language of Dance ) notation Certificate .She collaborated with the Fridays at Noon program at the 92nd street Y Harkness Dance Center and was a presenter at the 6th annual NDEO( National Dance |education Organization )2005 in NY ,the SDHS/Cord International Conference 2015in Athens, the PPLG 2018and 2019 in Thessaloniki , the Borders, Boundaries and margins Conference at Dance days 8 and Dance: The art of Communication Conference at Dance Days 9, in Chania,Crete
She taught for a decade Contemporary dance, creative movement, Choreology and improvisation classes at Veria Private School and Hestia Mouson Conservatory in Naoussa. She is an examiner in Dance for the International Baccalaureate from 2008 and a collaborator with the Dance Days Festival in Chania from 2014
Currently she is teaching in the dance division at the Kozani High School of Arts, where she implemented the educational and cultural project «The body never lies» and created the video dance “Precipitato” in 2020. She was an Outreach group member for PPLG 2019
During this school year she taught, supported and guided on line and in person her dance students in Kozani creating improvisations and video dances during and between the lockdowns .Their last project is “Innocent smile”
“Make the moment important!
I believe we learn by practice .Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same” Martha Graham
Aphrodite Antypa
Kozani Arts School
Greece
Apostolis Laschos is a Musician, Music Educator MA, Music Therapist MA and PhD Candidate in Music Therapy at the School of Music Studies of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. In the last years he has been working as a Music Therapist at the Social Support and Rehabilitation Center and Creative Work for Persons with Disabilities “SOTIR” in Thessaloniki in Greece. He has participated in several scientific conferences as a speaker talking about the music therapy. He has given lectures, workshops and seminars at universities in Greece. He is a member of the Hellenic Association of Certified Professional Music Therapists.
Apostolis Laschos
Social Support and Rehabilitation Center and Creative Work for Persons with Disabilities “SOTIR”
Greece
Aurelie Harp
Womanity Project, Global Play Brigade
USA
Aylwyn Walsh is Associate Professor of Performance and Social Change based at the University of Leeds. She is active in arts and mental health as well as climate justice movements in Leeds and has worked as an artist facilitator in prisons and criminal justice contexts, working with incarcerated people and those affected by criminal justice in both the U.K. and South Africa. Her performance work has appeared at the Berlin Biennale & Royal National Theatre Studio in London, Contacting the World in Manchester and in South Africa’s National Arts Festival. Her recent book is Prison Cultures: Performance, Resistance, Desire. She has most recently led the project #ImaginingOtherwise about arts education as activism in Cape Town, South Africa. This follows work in the Eastern Cape (SA) and Mexico related to land, land rights and environmentalism.
Aylwyn Walsh
University of Leeds,
United Kingdom
Pianist Charalampos -Babis- Tsinikosmaoglou was born in Farsala in 1979. He began his musical studies at the age of 7 at the conservatory of Farsala. He has studied in Dimitris Dimopoulos’sConcervatory in Kozani and the Department of Music Science and Art, University of Macedonia. Among his influencial teachers were: Kostis Gaitanos, George Chantzinikos, Paul Badura – Skoda, Yonty Solomon, Lola Totsiou, Murray McLachan, Eduard Zilderkant, DionisisMalouchos and Dimitris Demopoulos. He has appeared in solo recitals and chamber music concerts in cities of Greece and the US. He was a member of experimental, post rock, post punk band 2L8. He works as a piano teacher at D.Demopoulos Concervatory. Since 2005 he works as a high school music teacher and since 2018 as piano accompanist at Kozani Arts School.
Babis Tsinikosmaoglou
Kozani Arts School
Greece, USA
Bahriye Kemal
University of Kent/ Collectiva Innana
UK/Cyprus
Barbara Silverman
East Side Institute
USA
Beatrijs Van Huyck – Visual/Word Artist and Coach
Beatrijs Van Huyck
ChancesToChange Community, Tielt-Winge
Belgium
Bianca Sgai is a Master’s student in Applied Linguistics at PUC-SP, Brazil. She holds an undergraduate degree in Education and a technical degree in Theater. She also has a post baccalaureate degree in Bilingual Education. She has been working with education since 2009, specifically teaching Drama and English as a Foreign Language. Currently, she is an english teacher at a private school in São Paulo and is a member of various research groups in the field of Education, including: Language and Activities in School Contexts (LACE – PUC / SP) and the BRINCADAS Extension Project: the unviable heard in times of crisis.
Bianca Sgai
Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo
Brazil
Carolyn Sevos Hamilton is a facilitator and the Chief Operations Officer for Connection Lab, a training and development company specializing in communication, presentation and leadership development programs delivered worldwide. Her past work includes over 20 years as the CEO/President of IntraCommunities, Inc., a boutique website and database development firm and managed YouCake, Inc., an online website specialized in custom dessert toppers. Previous experience includes teaching high school history and marketing at a small English-language publishing house specializing in books on Asia.
She has an MA in education from NYU and a BA in history from Oberlin College. She served on the board for NAWBO NYC and NYWA. In 2006 she was awarded Public Policy Advocate of the Year by the National Association of Women Business Owners and in 2009 she received the NYWA Rising Star Award. She loves working with entrepreneurs, traveling and cooking. Carolyn currently resides in Vancouver, BC Canada with her husband and two street cats Bubbles and Leo.
Carolyn Sevos Hamilton
Connection Lab, Vancouver
Canada
Cathy Salit is a performance activist, social entrepreneur, executive coach, funny lady, and jazz singer. She used to be the CEO of the leadership consultancy Performance of a Lifetime. She wrote a book. She chats with interesting people. These days, she’s leading the Global Play Brigade — bringing play and emotional support to thousands across the planet, while maintaining a small coaching practice, speaking, and leading workshops. Cathy has two cats named Belle and Benny who like to walk across her laptop when she is doing brilliant and paradigm-shattering work.
Cathy Salit
Global Play Brigade
USA
I am Chetna, born and raised in the beautiful valley of Dehradun, India. I am an Applied Theatre practitioner, creating spaces of joy, compassion and equivalence amongst children, youth and adults through the practices of Applied Theatre for over 10 years now. Our organization (Rangbhumi) applies Playback Theatre as a performative and pedagogical tool to work with children and youth across all demographics to explore arts and theatre as a medium for anyone to be seen, heard and included.
I love colours , dressing up and Indian Parantha (a form of stuffed bread) with butter!
I am the co- founder of “Ghumakkad Playback Theatre” group (Mumbai), a sub-group of Rangbhumi.
Chetna Mehrotra
Rangbhumi, Mumbai
India
i study cities and people, and focus on urban play, gentrification, and place-making practices—through the use of research-creation methods and multiple media.
As a PhD student at Concordia University, i collaborate at the Performative Urbanism Lab (PULSE), the Technoculture, Art, and Games (TAG), and HEXAGRAM. site: https://www.christianscott.ca instagram: @urbanosapiens
Christian Scott Martone Donde
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
Christopher Malapitan is an independent creative facilitator and trainer based in Brussels. With many years of experience working in creative industries, he supports communities and teams to explore and unlock what drives them. From big-picture thinking to storytelling, from body movement to collaborative arts-based approaches, he applies a unique blend of innovative processes and practises to his facilitation and training work.
Christopher Malapitan
Independent creative facilitator and trainer, Brussels
Belgium
Claudia Mitchell
McGill University, Montreal
Canada
Claudita Fanni Fertino is a passionated healer using theater, tarot and performing disciplines for personal growth from more than over 20 years. In 2018 she founded Le Theater de l’Alchimiste after joining the International Class at the East Side Institute in New York. Her proven method combines her life experience, her training in theater with a Gestalt approach at the European Theater Institute in Rome and the years practice of Evolutionary Tarot with Alejandro Jodorowsky, to support women overcoming personal limiting beliefs and develop performances that support them to act effectively and confidently in life’s stage.
Claudita Fanni Fertino
Le Theatre de l’Alchimiste
Italy, Greece
Courtney Surmanek (they/them/”C”) is a queer, Ashkenazi Jewish educator, artist, and worldbuilder. C’s work spans theater-making, cultural organizing, oral history, healing arts, and creative ritual. C values intergenerational collaborations, and is invested in the use of the arts and creative play to support people in knowing themselves better and living in the world more fully. The participatory art projects they create and facilitate are often rooted in radical imagination, storytelling, and community care. They collaborate with The Clinic Performance and Ping Chong + Company to bring this kind of work to life.
With a commitment to exploring how we perform our identities in our personal lives and how we are asked to perform in our civic discourse, C is a dual degree M.F.A./M.S. Candidate in Theatre: Directing & Public Dialogue and Urban & Regional Planning at Virginia Tech. They’re a former SU-CASA Artists-in-Residence with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; Fellow at The Performance Project at University Settlement; and EmergeNYC Fellow at the Hemispheric Institute. They dream with Streaks of Lavender, a queer artist collective building ourstory. www.courtneysurmanek.com.
Courtney Surmanek
Virginia Tech School of Performing Arts
USA
DANIELA DELLAVALLE – Playwright
Actor, director and playwright, she has always been active both in theater and education. She graduated in theater at the University of Triest and she attended the Triest Theatre Academy where she studied Commedia dell’Arte (Adriano Iurissevich), Clownerie (Carlo Rossi) and Shakespeare and the role of the Fool (Mamadou Dioume, Peter’s Brook’s actor). She has been writing since she was sixteen. After two awards in high-school competitions she partecipated in three editions of the International Directing Prize(Fantasio Piccoli, Trento). She perfected her playwriting and screenwriting skills with Barbara Sinicco (Paolo Grassi Theater Accademy, Milan) and Giovanni Veronesi (screenwriter and director). Most of her plays tackle social issues and her works are prominently featured in the off-theater circuit in Rome. She achieved the diploma in Art-Theater Counseling (European Theatrical Institute, Rome) which led her to meet Jordi Forcadas, with whom she studied Theater of the Oppressed and educational theater for children in need in Barcelona, Spain (Forn de Teatre Pa’Tothom) and then Roberto Mazzini (Cooperativa Giolli, Parma). In 2014 she won the the third place for “Prima della Prima” (European Theatrical Institute) with a children’s play about divorce. She came in US with a play about death penalty, which has been performed in two festivals in New York. She teaches theatre and playwright.
Daniela Dellavalle
DrammaTourgia, Trieste
Italy
There is a hotel on Lesbos very different from other hotels: Hotel Votsala run by Daphne Vloumidi and Iannis Troumpounis. At votsalahotel.com the family and the staff make you fall in love with Lesvos and become friends. Daphne has been involved as a volunteer already since 2000. Her preferable work was helping families with children and unaccompanied minors.
Because of Daphne’s engagement, several guests of the hotel started to help too. This is how it all started and in 2012 the Greek/German Odysseas was founded together with the guests-friends. http://www.odysseas.at.
One very successful Votsala-initiative has been to organise football meetings between children of locals, tourists and refugees already since 2010. “Come together and play football” is a big event, twice every season, at the Votsala seaside gardens. Before the game children make a circle and with the help of translators talk about friendship, family and how life is in their countries. After the tourney we seat in smaller tables and eat together.
In 2015, during the refugee crisis, guests and hotel staff helped the refugees who arrived exhausted.
In 2017, Daphne published her first children book with protagonist a little elephant-refugee who arrives on the island of Lesvos: Quilombo, the scruffy little elephant (Quilombo, der kleine schmutzige Elephant).
In 2018, Daphne was honoured at the “Giardino Dei Giusti Di Milano” as one of the “Righteous of Hospitality” by Gariwo, the Gardens of the Righteous Worldwide; a non-profit organisation in the service of memory.
In 2019 Daphne published her second children book, with the little elephant-refugee who lives now on Lesvos facing several difficulties: Quilombo and the Sport Therapist.
Daphne with her husband Iannis visit often schools, libraries or camps and with their figures/puppet theatre they “read” the Quilombo’s adventures on Lesvos, talking with the children about diversity.
Daphni Vloumidi
Odysseas, Hotel Votsala, Lesvos
Greece
Darshan Daryanani
McGill University, Montreal
Canada
David was a founding member and Artistic Director of Vancouver’s Theatre for Living, formerly Headlines Theatre from 1981 to 2018, when he devolved the theatre company and stared to work independently. David has directed many hundreds of projects throughout Canada, the US and Europe, as well as in Namibia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Australia, New Zealand, Palestine and Singapore on issues of violence, addiction, mental health, legacy of Residential Schools, reconciliation, homelessness and climate change to name just some. He has pioneered the development of live, interactive Forum television and web casting. David is visiting Faculty at the UNESCO Peace Studies Program in Austria, and also Visiting Theatre Director at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Alberta. He has many theatre and human rights awards, including an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Fraser Valley. His award-winning book, Theatre for Living: the art and science of community-based dialogue came out in German under the title Theater Zum Leben in 2012, in Spanish in 2019 and is coming in Farsi.
David Diamond
Theatre for Living, Vancouver
Canada
David Kawanuka Naggenda, a Ugandan retired Administrator and a Board member of a Non Government Organisation called Hope For Youth- Uganda.
Founder of a newly formed non profit NGO known as “Let the Girl Be – Uganda”. Its aim is to restore the lost hope in some vulnerable girls and young mothers in communities through:
– Empowering girls to take action on issues affecting their education,
– Promoting participation and professional personal development of young women, who traditionally had no chance to engage themselves in matters affecting their lives,
– Improving confidence and self-esteem of the girl child and young mothers,
– Addressing economic development by teaching the girls and young mothers core skills essential for where they are,
– Developing strategic alliance with local community leaders, especially women leaders to more actively address issues relating to girls,
– Helping girls make friends, learn to share and play as members of a group to have fun away from misery.
Went to Makerere Centre For Business and Management Sciences ( MACBUMS) with Integrated Efforts In Culture For Development (IECD) for a Certificate in Public Administration and Management.
Completed a Basic Cadre Development Course Certificate at the National School of Political Education.
Attended the PPLG 2019: “Bridging Communities, Practices and the World”, in Greece as one of the presenters.
East Side Institute – Group and Short Term Psychotherapy, International Class 2020 – 21 graduate.
Married and has children(Biological and adopted).
David Kiwanuka Naggenda
Let the Girl Be, Hope for Youth Uganda, Mokono District, Kampala
Uganda
Débora Barrientos, MA (Emotional Intelligence)
Débora currently is a systemic organizational and social consultant and facilitator. She has a large experience working with CEOs, leaders, and truly talented people from different kinds of organizations across the globe, from communities and NGOs to corporations and other private institutions. Through her work, she supports the process of achieving organizational and social transformation in collaboration with an experienced multidisciplinary network. The essence of her practice is to generate higher levels of individual and collective consciousness and empower people to realise their full potential. She draws on the techniques Theory U, Social Presencing Theater, Mindfulness and emotional intelligence. She also runs training in diversity and inclusion. She is also a field researcher, and she uses the frame of psychoanalysis approach to do so. She is also a Vipassana Practitioner. She has been teaching at University since 2010. Currently, she teaches Organizational development as an Associate Teacher at a Master career at Universidad Nacional de Lomas de Zamora and also a guest teacher at different universities. She is driven by a high sense of social justice as well as strong support for sustainability and well-being.
Débora Barrientos
ImaginAction, Malaga
Spain
Despina Kalaitzidou is a playwright, a director, and an educator. She has won various awards from her plays. She holds master’s degrees in Literature, Creative Writing, and Drama in Education (UK, Ireland). She has been teaching in primary, secondary and tertiary education for more than 17 years. She is currently working towards her degree in Dramatherapy at Epineio Institute for Therapy and Education through Arts.
Despina Kalaitzidou
Epineio Institute for Therapy and Education through Arts
Greece
Dimitra Koulaxizi
Epineio Institute for Therapy and Education through Arts
Greece
Diya Arishe is a creative person who lives as a Palestinian Syrian refugee in Cyprus. Diya defines himself as someone who likes to express himself in any possible way – by writing, by drawing, by acting and by talking. Diya started writing poetry in Arabic. And some of his poems have been translated in English and presented in different events.
Diyaa Arisheh
Larnaca
Cyprus, Syria
In 2016 she founded Ouch Theatre.
Developing applied theatre workshops, and facilitator training; curation and direction of workshops and courses under international cooperation. Project curation and direction, project team management; brand management, social media planning and management; business cooperation, customer management.
Training experience on Psychodrama, for over 2 years and more than 100 hours, certified by The American Board of Examiners in Psychodrama, Sociometry and Group Psychotherapy Certified Instructor of Drama in Education, Trinity College Dublin, School of Education; Training experience of more than 600 hours on workshops in other Applied Theatre forms; Board Certified Coach certified by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC)
Dou Chenqian
Ouch Theatre, Nanjing
China
Dora Psaltopoulou-Kamini is an Assistant Professor in Music Therapy, at the School of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki-Greece. She is a music-psychotherapist Ph. D, MA-CMT (NYU-AMTA, USA), a psychoanalyst and a visitor lecturer at the master programs of University of Macedonia (Music Therapy), University of Nicosia, University of Thessaly, as well as at the Aegean University. Since 1991 she has been pioneering in music therapy.
In 2015, she has published in Greek two academic e-books: “Music Therapy: The Third Way” and “Communication in Music-Therapy-Paidea. The Co.M.P.A.S.S. Approach” (www.repository.kallipos.gr). Her music therapy journey has been published in 2017 at Lives of Music Therapists (Vol. I, Barcelona Publishers).
Dora Psaltopoulou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Greece
Doreen Nalweyiso
Entebbe suburb, Kampala
Uganda
I am a graduate of the English Language and Literature Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Having done studies both in Liverpool John Moores University and Royal Holloway University of London I became specialised in Theatre Education and Theatre Production. I love acting and directing and I am really keen on working with youngsters’ theatre groups. I have been teaching English for almost 15 years. I have been a radio show co-presenter and I have collaborated with the Public Central Library of Serres on a digital storytelling project called “Storieschest” sponsored by Future Library and Niarchos Foundation. Currently, I am teaching English to young learners, teenagers and adults and I am attending a Master’s degree course on Language Education for Refugees and Migrants. Also, I have been a board member of TESOL Macedonia-Thrace Northern Greece Teachers’ Association for four years holding mainly the role of Media officer. Currently, I am volunteering with The Hands Up Project
Efi Tzouri
The Hands Up Project, Serres
Greece
Eileen Moncoeur
Life Performance Coaching
USA
Elena Boukouvala is a dramatherapist (MA), counsellor of children and young people (MA) psychologist and a community organizer. She is a PhD researcher of Sociology at Open University (UK) researching enacting citizenship through creative methods. She is teaching Laban, Movement with Touch and facilitates therapy groups for trainee therapists at the postgraduate course of Dramatherapy at Epineio Institute (Thessaloniki). She is also faculty of East Side Institute (New York). She founded PPLG in 2017 with the ongoing support of an international community as a response to refugee policy crisis and the dehumanizing conditions of refugee camps. As dramatherapist, trainer, psychologist, performance activist and artist, she has worked in schools, hospitals, prisons, rehabilitation wards, elderly homes, refugee camps and other community settings in collaboration with social initiatives and international organizations in Greece, UK, Romania, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, Moldova, Lebanon, Algeria (Western Sahrawi camps) and USA. She has also created trainings and consultancies cooperating with organizations such as the International Organization for Migration. She has founded the international interactive exhibition “Dialogues Across Borders” (DAB) which has travelled across Europe, building on poetry and art of the participants and creating opportunities for dialogue and spaces of belonging. During the pandemic she has been researching, teaching and working as a therapist online.
Elena Boukouvala
PPLG, Open University, East Side Institute, Epineio Institute
UK, Greece, USA
Elena Skreka is a Sesame Dramatherapist (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama), specialising in working with children and adolescents. She currently works as a children’s psychotherapist at the British Refugee Council supporting unaccompanied children who are refugees or are seeking asylum in the UK. She has worked therapeutically in clinical and educational settings with bereaved children, children with social, emotional and mental health needs children with severe mood and anxiety disorders and early onset psychosis. She is also a Language, Literature and Drama teacher and a physical performance artist with the international theatre Ensemble ‘Foxtale’. She has also studied Drama, Ensemble Physical Theatre, English and American Literature and Culture, Linguistics and Translation.
Elena Skreka
British Refugee Council, Kent
United Kingdom
Professor of Dance, Community Dance Artist, Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Thessaly, Greece
Dr Tsompanaki Eleni obtains Bachelor in Dance and Professional Practice (Coventry University), Master of Philosophy in Dance and Theatre Arts (University of Birmingham), PhD in Dance in Education (University of Birmingham) and a Post Doc in Creative Dance Practices in Education through Distance Learning (University of Thessaly). She has taught contemporary dance, creative dance, improvisation and somatics at Coventry University, Greek National School of Dance and in various private dance schools in Greece. She was a basic coordinator of community dance for primary school teachers in the ‘Melina Programme: Education and Culture’, in the Operational Programme “Education and Lifelong Learning” Education of Roma children” and a lecturer in educational programmes for diversity groups and minorities. Moreover, she gives lectures about semiotics of dance and community dance on postgraduate courses at the University of Western Macedonia and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is artistic director of the Model Dance School of the Municipality of Kalamaria. From September 2018, she is a professor at the pedagogical department of the University of Thessaly.
Eleni Tsompanaki
University of Thessaly, Thessaloniki
Greece
Elina Maslo
Copenhagen University College
Denmark
Elliot Leffler is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Toronto. As an artist and a scholar, Elliot explores how theatre can be used as a catalyst for intercultural and interfaith dialogue. He has led theatre projects with white, black, and coloured South Africans, with Jews and Palestinians in Israel, with Kurdish and Arab Iraqis, with urban US high school students, and with racially-diverse houses of worship. These creative and scholarly projects frequently take Elliot away from traditional theatre spaces: he has worked in summer camps, prisons, rural villages, church basements, and urban high schools.
Elliot holds a PhD in Theatre from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Applied Theatre from the University of Cape Town, and a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University. He frequently presents at national and international conferences, and has published in The Drama Review, Research in Drama Education, Theatre Research International, Theatre Topics, and Contemporary Theatre Review.
Elliot Leffler
University of Toronto
Canada
Emanuela Firetto – Trainer, youth worker. She has an academic background in Educational Sciences and Lifelong learning. She works as a trainer in non- formal educational activities targeting young people, youth workers, women, groups with social, cultural, educational and economical obstacles in multi ethnic context, using active and inclusive methods for intercultural dialogue, self-empowerment and active participation.
Since 2016 she is part of the Arte migrante network in Palermo
Emanuela Firetto
Arte Migrante, Palermo
Italy
Esben Wilstrup (Fynshav, Denmark) is a Danish performance activist, psychologist, and community-builder. A long-time student and now associate of the East Side Institute, he has worked to promote the social therapeutic approach through his work as a school consultant for the City of Copenhagen and the Danish Ministry of Education. In 2015, he co-founded Efterskolen Epos – a boarding school in Denmark where students aged 15-17 learn the mandatory state curriculum through play, performance, and educational role-playing games. He now works to promote the power of play, community and development as a freelance consultant and performance activist.
Esben Wilstrup
Institut for performance og udvikling, Copenhagen
Denmark
Eva Brenner (A/USA), Dr.phil, PhD, mag. Art., is a Vienna born theater director, producer, author and activist. She studied in Vienna and New York (NY; Phd 1994 about Heiner Müller under Prof. R. Schechner), worked in theaters across Europe and the US, was a co-founder of the multicultural Castillo Theatre in New York, and is founder and artistic director of the Vienna-based experimental theater group PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO/FLEISCHEREI_mobil since 1998 producing progressive plays and conducting workshops with professionals, migrants and marginalized communities of Vienna. Brenner has published books and articles on culture and the Left, has given lectures and workshops internationally, and is a member of the editorial board of the progressive magazine Volksstimme, and an Associated Member of the New York Institute of Short Term Psychotherapy. In 2020, the group laid the foundation of SPRUNG – a new community performance center in Vienna/Austria.
Eva Brenner
Projekt Theater, Vienna
Austria
Eve Simpson is a singer/songwriter, theatre-maker, and community-arts enthusiast from South Shields, passionate about telling stories through representative art forms. A current undergraduate, majoring in Politics at The University of Edinburgh, she was awarded a Mitacs Globalink Research award to work with Dr. Warren Linds at Concordia University, Montreal, focussing on Arts-Based Research and War Affected Youth.
Eve has played festival slots and sessions for BBC Introducing as well as receiving airplay on BBC6 Music. Through her co-writing, Eve has composed for the award-winning ‘A King of Seeing’ film, which received a FOCAL International Film Award. Eve also debuted ‘Twice Over’, co-written with Jane Prinsley, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019 to great critical acclaim.
Eve currently works as a music services assistant in East Lothian, as well as co-founding Intarsia Records, for underrepresented artists in the UK. Eve is excited to both attend and present at her first conference.
Eve Simpson
University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom
I’m a full time teacher, working with Hope For Youth Uganda, a Non profit Organisation working with children and youth in rural communities of mukono district of Uganda, I teach English and Reading for lower classes, while on Sundays i do teach children in Sunday school at my church but unfortunately children are still not yet allowed to attend church service. I’m a mother of one son, Joseph ( JoJo) 9years old. I love working and being with children.
I’m also a member of the Hope For Youth “All Stars group” , that uses sports, music, dance and drama yo reach out to young people within the community on matters affecting their lives.
I’m currently a student at ESI international class.
Eve Vivian Namutebi
Hope For Youth Uganda, Mukono district
Uganda
Fernanda Coelho Liberali is a teacher educator, researcher and professor at the PUCSP. She holds a master’s and a doctoral degree in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from PUCSP, and three postdoctoral degrees from the University of Helsinki, the Free University of Berlin and Rutgers University. She is a Brazilian representative of the international committee of the International Symposium BILINGLATAM, an associate with Eastside Institute, a member of Global Network of the University of Leeds, the general coordinator of the Digitmed Program and the Brincada Project and co-founder of the Global Play Brigade.
Fernanda Liberali
Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo
Brazil
He studied Community development, Social work and Organized ethics and legislations in DRC and got his Secondary school diploma.
He came to Uganda in 2015 but arrived in the Nakivale refugee settlement camp in 2016, studied Entrepreneurships at ID4AFRICA and got a Certificate. He also studied Data research and got a certificate from the 60 Decibels in 2018.
Fiston is currently the CEO at Unidos project Nakivale refugee settlement. They are a community based organization aiming at improving refugees’ livelihoods through entrepreneurial and regenerative practices https://www.projectunidos.org/). He is also a Community Support officer at https://www.projecthelloworld.org/contact-us/
He is also a certified Warmdatalab host https://batesoninstitute.org/warm-data-labs/ and a Ulab participant. He is passionate about the 17SDGs and mindshift transformation as a tool to drive social change in communities worldwide.
Fiston Muganda
Unidos Social Innovation Center
Nakivale refugee settlement
Uganda
Website: https://www.facebook.com/ConfabStories
Francesca Esguerra
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
Francesco Argenio Benaroio is a participatory theatre practitioner, IT engineer, project manager. He has lived and worked in various contexts around the globe, for the United Nations, European Commission, private sector, education institutions, NGOs and grassroots organizations.
Formerly Training Manager for the International Labour Organization for the organization and management of governmental international training events in Latin America, UN Programme Officer, Grant Manager for Open Society Foundations for Higher Education support in Asia, IT Project Manager for European Space Agency programs, public school teacher.
Francesco for the past 15 years has been working as project manager and facilitator with marginalized communities, especially youth (refugees, displaced, IDP, Roma), in formal education settings (school, university) and non-formal contexts (communitarian centres, education NGOs for refugees, intercultural centres), in Europe (Hungary, Greece), Latin America (Colombia), Asia (Nepal, India, border Myanmar-Thailand).
Francesco is the founder and director of “ANAMUH – Arts for Dialogue” (www.anamuh.org), organizing and facilitating grassroots activities and open trainings with participatory arts.
During the Pandemic he has been facilitating groups online, exploring challenges and also new possibilities.
Francesco Argenio Benaroio
PPLG, ANAMUH – Arts for Dialogue
Greece, Italy, Hungary
Frank Heuel is the artistic director of the fringe ensemble. His productions are invited to numerous festivals. Some works are created abroad: he directs in Latvia, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 2002, Frank Heuel was nominated as the best young German director in the magazine “Theater heute”. He takes over the artistic direction of the festivals “Theaterzwang 2002” and “friends 2004”. In 2006 he is awarded the NRW Förderpreis for the production “Geschichten+”. At the Bonn Theatre he is artistic director of the Club der Utopisten from 2007-2009. In 2008 he directs the world premiere of “Das Treibhaus” based on the novel by Wolfgang Koeppen. The world premiere of “Zwei Welten”, also at the Theater Bonn, was invited to the NRW Theatertreffen 2010. From 2011 to 2014 Frank Heuel was a member of the artistic direction of the Schaubühne Lindenfels in Leipzig. He staged the works of the SchauEnsemble there.
He is currently in Istanbul as part of the ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAMME of the Kunststiftung NRW. In the coming months he will be realising various productions there with Turkish theatre people under the project title 4PROJECTS ISTANBUL – partly with the participation of some of the actors* of the fringe ensemble.
www.frank-heuel.de
Frank Heuel
fringe ensemble, Bonn
Germany
Greg grew up in Ballymun, Dublin. In Dublin, he was active in the DIY Punk scene and from there graduated to involvement in community organising, workers’ rights and LGBT activism. In 1987, he moved to Hackney, London. He trained as a Social Worker and participated in migrant support groups, housing rights and environmental activism. Greg was a member of the activist samba collective London Rhythms of Resistance from 2000 – 2008. Currently he is an educator in Social Work with London Metropolitan University. Recently Greg has been working with the Turkish-language community theater group, Londra Emek Sahnesi and the Theatre of the Oppressed for Renters Rights (TORR) project.
Greg Ryan
London Metropolitan University
United Kingdom
Gopal Aryal (officially BHAWANI ARYAL) is an actor, director and social theatre practitioner based in Nepal. He is using theatre as tool for children, youth and women empowerment, social transformation and education in Nepal since 2007. Gopal is true devotee of the theatre and a true artist. He loves theatre and has unique capacity for transmitting that love to others. Gopal has conducted over hundred theatre workshops and has directed many social theatre performances during his working period. Gopal’s works in the field of psychosocial healing and community integration in Nepal after the 2015 earthquake and in Italy for earthquake survivors are also remarkable. He has also facilitated “Theatre for Social Healing” workshop in Amsterdam and Alaska. Gopal is now on a journey to establish an international hub/centre for social theatre practitioners in Nepal.
Gopal Aryal
Lukeko Gaun, A village for arts and farming
Nepal
Grethe Mangala Jensen is a trained actress/puppeteer and professional storyteller of Sri Lankan and Danish heritage, who has toured extensively with children’s, educational and historical theatre companies throughout the UK, Europe, Canada, Puerto Rico and China.
Additionally, Grethe is a qualified level 5 – TEFL teacher, and enjoy teaching young learners English in a fun and playful way, incorporating storytelling, song and rhyme.
Grethe Mangala Jensen
Sandal Sticks Theater
United Kingdom
Since arriving in the US, he has won acclaim and awards as an artist and also received a second Masters degree, in Marriage and Family Therapy from Pacific Oaks College, leading him to combine his training in psychology and the arts with lessons gained from life experience in his therapeutic work with torture and trauma survivors, incarcerated youth, immigrant families, and people affected by HIV/AIDS. As an activist, he uses theatrical performance as part of the movement to end torture and to change US policy in Latin America.
In 2000 he founded ImaginAction to help people tap the transformative power of theater in programs throughout the US, Latin America, Europe and around the world, as far afield as Afghanistan, India, Senegal, South Africa, Guatemala and Palestine, for community building and reconciliation, strategizing, and individual healing and liberation. Through experiential workshops, theater performances and other creative events, ImaginAction invites participants to explore embodied knowledge, challenge the inevitability of violence, and use their imaginations for a more just and joyous life for all people.
After living in exile for half of his life in 2018 Hector returned to his home land to dedicate his efforts to the current peace process. He is part of the team of Reconectando a project that combines deep ecology, social theater and healing rituals to accompany the work of the Truth Commission in Colombia.
He also cofounded Dreaming Action dedicated to creating bridges between the best practices from both the organizational and the social worlds.
In 2012, Hector was honored with the prestigious Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre. The Otto Awards were established in 1998 to recognize and support the ongoing development of political theatre internationally.
Among many other articles and interviews, he is co-author of The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation.
Hector Aristizábal
Reconectando, ImaginAction
Colombia
I am a life performance coach on staff at Life Performance Coaching in San Francisco CA. www.lifeperformancecoaching.com and one of the founding members of the social therapeutic approach, a radically relational cultural approach to human development and community building. As a life performance coach I help build creative environments in which people can grow emotionally, develop new ways of responding to challenging conversations and create the lives they want to live. I have developed a series of workshops with the help of the East Side Institute called Playgrounds, where we teach participants to use their capacity to create, perform and play in every day life. And have presented in the U.S., Greece, London and Belgrade. I am an Associate of the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy, www.eastsideinstitute.org. and instrumental in building Life Performance Coaching as a hub for performance activism.
Helen Abel
Life Performance Coaching
USA
Helena Wagener (ZA) – Transformational and Recovery Coach
Helena Wagener
ChancesToChange Community, Cape Town
South Africa
Ilaria Olimpico is a facilitator and a trainer.
She was born in Nola (Naples, Italy) in 1981. She holds a BA in International and Diplomatic Sciences at University Orientale in Naples, with research in the Arab-Islamic world.
Ilaria is weaving Aesthetics of the Oppressed, Social Presencing Theater, Participative Storytelling, and Focusing, in a living method to facilitate spaces of awareness, co-learning, conflict transformation, and salutogenesis.
Ilaria is co-founder of the collective TheAlbero – thealbero.wordpress.com,
a member of ImaginAction Social Arts across Borders – imaginaction.org,
She collaborates with the University of Florence, with CISP University of Pisa, and with the University of Applied Science Würzburg (FHWS).
In the last years, she has been working as a facilitator in EU projects with refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants.
During the pandemic, she developed the online format “Stories that reconnect” with groups of women, groups of refugees and locals, and groups of activists/educators.
She has been working for more than 10 years as a facilitator/trainer in intercultural and peace education programs.
Ilaria Olimpico
ImaginAction, Tuoro sul Trasimeno
Italy
Isabelle Gatt (Ph.D Exon) is a full time senior lecturer in Drama and Theatre Education at the University of Malta where she runs the Masters in teaching and learning (MTL Drama) and youth Studies theatre study units. Her research interests is in applied theatre, collective theatre creations and community theatre.
She is also a theatre practitioner both as an actor and TV/theatre producer/director. She is specialised in children’s television programmes and theatre productions for children. She has served as a board member on National Committees such as the St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity and the Arts Council Malta. Isabelle Gatt graduated as an actor from the Manoel Theatre of Dramatic Arts, Valletta and has also trained with various Drama companies in Italy, Denmark and the UK. She has worked freelance in cinema, RAI TV and has produced her own TV series for children (Dinu) on TVM.
Isabelle founded the TQ (TeatruQroqq) Projects and produced and directed theatre productions specifically for children working with B.Ed Primary teachers in training. TQ Projects which ran for 15 years worked on devised productions as well as play-adaptations of stories by Roald Dahl and Oscar Wilde. Isabelle has been one of the directors of the Trikki Trakki Festival since 2018 working with children in secondary schools to produce a theatre production for the festival each year. Her background as an actor is in collective creations. She is currently involved in a Europe-wide research project funded by the EU Research and Innovation programme Horizon 2020. This research project – Acting on the Margins: Arts as Social Sculpture (AMASS) – is an arts-based three-year project (2020-2023) that aims to bring people based in different European contexts together with artists to work collaboratively on creative and experimental research. F’Ħakka T’Għajn being presented at this conference is one of five projects that the Malta team is leading.
Isabelle Gatt
University of Malta
Malta
Dr. Jaime E. Martinez is an associate professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at the New York Institute of Technology. He has 10 years of experience as an online educator and his research interests include interdisciplinary collaboration and performance-based approaches to human development and learning. In his role as the Co-Chair of the Cultivating Ensembles, he creates conferences and virtual events with diverse scholars and practitioners at the intersection of the arts and sciences. His newest collaboration with colleagues in the field of Architecture has resulted in a growing interest in the use of architectural design, data modeling, and visualization in community-based pre-disaster planning and response initiatives.
Dr. Martinez earned a Ph.D. in Urban Education from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Before teaching, Dr. Martinez was a managing director in an internet security start-up and a corporate information technology manager for 16 years. He has served on the board of directors of the All Stars Project, a national non-profit youth development program, where he has been a volunteer and financial contributor for over 25 years. He is also an East Side Institute Associate and graduate of the Institute’s International Class.
Jaime Martinez
New York Institute of Technology
USA
Jeanette Ashworth
Jeanette Ashworth & Associates, Bothell
USA
Jennifer Bullock is a licensed psychotherapist with 35 years of experience in mental health and child welfare. At her social therapy practice in Philadelphia, PA, she works with groups, couples, and families. She offers life development social therapy groups with adults and teens.
Jennifer is a political activist for voting rights of nonpartisans in the U.S. She is also a long-time youth advocate, working with young people effected by poverty and institutional oppression to develop leadership skills with use of play, performance, and wellness practices. With the Global Play Brigade, she produces, designs and co-leads free play and emotional support session for teens and adults from around world.
Jennifer is committed to making wellness a social activity accessible to everyone. Jennifer writes a self-help blog that offers unconventional, unique approaches to our everyday life challenges and adventures with one another. As a 200-hour certified yoga instructor, Jennifer offers free online classes to people across the globe.
Education: Master’s Degree from Temple University in Counseling Psychology. Master’s Degree in Law and Social Policy from Bryn Mawr College’s School of Social Work and Social Research. Postgraduate training at the East Side Institute for Group and Short-term Psychotherapy.
Jennifer Bullock
Global Play Brigade
USA
Jenny Wanasek has been leading workshops focusing on social justice issues, personal accountability, and collective transformation for decades. She trained extensively in Theatre of the Oppressed with Augusto Boal and is co-founder (with Mark Weinberg) of The Center for Applied Theatre which uses theatre techniques to explore social challenges and rehearse positive change. CAT has most recently worked with Conner Prairie Museum in their DEI program and with Hayes Bilingual School examining colonialism and the oppression of indigenous peoples. Jenny is also founder of Strengthening the Virtues Within which uses strategies that capitalize on inner strengths such as compassion, assertiveness, justice, and unity and is based on her training as a facilitator of The Virtues Project. In addition to being a Teaching Artist in Milwaukee Public Schools, Jenny is a professional actress and recently retired from The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she taught Theatre for Social Change and other classes. She is an active member of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, a frequent presenter at its conferences, and co-author of “The One-Line Play: Elaborations on Image Theatre in Come Closer: Critical Perspectives on Theatre of the Oppressed.
Jenny Wanasek
Center for Applied Theatre, Mequon
USA
Jessica Bleuer, MA, M.Ed., Ph.D.(c), she/her pronouns, is a Registered Drama Therapist in private practice and a tenure-track lecturer and supervisor in the MA Drama Therapy Program at Concordia University in Montreal. A past two-term Diversity Chair for the North American Drama Therapy Association, Jessica’s teaching and research focuses on the intersections between individual wellness and larger systemic change. Jessica’s research uses arts-based methods and Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to address various equity issues that include historical trauma, marginalized community activism, barriers to employment for newcomers, xenophobia, and the negative impacts of racism on people’s sense of belonging, safety and general well being. She is passionate about community-based drama therapy and is currently working with Simon Driver to develop, Metabolizing Minutes: a community based therapeutic theatre intervention that supports community members to respond creativity to community issues that affect mental health.
Jessica Bleuer
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
Jill Olesker
ImaginAction / living network of ImaginAction, Saugerties
USA
Jones Irwin is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy and Education in Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland. He has a longstanding interest in Freirean and Critical approaches to education as well as in existential philosophy and poetics. His new co-edited book is on Freire’s relation to Southern European politics and education. He also writes fiction and poetry.
Jones Irwin
Dublin City University
Ireland
Jorge lives in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, is the Coordinator of the undergraduate program of Pedagogy at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional del Estado de Chihuahua (UPNECH). Has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics Education and a Masters in Community Education, also has the training in Social Therapy by the East Side Institute of New York. He has more than 20 years of experience working with NGO’s. He is a founding member of the Fred Newman Center for Social Therapy in Ciudad Juárez where the practice of Social Therapy is taking place with different groups, such as students, teachers, young people, parents, and NGO members in order to build community in different ways of also developing personal growth. In 2017 Performing Communities the Esperanza Coalition was born on the US-Mexico Border, with the collaboration of the Institute of Improvisation and Social Action (ImprovISA) based in El Paso Texas, Jorge participated in this process as a founding member.
Jorge Burciaga-Montoya
Universidad Pedagógica Nacional del Estado de Chihuahua (UPNECH) Campus Juárez, Ciudad Juarez
Mexico
Jorge Poveda Yánez is an interdisciplinary professional from Ecuador with formal training in Law and the Performing Arts, with an additional MA degree in Intangible Cultural Heritage and Dance Anthropology. For the past 12 years of professional experience, Jorge has strengthened his communicational, creative, theoretical and management skills through enriching periods as a civil servant, as a legal assistant, as a performer, cultural producer and as a young academic. He recently joined the MULTÍLOGOS network of young researchers and is currently working for the “Embodying Reconciliation” Project in Colombia.
Jorge Poveda
Choreomundus Master, Quito
Ecuador
José Carlos Barbosa Lopes
FATEC MAUA, São Paulo
Brazil
Juan David Garzon is a music educator, workshop leader & trainer devoted to facilitating social change through improvisation, sound and play.
Based in Utrecht and working with several organizations across Europe, Juan focuses on community development and youth work by exploring and experimenting with inter-cultural communication, diversity, democracy, inclusion, belonging, peace & solidarity. He has experience working with communities and individuals that underwent significant stress because of refuge seeking, culture clash, extreme poverty and social injustice in Colombia, Germany, UK and The Netherlands.
With degrees in popular and improvised music and professional training in music pedagogy Juan works as a guest lecturer at the Music Department and at the Methodologies for Musical Training program of the Javeriana University in Bogotá, at the socio-cultural organization, Tontalente e.V. in Lübeck and as trainer at several other state education institutions in Europe. At the same time he advises cultural and
education projects like the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra of Colombia in project development and institutions in Germany on sustainable ways of creating connection using music and online music training formats.
Discover more about Juan’s work at: www.juandavidgarzon.com
Juan David Garzón
Professional Musician, Music Educator
Netherlands, Colombia
Juju Cristine has been an Educator in Progress since 2017 when she joined local charity educational projects in Shan State, Myanmar. As a volunteer teacher, she decided to make Positive Education part of her life purpose. Her biggest motivation to work in the areas of culture and education is the pleasure of sharing information, experiences and knowledge. She wants to use her talents, skills, life experience and willpower to contribute to the community. She has lived and worked in different contexts for private sector and charity organizations in Brazil, Singapore and Myanmar. Her focus is to develop lessons in English and Portuguese that build social and life skills that will help people, especially kids and teenagers, to have better opportunities in life, but mainly to become a better human through using non-violent communication and critical thinking, and living a conscious life connected to the natural environment. Juju is currently studying to become a pedagogue and volunteering in different educational projects around the globe.
Personal social media contact if needed:
Instagram: @jujucristine__ link:https://www.instagram.com/jujucristine__ //// https://linktr.ee/jujucristine
Juju Cristine
Educator in Progress, Shan State
Brazil, Myanmar
Karla Yuliana Millán Gil
Instituto Departamental de Bellas Artes , Cali
Colombia
Kasia Skuratowicz is a sociologist and facilitator based in Brussels. She supports teams to strategize, design and implement international and local innovative educational programs and to create organizational culture based on inclusion, authenticity, ownership over work and human connection. She also curates educational curricula addressing 21st century skills for kindergarten to college level children and youth. She is a life-long learner who embraces the growth mindset.
Kasia Skuratowicz
Sociologist, Independent facilitator of learning, Brussels
Belgium
Katerina Krithara is a Psychologist with a degree from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences since 2006. Through her interest in clinical psychology and the contribution of art to it, she chose Dance Rythm Therapy through Primitive Expression, as a subject of specialization, study, and personal development, under the supervision of France Schott Billmann, psychoanalyst of the Danse Rhythme Lien Social et Therapie Association in France. Along with her interest in birth companion, she pursued further training as a Birth and Postpartum Doula at the The Greek Doula Association and as a Perinatal and Postnatal Yoga Teacher of the Birthlight Association of England. She has specialized in the Prenatal Psychology program of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens and in the Gentle BioEnergetics Therapy of the Eva Reich’s Gentle Bio-Energetics Institute of America. Her training through seminars in her fields of interest is continuous in Greece and abroad while she has worked in medical centers and humanitarian organizations in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Cyprus. To date, she provides psychological support to children, adolescents and adults in the field of psychotherapy, danceherapy and group animation. At the same time, she conducts individual counseling sessions for parents and coordinates experiential empowerment groups in parenting.
Katerina Krithara
DRLST-Education of Northern Greece-Epineio, Cyclades
Greece
Koray Tarhan is graduated from Ankara University Theater Dept. He is one of the founders of the first improv group in Turkey in 2000. Working as an actor, instructor, musician and project coordinator in Istanbulimpro. Works with children, teenagers and adults in different foundations and organizations. Uses improvisation techniques in social, education and business projects. He wrote the first handbook on Improv in Turkish; ‘Dogaclama Icin Elkitabi’ in 2013 and designed the first Impro App in Turkish in 2018. He is the coordinator of Istanbul International Improv Festival and International Istanbul Storytelling Festival. Tarhan participated Portland, San Francisco and Berlin AIN World Conferences as a workshop leader and presenter. Joined as instructor to the GII Symposium in L.A. and London. He participated as an actor and workshop leader in Amsterdam, Berlin, Belgrade, Chicago, Beijing, Ljubljana, Tallinn, Thessaloniki International Improv Festivals and Conferences. His awards; Best Progressive Theater in 2009, Best Theater Music in 2018.
Koray Bülent Tarhan
istanbulimpro
Turkey
Education Outreach Specialist_Mosaik Support Center
Konstantina Papaionnidou has studied psychology with specialization in Social Psychology and Special Education. So far, she has worked as a psychoeducator mostly in community based mental health and educational structures in multicultural environments in Greece and abroad. With art, play and trauma-informed care as her main approaches she develops and implements interventions for the empowerment of cultural and social minority members. The last two years she has been living in Lesvos, cooperating with Lesvos Solidarity and Mikros Dounias teams participating in programs for the inclusion of children and adults with refugee background in the society.
Konstantina Papaionnidou
Lesvos Solidarity – Mosaik Support Center – Lesvos
Greece
Kostas Magos has a degree on Teacher Education from the University of Athens and a Ph.D on Intercultural Education from the same University. He has worked as a primary school teacher and as a researcher in many intercultural projects for minority and Roma children. Since 2007 he is a lecturer and since 2013 an Assistant Professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education at the University of Thessaly on the field of intercultural education. His scientific interests include the theory and practice of intercultural education, the education of immigrant, minority and Roma children, the use of action research and narrative inquiry in teacher education and school practices. He has participated in many European projects concerning best practices for the education of minority and immigrant children, European educational actions against racism and xenophobia and European teacher training seminars in intercultural education. He is the writer of many articles concerning issues of intercultural education theory and practice. During his free time he likes to write books for children. Until today 20 children books written by Kostas are already published.
Kostas Magos
University of Thessaly
Greece
Kristín Rannveig Vilhjálmsdóttir
The Cultural Compass
Iceland, Denmark
Laura is a participatory theatre practitioner, facilitator and embodiment coach. She’s had a varied career working on environmental and international justice activism, setting up grassroots change networks, exploring participatory process design, inclusion, restorative justice and conflict transformation, establishing a youth volunteer service, providing training in community activism and gender awareness and supporting a young women’s empowerment programme in Zimbabwe.
She currently works with Many Minds, a performance charity putting people with experiences of mental health centre-stage. She is an active member of the Theatre of the Oppressed network, collaborating with Reboot the Roots to hold workshops on mental health and collective care. Laura loves supporting others to step into their strength and creativity – she’s a facilitator of the ChancesToChange board game for collective and personal inner inquiry and in training as a Zen Coach and African Constellations facilitator. Laura’s silver lining during the pandemic has been exploring how to develop participatory theatre practice, performance, connection and community online with others all around the world.
Laura Singer
Theatre Practitioner, Coach, ChancesToChange Community, Bristol
United Kingdom
Lea Čikoš
Volonterski Centar Vojvodine, Novi Sad
Serbia
Leanne Vincent (b.1995) is a Dance Movement Psychotherapist graduated from Goldsmiths University of London (MA). She also holds a BA from the London Contemporary Dance School. And an Apprenticeship-postgraduate with distinction from the Motionhouse Dance Company in Leamington Spa. She was awarded the Peggy Hawkins Scholarship in 2015. She is currently working in an adult mental health service in London and volunteering in the New North London Synagogue Destitute Asylum Seekers. She is an experienced dancer in many styles: Contemporary Release, Acrobatics, Ballet, Capoeira, Improvisation, choreography, Kathak, somatic Alexandra technique etc. Leanne has been teaching dance since 2015 and she has performed in various venues around London.
Leanne Vincent
East London Foundation Trust NHS
United Kingdom
Linda Raule is a participatory theatre practitioner and cultural and social scientist, who works in Theatre of the Oppressed Vienna, Austria since 2016 (www.tdu-wien.at) and teaches at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Germany (FHWS). 2016 she graduated in a training as an actress at schauspielfabrik Berlin and 2019 she finished her Master’s degree in Development studies at University of Vienna. Her research interest is in Theatre Action Research, embodied knowledge, intersectionality, feminist and decolonial criticism of science as well as social justice education. The focus of her artistic and political work is on Theatre of the Oppressed combined with feminist body knowledge, dance and various forms of participatory and artistic expression. She is particularly interested in the idea of combining art and social sciences, thereby encouraging people to reflect and act together. Currently she is working in projects about WLINT*-bodies in patriarchy, precarious work and mental health in capitalism.
Contact: linda.raule@tdu-wien.at
Linda Raule
Theatre of the Oppressed Vienna
Austria
Linthuja Nadarajah
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
Lisa Jo Epstein
Just Act, Philadelphia
USA
“Liz”
Master of Education
(International Education) Monash University, Australia
“Liz” has worked as an international English and Humanities educator over the past 16 years in schools in Budapest, Melbourne, Alice Springs, Singapore, London, Yangon, Bishkek, Skopje, and Okayama. She has also contributed as a volunteer in a number of contexts worldwide, including in Chennai, Phnom Pehn, Tel Aviv, Tehran, Chios Island, Yangon and Shan State in Myanmar. She has designed teacher training and curriculum development programs for Myanmar international schools and grassroots organisations.
Her teaching experiences have strengthened her conviction in the potential for education to overcome disadvantage, break down prejudice and to create a fairer world. In addition to classroom teaching, her professional development aim is to volunteer in the field of human rights education and to engage in community-based educational and research projects that can achieve positive changes for disadvantaged groups.
She is currently teaching at an international school in Yangon and will be presenting at this conference in collaboration with students at Shan Community College (Kaw Dai Organization) in Karli, Shan State, Myanmar.
Liz
Shan Community College (Kaw Dai Organization), Karli, Shan State
Australia, Myanmar
Lorena Elizondo has a bachelor’s degree in Educational Theater from New York University where she specialized in the use of theater as a pedagogical methodology. She returned to Mexico in 2012 to work with indigenous communities in Chiapas. In 2014 she founded an NGO in Mexico City called Acción Creativa Transversal y Organizada (ACTO). From ACTO she has worked with private and public sectors in the design of specific pedagogical methodologies, content, workshops, and trainings. For the last ten years she has worked as a facilitator with groups from different backgrounds. She has specialized in gender as a social construction, non-violent conflict resolutions and different communication skills.
Lorena Elizondo Grediaga
Acción Creativa Transversal y Organizada (ACTO), Mexico City
Mexico
Lorena Mancero
Collective Gestos de Cuidado , Quito
Ecuador
Louisa has a background in participatory processes and decision making about natural resources, and sustainability. She is exploring performative social arts facilitation and commoning and especially interested in social relations and power dynamics of group processes.
Louisa Kistemaker
ImaginAction / Living Network of ImaginAction, Viersen
Germany
After studying theatre, whilst my formal work has mostly been in the NPO sector and supporting small businesses in the human development space, my studies over the last 15 years relate to the art of facilitation, creating and holding space and embodiment practices. These include the Art of Hosting, Deep Democracy, Process Work, Family Constellations and Expressive Movement.
I have been facilitating on and off for the last 15 years through projects, which either I have initiated or have been in collaboration with others. These include The Social Awareness Project, An Afternoon of Storytelling, a Theatre of the Oppressed group working in schools and organisations, White Work SA, The MarketPlace Dance, the Adult Creche and a number of smaller projects.
Besides having nature guiding training, I share a deep sense of love and commitment for the More-than-Human-World. I have a passion for alternative economics and creating and collecting stories of how communities can utilise their own power to create liveable futures.
My facilitation style draws from multiple methodologies with a focus on the building community, and the personal as political.
Louise Denysschen
The MarketPlace Dance, Johannesburg
South Africa
Luciana Kool Modesto-Sarra is a Master’s student in Applied Linguistics at PUC-SP, Brazil. She holds undergraduate degrees in Physical Education, Education, Language Arts (Portuguese/English) and Mathematics. She has a post baccalaureate degree in Literacy, Bilingual Education and Didactics for the implementation of BNCC. She has been working with education since 1995 in several areas. Currently, she is a teacher at a bilingual and international school and is a member of various research groups in the field of Education, including: Language and Activities in School Contexts (LACE – PUC / SP) and the BRINCADAS Extension Project: the unviable heard in times of crisis and the Global Play Brigade.
Luciana Modesto-Sarra
Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo
Brazil
Luisa is a London-based Colombian Psychologist. She is currently doing a PhD in Health Humanities at University College London. Her project is mainly focused on designing a theoretical framework that studies the psychobiological and emotional sources of music and how these have an impact on emotional and socio-cultural interactions, including creativity, music-making and music appreciation, but more importantly, as a vehicle for understanding and mapping possibilities for mental health and social restoration through creativity and emotional engagement with individuals and communities.
Luisa trained as a clinical psychologist and has experience working with severe mental health conditions in psychiatric hospitals, particularly with victims of the Colombian civil war (the military forces and metropolitan police and immigrants and communities in extreme poverty). Although her training is in psychology, she has studied music and fundamentals of music therapy. As a Health Humanities researcher, she has been seeking novel ways of understanding health and illness in society and how methods from the arts and humanities may bring insights to psychological practices and theories.
Luisa Boada Bayona
University College London
United Kingdom
Lukia I’m 29 years, female from Ugandan, with a degree in community based rehabilitation from Kyambogo University, currently working with the community to promote the existence of PWDs within the community and their wellbeing.
Lukia Namuwaya
Community-based rehabilitation PWDs
Uganda
Magda Vitsou
Dr. Drama in Education, Ass. Lecturer, Department of Early Childhood Education
University of Thessaly
Magda Vitsou
University of Thessaly, Volos
Greece
An artist, writer, educator and poet, Manuella studied art in Boise, Idaho and Boston, Massachusetts, earning a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts and a Master’s in Art Education. She has taught art to children, adolescents and adults, one-on-one and in groups, in person and online. A writer and poet, Manuella often infuses words into her intuitive art workshops, which are tailored to the objectives of writers. She has exhibited her artwork in the Middle East and has recently completed her first novel.
Manuella placed 2nd in Poetry Slam, Cyprus in 2019 and 2021 and has performed her poetry in Athens and Cyprus at literary festivals, poetry conferences and various other events and venues. She has also run Intuitive Art & Storytelling workshops for refugees in Greece, specifically unaccompanied minor girls, giving them an opportunity and platform to be seen and heard and to tell their story. She lives in Cyprus with her family and cat, Tango, and loves nothing better than being surrounded by an obscene number of books and paintings. She holds regular workshops in Intuitive Art and Intuitive writing and is especially passionate about working with women, teens, writers and poets.
Manuella Mavromichalis
Collectiva Inanna, Nicosia
Cyprus
Maria Cristina Meaney is a PhD student in Applied Linguistics at the Post-graduate Program of Applied Linguistics, PUC/SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo). She is engaged in bilingual education, integrated curriculum development, argumentation, and teachers’ education. She writes materials for teaching English for private schools. She also develops materials for teaching English as a lingua franca in public schools and is involved in teacher and curricula development in the public system. She is a member of the research group LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) and takes part in the projects developed by them, such as the BRINCADAS Extension Project: the unviable heard in times of crisis.
Maria Cristina Meaney
Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo
Brazil
Maria Feliciana Amaral holds a Master in Applied Linguistics at PUC- Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. She is currently Pedagogical Coordinator at Maple Bear-Moema/Brazil. She is a member of the research group LACE (Language in Activities in School Contexts) and takes part in the projects developed by them, such as the BRINCADAS Extension Project: the unviable heard in times of crisis.
Maria Feliciana Amaral
Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo
Brazil
María José Bejarano was born in Costa Rica. She has a degree in psychology and specialized in Dance Movement Therapy in Argentina. She recently completed Erasmus+ Choreomundus Program in Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage in Hungary, Norway, France and London. She has worked on the empowerment of vulnerable communities through play and participated in several activities related to play, community and creativity in Costa Rica, Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia. Her interests are related to social transformation and developing Human Rights initiatives through expressive arts. As a community dance artist, she is currently developing Proyecto Colibrí – Acompañamiento Creativo, a Costa Rica-based initiative that aims for community development through community dance and Intangible Cultural Heritage, as well as the research of corporeal tools for social change and sustainable development. Her academic research has deepened on the relationships of dance, community and territory. Recently she expands life experience by learning to play the ukulele.
María José Bejarano
Proyecto Colibrí – Pavas
Costa Rica
Maria Karazanou is a researcher, theatre educator and director. She graduated from the Department of International and European Studies at the UoM and from the ‘Modern Times’ Drama School, and later specialized in theatre education and human rights at the UCL, where she completed her postgraduate degree: ‘Social Justice in Education’, with a distinction. She is now a PhD candidate at the UTh, studying participatory theatre in young offenders’ institutions.
She worked for ‘Catch22’, London, offering theatre workshops to ex-offenders. She also taught drama at ‘The Complete Works’, an educational organization that promotes educational inclusion for children with abusive behavior, emotional and learning difficulties.
Currently, she works at the University of Thessaly as a director/trainer of the University’s theater group while she participates in several research and education programs such as: ‘CoSpIRom’ Common Spaces for the Integration of Roma, Education and Inclusion for Roma Children, PiCaM, PAGE and others. She has been teaching theatre at Kassaveteia Prison and at the Young Offenders Institution in Volos. She has worked with SNFCC and the National Opera for the creation and facilitation of a theatre workshop for a mixed group with women ex-prisoners, aiming to support participants in the reintegration process.
Maria Karazanou
University of Thessaly, Volos
Greece
An academic, a musician, a creative writer and performing artist, Maria grew up with two major loves: music and literature. The former became her main learning interest, which she followed through music schools and universities in Cyprus, Greece and the UK. After acquiring her first degree in Music Studies at Ionian University, she moved to Durham where she completed her MA. Her research interests are firmly grounded in sociological readings of music, while philosophy and critical theory are featured heavily in her thought.
Maria has published two poetry collections (2017, 2018) a novella (2019), and a number of short stories and poems in various anthologies. Her poetry has been awarded and acknowledged at literary competitions and she has performed at various spoken word events, bridging her background in performance with her identity as a writer. A major cornerstone of this symbiosis has, she says, been Collectiva Inanna, whose inaugural production ‘Taking Back the Booty’ brought together her performative, poetic and musical sides, and allowed them to find a home within the diverse creativity of its other founding members.
Maria Kouvarou
Collectiva Inanna, Larnaca
Cyprus
Maria Papadopoulou holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry and a Master’s degree in Applied – Clinical Sociology and Arts. She has worked in distance learning support at the University and in supporting minors in a minors’shelter. She likes to search for and enrich what connects us and work on it, using creative and participatory – group processes as a tool.
Maria Papadopoulou
Lesvos Solidarity – Humade Crafts Workshop, Mosaik Support Center – Lesvos
Greece
Marian Rich is an actress, comedic improviser and theatrical director who has spent over 30 years leading playful workshops and programs in which people come together to grow and develop. Her playful and philosophical sessions during the Institute’s International Class residencies have impacted activists, educators and scholars from around the world who are looking for ways to infuse their work with the power of performance. She is the co-author of “Playing Around with Changing the World,” a chapter about this work in The Applied Improvisation Mindset, soon to be published by Bloomsbury Press. Her recent article, A Year of Creating Heart in a Havenless World, appears in POIESIS: A Journal of the Arts and Communication, Volume 18, 2021. Marian is a co-founder of the Global Play Brigade.
Marian Rich
Global Play Brigade, New York
USA
Marianna Drakopoulou is a clinical psychologist of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece. She has a master of research in Clinical Psychology-Psychopathology of the University “Rene-Descartes” in Paris, France. She is a dance-therapist (“Atelier du Geste Rythme” in Paris) and a psychoanalyst (Freudian Company in Northern Greece). She works the last 14 years as a therapist-psychoanalyst in a private office and the last 10 years as a psychologist in the Center of Prevention of Addictions and Promotion of Psychosocial Health of Eastern Thessaloniki “Elpida”. In the field of prevention of addictions, she implements prevention interventions in: students of all levels, groups of teenagers, parent groups, teachers, interventions in the community, counseling etc.
She has been working as a dance therapist since 2007 with adult groups in Thessaloniki. She was a founding member of the DRLST Dance Therapists Training in Greece in 2011, of which she is currently Pedagogically Responsible for Northern Greece. Since 2018, the base of DRLST education in dance therapy in Northern Greece is Epineio.
Marianna Drakopoulou
DRLST Dance Therapy Education – Epineio
Greece
Marike Minnema, born in the Netherlands, moved to Morocco in 2009 where she worked with the Oppressed with children, youngsters, activists and mothers, mostly using the methodology of Theatre of the Oppressed. In 2019 she moved back to the Netherlands. Here she does theater with adult men and women in the psychiatric ward and playback theater and theater of the oppressed online.
Marike Minnema
freelance, NLTT, AJRU- Théâtre de l’Opprimé Rabat, Holten
Netherlands
My name is Marilia Fotopoulou and I am a 21-year-old Psychology student, coming from Sparta, Greece. As I am now finishing my third year of my bachelor’s degree in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, I am constantly trying to acquaint with the diverse world of psychology and gain as many intercultural and therapeutic experiences as possible. This is why I’ve been so far an active volunteer in students’ international organizations such as AIESEC in Poland and Greece, or in NGOs for the social support of youth like ARSIS in Greece. I have also been publishing online articles and poems related to psychology, art and travelling, for two years now. My latest and proudest achievement is to be part of this newly formed youth voluntary community in Thessaloniki, called “YX”, with which I am going to submit a proposal (present) of our work in this year’s PPLG. YX’s activities are devoted to spreading knowledge regarding mental-health issues and de-stigmatizing mental illness. Apart from that, during this stormy past year I had the chance to spend a semester abroad in Sweden for my studies, from which I am coming back much richer and eager to immerse my energy into new creative projects!
Marilia Fotopoulou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Greece
Marina Pallares Elias combines the performing arts as a tool for social transformation and has developed community theatre projects around the world such as Spain, Turkey, Mexico, England, Italy, Uruguay, Chile, France, and Germany. She works with immigrants, people with disabilities, women, the deaf community, the indigenous community, the LGBT community, young people and the elderly. In 2014 she founded the theatre company Acting Now, where Marina has produced more than 30 plays using her own methodology: Theatre of Yes. Due to the internationalization of this methodology, it has won international scholarships, such as Iberescena (Elderly People, Mexico, 2018), Arts Council England (Indigenous Women, deaf community Mexico 2018), Big Lottery England (Mental health 2015-2020), Microsoft Foundation (Women). She leads the gender equality project at the BBC in the UK. Marina runs training sessions about Theatre of Yes at different universities in England, France and Spain. She has presented the Theatre of Yes in international conferences such as the European Theatre Network (Ljubljana,, 2020), Cambridge University (Cambridge, 2020), the National Conference of Mexican Theatre (La Paz, 2019), and the Conference of social inclusion (Madrid, 2018) Her book “Theatre of Yes” will be published by Orciny Press Editions on June 2021.
Marina Pallares-Elias
Acting Now, Barcelona
United Kingdom
My name is Marina Tzikou and I am a 23-years-old Psychology Student from Komotini. Living in Thessaloniki for five years due to my studentship in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, I had many opportunities to explore my interests in classical music, psychology, and volunteering. For more than four years I have been an active volunteer in local NGOs such as «Λάμψη», «Σχεδία στην πόλη», “Check point” and “Positive voice”. Μy proudest enterprise is the formation of a youth voluntary community in Thessaloniki, called “YX”. Yx’s main purpose is to spread the knowledge about mental health and to de-stigmatize mental illness. Me and my friend Panos, as founders and coordinators, created a team in which human psychology can expressed via art, photography, illustration, writing and action.
Marina Tzikou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Greece
Mark Levitas – Platform Tiyatro (Director, Actor, Academician)
He was born and raised in Istanbul. He studied acting at the École Jacques Lecoq in France and completed his master’s degree at the Sorbonne University in Theater Department. He took part as an actor in many theater productions like Studio Oyuncuları, Dot and GalataPerform in Istanbul. He worked as an actor and director in the “New Text New Theatre” project, which he was also one of the founders. He took part in various movies as and TV series as well. In 2016, he founded with Ceren Ercan “ Platform Tiyatro” based on Istanbul. He directed the play named “The Rebellion Day of Dogs” coproduced by Sao Luis Theatre Municipal (Lisbon) and Istanbul Theatre Festival. In addition to co-producing the project ‘Berlin Zamani’ with the Fringe Ensemble from Bonn, he took part in “Map to Utopia” project as a producer, actor and project designer. He gave lectures at Istanbul University State Conservatory for many years and still works as a lecturer at Istanbul Aydın University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Drama and Acting Department. Since 2019, he has been continuing his PhD in at Mimar Sinan University Istanbul State Conservatory Theater Department
Mark Levitas
Platform Tiyatro, Istanbul
Turkey
Mark began his study of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) and Applied Theatre with Augusto Boal in 1992 and has conducted workshops and theatre-making actions for educators, activists, administrators, students, business leaders, NGOs, and community organizations in the continental U.S., Alaska, Canada, Australia, and Austria. He is co-founder, with Jenny Wanasek, of The Center for Applied Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA and was co-founder of the Theatre and Social Change focus group of ATHE. Mark served on the Board of the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Organization for nine years and hosted its ninth annual conference. He earned his MFA in Directing and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and was a professor in the University of Wisconsin system, where he developed the Theatre and Society Program, for thirty years. He has directed nearly sixty productions in academic, community, and professional theatre and during the past eighteen years has served as a teaching artist in Milwaukee Public Schools. He is currently editor of the PTO Journal.
Mark Weinberg
Center for Applied Theatre, Mequon
USA
Markela Alexandra Kyriazi
Epineio Institute for Therapy and Education through Arts
Greece
Martina Cocchi – student and volunteer. She’s currently pursuing her master in International Studies with a focus in Peace and Conflict studies. Her interest lies mainly in post-conflict societies, especially in the Balkan Region and Cyprus, where she has spent some months during her internships. Outside university she is passionate about drama clubs, outdoor activities, and social interactions in general. Since 2016 she’s been part of Arte Migrante in both Modena and Pisa, where she founded the local branch with some close friends.
Martina Cocchi
University of Turin, Modena
Italy
Martina Čurdová is a theatre director, performer and storyteller. She studied Creative Drama and Alternative Theatre at Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. After she explored various forms of community and social theatre, studying in Spain and Brazil. She has been working with communities all around the world, creating a space to share stories and bring them on stage. Martina likes to use diverse creative techniques from dance to documentary theatre.
Martina Čurdová
Freelance, Praha
Czech Republic
Mary Fridley is pro-bono Director of Special Projects at the East Side Institute in NYC, co-creator of The Joy of Dementia (You Gotta Be Kidding!) workshop/conversation series and coordinator of Reimaging Dementia: A Creative Coalition for Justice. An accomplished teacher and workshop leader, Mary practiced social therapy for 12 years and uses the social therapeutic approach as an Institute faculty member. She is the author or co-author (with Dr. Susan Massad) of several articles and chapters on the Joy of Dementia and is a guest blogger for agebuzz.com. Mary is also a playwright and theater director and works as a non-profit fundraising consultant.
Mary Fridley
East Side Institute, Brooklyn
USA
Mary Smail is a Dramatherapist, trained in the Sesame Approach and psychotherapist. She was the Director of the Sesame Institute charity for 20 years until its closure in 2015 and a lecturer on the MA Drama and Movement Therapy (Sesame) at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London. She presently works in private practice under the name SoulWorks UK in London. www.marysmailsoulworks.co.uk Her passion and road map for life are the stories.
Mary created and convenes the part-time course for registered health workers, Psyche and Soma which looks at the “reversed curriculum” of inner soul wisdom and how this manifests into a troubled world through the healing arts. She trains psychotherapy students in the use of embodied myths in talk therapy.
Publications
Mary co-authored Dramatherapy with Myth and Fairytale – 53 healing stories.
Moving through a block in psychotherapy – 1996
Discovering the Self through Drama and Movement – The Sesame Approach, Jessica Kingsley Press, London
Sharing the Space Inside – One to one work with people with Learning Difficulties – 1996
Discovering the Self through Drama and Movement – The Sesame Approach, Jessica Kingsley Press, London
Open Sesame and the Soul cave, International Handbook for Dramatherapy, Routledge – 2016
Stories of Soul-Making, Transformation in Troubled Times – 2018
She is presently publishing a paper in The Routledge International Handbook for Therapeutic Story called, ‘Doorways to the Deathlands – the imaginal seeing of story’.
Mary Smail
SoulWorks UK, London
United Kingdom
I was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia. I came to Greece to study Modern Greek at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and afterwards my dream became reality when I’ve passed to the School of Fine Arts, the Film Department at the same University. I have graduated and finished my master studies in Film production.
During my studies I was working at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in the Department of Public Relations, at the National Theater of Northern Greece as an actor, in different independent audiovisual production companies in Thessaloniki such as Add Production, Urban and MediaWorld as production assistant, assistant director, screenwriting assistant, editor and in various film productions as artistic staff as well.
Later, I’ve started my academic career teaching Film History, Acting on Camera ect. in Thessaloniki Collage (IEK), the Drama Academy of Thessaloniki (Andreas Voutsinas), Kozani High School of Art.
I am energetic, ambitious and a very friendly person, always glad when I have an opportunity to develop my abilities and gain more experience in my career. I love team-working and to meeting interesting people.
Maya Lucic
Kozani Arts School, Thessaloniki
Greece
Maysoun is a community arts professional with extensive international experience developing and implementing grassroots community projects. A passionate theatre of the oppressed practitioner, her personal goal is to use vibrant, powerful, compelling methodologies and art mediums for sharing knowledge, understanding and celebrating the beauty, diversity and universality of the human experience.
Maysoun Bouga
ImaginAction / living network of ImaginAction
Morocco, Australia
Melanie Beer is a Dramatherapist and clinical supervisor. Trained in the Sesame Approach to Drama and Movement Therapy, she has been practicing within the UK for the past 10 years with a diverse range of people.
She has specialized in working in forensic mental health where she developed a trauma informed approach to her work, integrating trauma, attachment and gestalt theory with her practice as a dramatherapist.
Melanie also works within an Adult Learning Disabilities Service. She has recently co-authored a book chapter with her co-therapist on the integration of the Sesame approach with Gestalt psychotherapy, exploring how their work offers an antidote to the cultural shame experienced by those who are labelled ‘disabled’.
Melanie is a qualified clinical supervisor and holds a private supervision practice, working with arts therapists, counsellors and health care professionals.
She is part of the Creative Therapies Collective; a not for profit organization working within South Wales.
Melanie is a member of the Golden Thread Playback Theatre Company where she gets to combine her love of play, movement, storytelling and performance, spontaneously bringing to life stories told by audience members.
You can contact her at melaniebeer_dramatherapy@outlook.com
Melanie Beer
Dramatherapist and clinical supervisor, Cardiff
United Kingdom
Melissa Meyer
East Side Institute, Brooklyn
USA
Michalis Markodimitrakis is a Phd Candidate in American Culture Studies. He uses ethnography in physical spaces to analyze urban spaces and interactions between humanitarian workers and beneficiaries of international assistance. In particular he studies coping mechanisms of both groups in relation to racism, discrimination, violence, and daily interactions with bureaucracy.
Michalis Markodimitrakis
Bowling Green State University / UNHCR, Heraklion
Greece
(Ciudad Juarez, México) is a social therapist and educator from Ciudad Juarez. He received his B.S. in psychology from the UTEP, and his Master’s degree in Family Therapy from the Instituto Regional de Estudios de la Familia. In the past decade, he has received extensive training in social therapeutics from the East Side Institute through many of their training options, including the International Class, online certificate programs, by participating in the past five PTW conferences, and has been part of the social therapy supervisory group. He is the director of the Fred Newman Center, the first effort to bring social therapy to Mexico and is an advocate for learning disability educational rights through his project Heterolexia.
Miguel Eduardo Cortés Vázquez
Centro Fred Newman para la Terapia Social, Ciudad Juárez
Mexico
Miranda D’amico
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
Mohamed Sleiman Labat is an artist from the Saharawi refugee camps in southwest Algeria. He was born and raised there. His entire life, he has been a refugee in a camp in a foreign country. Rather than being discouraged or seeking happiness elsewhere, he chose to remain and help inspire his community through art. He works with different art genres and mediums. He often introduces himself as simply ‘a maker’. He’s a calligrapher, a poet, a photographer, a sculptor, a painter and an art facilitator among other things. Coming from a desert culture, He’s familiar with a long tradition of oral expression (indigenous Saharawi poetry and stories) and he likes to combine this with visual art. Recently, he experimented with utilizing discarded materials such as fabric, scraps of wood, metal, plastic and utilitarian objects to create sculptures. This experimentation equipped him with skills and ideas that led to creating MOTIF, his studio in the camps. The studio now is an active hub for art creation and art education. He dream is to create this space for art experimentation in order to devise alternative ways to learning, creating and expressing. He now organizes social activities for young people to meet, to exchange and to create together. He believes art is bringing change to his community.
Mohamed Sulaiman Labat
Motif Art Studio & Workshop, Saharawi Refugee Camps
Algeria
Connect people, creativity, and knowledge to create innovations that sustainably boost education’s competitive strength and society’s well-being.
– Innovate communication interventions that enable individuals to transform themselves so that they can transform the world.
– Contribute to the creation of the next generation of innovators and change-makers through creativity and entrepreneurial learning.
– Empower young people and women to grow their innate creativity to identify and anticipate diverse societal needs and think entrepreneurially in whichever field they pursue. Recently, Mr. Issa was appointed as a representative for the MENA Region in the Steering Committee of Action 4 SDGs.
Mohammad Hasan Mohammad Issa
Creativity Lab for Empowerment and Innovation, Bethlehem
Palestine
Morgane Masterman (she/her) is an intercultural youth worker and a founder of Associação Faísca Voadora, a non-profit organisation for radically inclusive, creative intercultural work. Based in Portugal, she has been working with intercultural learning since 2013. She mainly works with teens and young adults with difficult access to mobility, mixing creative tools (mainly graphic facilitation and drawing, theater, radio), with more traditional non-formal and informal education methods. She is a passionate Language Animation practitioner. Since March 2020, she has been exploring the creative and intercultural possibilities of online formats and developing her practice on online, non-formal education. Morgane is involved in feminist activism and in solidary agro-ecology. She is also currently studying Social Therapeutics at the East Side Institute, and is a member of a Developing Across Borders group since May 2019.
Morgane Masterman
Associação Faísca Voadora, Almada
Portugal
Muneeb ur Rehman is an applied drama practitioner, actor, voice over artist and improviser working to establish drama-in-education and community drama as a formalized discipline in South Asia. He received introductory training in TO and Forum Theatre from DramaBox, Singapore and was the recipient of Tina Sergeant Development Initiative Pass for Singapore Drama Educators Association Conference, 2015. With ten years of acting experience, he has employed theatre for myriad contexts in varying social milieu-from employees’ training and youth programs in Pakistan to drama-teaching for artists and refugees in Nepal. With various drama workshops in the public domain to his name, he has partnered with schools, psychologists, youth programs, children’s theatre to apply drama meaningfully in all spheres of life. He has presented his work at international forums like Performing the World in New York, SDEA in Singapore and Play, Perform, Learn & Grow in Greece. Currently, he is exploring organizational-level implementation of play methodology in school settings. During covid, he wrote and directed a drive-in children’s theatre play Wishy Washing, performed at an open-air parking space.
Muneeb Ur Rehman
Veritas Learning Circle, Karachi
Pakistan
Myriam Denov
McGill University, Montreal
Canada
Naiara Müssnich Rotta Gomes de Assunção is a historian, anthropologist and oriental dancer from the South of Brazil. She holds a BA and an MA in History from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and recently graduated from Choreomundus – International master in Dance Knowledge, Practice, and Heritage (NTNU/SZG/UCA/RU). Her academic interests include the history and current developments of belly dancing, from the 19th century until the current specificities in meanings and in dance styles, in Brazil and Egypt. She is the coordinator of the project Hunna Collective – Historians who dance that seeks to intertwine theoretical and practical knowledge about oriental dances and its fusions.
Naiara Rotta
Choreomundus Master, Porto Alegre
Brazil
Naomi Tessler, M.A. is the Founder, Artistic Director and lead facilitator of Branch Out Theatre. She has been working with communities globally for 17 years, using theatre to inspire positive change! She is a graduate of the Masters of Arts program in Educational Theatre for Colleges and Communities, New York University and currently facilitates and develops Branch Out Theatre workshops, productions and community arts projects with organizations and groups in Ottawa, Toronto and across Canada and globally online. She is passionate about using theatre as a tool for encouraging self-empowerment, conflict resolution, environmental and social justice and well-being. As a facilitator, Naomi has an extensive background in Theatre of the Oppressed, Playback Theatre, acting, physical theatre, storytelling, directing and playwriting and strives to share these tools with those she works and collaborates with. In addition to being a dynamic workshop facilitator and educator, Naomi also works as an actor, director, playwright, poet, singer, speaker, community arts mentor, Energy Intuitive healer and coach. She believes in uniting communities through the arts to guide people to listen to their inner wisdom, build bridges and break through barriers.
www.branchouttheatre.com
Naomi Tessler
Branch Out Theatre, Toronto
Canada
Natassa Damaskou was born and raised in Thessaloniki, the second largest city of Greece. She graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a major in Psychobiology. She continued her studies in Family therapy and Sherborne Developmental Movement. She works as a Family Psychotherapist and Creative Movement facilitator at the Social Support and Rehabilitation Center and Creative Work for Persons with Disabilities ‘’SOTIR’’ in Thessaloniki in Greece. She is the Program Coordinator of the Dance Department. She has choreographed for many Dance presentations and coordinated the first DanceAbility Teacher’s Training at SOTIR in 2017 taught by Alito Alessi from DanceAbility International Organization and participations from all over the world. Additionally, she works privately as a Systemic Psychotherapist and as a Creative Dance/Movement facilitator the past 15 years.
Natassa Damaskou
Social Support and Rehabilitation Center and Creative Work for Persons with Disabilities “SOTIR”, Thessaloniki
Greece
Nayle is a professional dancer with a degree in Contemporary Dance from the National University of Costa Rica. She has worked as a cultural manager and producer in artistic and socio-community projects, as well as facilitating educational and creative processes with women deprived of liberty, migrants and refugees, childrens, people with disabilities and young people in vulnerable conditions; always using the arts of movement as a means of social transformation.
At present, she has turned all her artistic experience into the exploration of the movement from the Latin rhythms, specifically salsa, and the artisan elaboration of naturally fermented bakery.
Nayle Yrigoyen
Collective Gestos de Cuidado , Buenos Aires
Argentina
Nesa Bandarchian Rashti
McGill University, Montreal
Canada
Nick Bilbrough
Hands Up Project
United Kingdom
Nicolien Kegels
Lesvos Solidarity – Mosaik Support Center – Lesvos
Greece
Nikoletta Dimopoulou is a graduate of the Theatre Department, School of Fine Arts in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and of the Master of Arts in International Performance Research (Amsterdam, Belgrade). She has designed and facilitated theatre based workshops & seminars on issues of social inclusion in Greece, UK and Germany. She is Life Skills programs’trainer and adults’ trainer. Since 2016 she cooperates with British Council Greece and the Theatre/Drama in Education Network, where for the past three years she was a regional Coordinator in the “It could be me-it could be you” program, organized by TE-net in collaboration with UNHCR, in the region of Southern Greece and the Aegean islands. Since summer 2020 she has been designing and implementing programs
Nikoletta Dimopoulou
Lesvos Solidarity – Asklipios Center – Lesvos
Greece
Nir Raz, The author of the 50 Exercises trilogy tools for group leaders, therapists and actors.
He is an Artistic director, group conductor, stage artist and visionary, has been working for over twenty years in theater, group trainer, and improvisation. He teaches internationally and is known for his work in group dynamics, online theatre and medical clowning. Winner of “Best Theater Actor” in Tzavta, Tel Aviv’s “fringe” performance center, and at the Suzanne Dalal Performing Arts Annual Festival, Raz writes books and articles on theater and group conducting. He is the founder and co-director of The Institute of Psychotherapy in Playback Theatre and a member of The Playback Theatre Group, Mar’ot. He also works as a medical clown at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Israel.
In 2018, he co-authored the book, Hall of Mirrors on Stage – Introduction to Psychotherapy in the Playback Theatre, published by the Emily Segol Center and the University of Haifa. And Co-authored MacKenzie Gets Up on Stage, an article published in the journal of the Israeli Association of Group Psychotherapy, Mikbatz.
Nir Raz
The Institute of Psychotherapy in Playback Theatre , Rinatia
Israel
Odette Laramee has a great appreciation for exploring story, across cultures, histories/futures, and media. Her experimental work in giant puppet creation, film making, and digital arts is created from extraordinarily surprising medium and celebrates the vastness of being. Co-created giant puppet projects have engaged community on three continents. Film projects have been shown in 19 international film festivals. The work focused on a broad spectrum of themes through the powerful medium of creative inquiry. Odette Laramee’s studies are in the area of collective knowledge creation, in the everyday, the socio/political, and the sublime.
Odette Laramee
Mutual Productions, Victoria
Canada
Graduate student of Early Childhood Education department of AUTH (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). Experienced Dance teacher and dancer with a strong background of both education and teaching experience of several years in different disciplines (ISTD). Studying Therapy through drama and movement programme (Sesame methode) at the Institute of Therapy and Education through Arts, Epineio in the city of Thessaloniki. Olga is co-presenting at PPLG the workshop “Enforced confinement of a body. The movement as creation of space”.
Olga Batsioki
Epineio Institute for Therapy and Education through Arts, Thessaloniki
Greece
Olga Grigoropoulou
Hellenic Open University, Patra
Greece
Professional Master in Dance with an Emphasis on Dance Training. Degree in psychology. Student of Dance Movement Therapy and Somatic Education.
Founding member of Vidanza. She has worked from the arts and the movement with different populations, communities and processes at the university and independent, national and international level. Academic at the National University of Costa Rica.
Pamela Jiménez
Universidad Nacional, Heredia
Costa Rica
My name is Panagiotis Alexiou and I am the co-founder and coordinator of the youth voluntary team YX Official in Thessalonki, Greece. Studying chemistry, I was bewildered by how our brain chemicals define what we call happiness. Ever since this first contact with neurochemistry, it has been my personal goal to inform people about mental health and to help in the destigmatization of those individuals who bear mental disorders. In our endeavors along with my friend Marina, we decided to utilize our rich volunteering experience and create a team that will represent all those things that we are passionate about. We have been lucky enough to find people who share our thoughts, dreams and goals and together we have made some wonderful work. My hope for the future is that our content can make a difference and provide shelter and understanding to those in need.
Panagiotis Alexiou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki
Greece
Paraskevi is from Thessaloniki, Greece. She lives in the U.K. and studies Psychology at Nottingham Trent University.
She is currently a social arts facilitation intern at the Living Network of ImaginAction, where she has been training in creative facilitation approaches such as the Rainbow of Desire, Newspaper Theatre, and Social Presencing Theatre.
Paraskevi is interested in how performance and creative expression can be used to address social issues and to foster connection, growth, and wellbeing. She believes that the stories we tell and the way in which we choose to narrate, perform, and embody them, are powerful tools for development for people and communities.
She has facilitated support groups for isolating students using storytelling and improv, as well as theatrical play groups for children and adolescents in Greece. She currently co-facilitates the “Arte Migrante” online community group, where people from every background are encouraged to connect through sharing and making of all forms of art.
Paraskevi Sidiropoulou
Nottingham Trent University & ImaginAction, Nottingham
United Kingdom
My name is Nantume Persie. A teacher at Hope For Youth primary school and Ugandan young adult aged 31yrs. In the PPLG conference of the year 2021, as a teacher I propose to talk about the covid19 pandemic and how it has affected our school children and the community at large.
Persie Nantume
Hope For Youth primary school
Uganda
Chair of the Theatre Studies Dept. at Western Galilee academic college in the multicultural town of Akko, Israel also lecturer and acting and improvisation instructor at Tel Aviv University Theatre arts dept. I am particularly concerned with “Inter/ multi – cultural dialogue in the dramatic space” and the way in which this practice impacts people and can change attitudes and the ability to contain and empathize with other people’s lives, beliefs and histories. I have been fortunate to have acquired international experience and expertise in the application of theatre practices and performance for empowering human rights issues, dialogue in conflicted communities, relations in the work place, prisoner, sex workers and substance user rehabilitation.
Peter Harris
Tel Aviv University, Western Galilee academic college, Tel Aviv
Israel
35years of age
A graduate with a honors degree in industrial fine art and design,
Am a single mum of one child aged 11 years and I love children,am a born again Christian and with what I went through raising a child by myself I decided to help the orphans and the less privileged.
Phiona Mirembe
Community children support
Uganda
Priscila Chu is a composer/ arts educator/ producer. She graduated from York University in Canada majored in Music. Later on, she received a teaching diploma and a Master’s degree researched on Music for Autism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She also earned a Ph.D. at Hong Kong Baptist University concentrated in music composition and researched on Collaborative (Integrated) Arts.
In recent years, she has taught a wide range of arts education programs including SmArt Youth Program(2012-presnt), In Search of Voice in a Cramped City (2019- present), and Compassion Children Pilot Program (present) and Re-born (present). She has also composed music for musical ensembles, dance, theatre performances, and documentary film productions. She founded the organization AlpPla and Arts Platform to research, curate and produce arts and education programs. Her recent works include original New Music Theatre Battle (2016, 18) and Pseudo Food (2019)@ Pseudo World.
Priscila Chu
Composer, arts educator, producer, Hong Kong
China
Priyanka Chatterjee
Story Consultant, Process Drama Coach and Design Thinker
Priyanka Chatterjee
Story Consultant, Process Drama Coach and Design Thinker
India
Prudence Caldairou-Bessette is a clinical psychologist and an FQRSC-funded Postdoctoral fellow at both the Department of Integrated studies in Education and the Department of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University. She is also an associate professor of humanistic psychology at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) where she develops humanistic approaches to working with children. In her work with children (in different settings, including Youth mental heath services in the public system and volunteer work), she gives priority in helping families with precarious and vulnerable life situations.
Her Postdoctoral research, entitled « Including Children in Transcultural Mental Heath Research”, promotes listening to children through arts-based participatory methods and aims to build action research projects that can contribute to the representation of children in research as well as to their well-being, development and the prevention of mental health problems, especially for children that have difficult access to services and live under multiple psychosocial stressors.
Prudence Caldairou-Bessette
McGill University/UQAM, Montreal
Canada
We would love to meet you and share together our thoughts and interests.
I have finished German philology in the Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki and in the last three years I study Dramatherapy at Epineio Institute, in Thessaloniki.
I followed the road of dramatherapy, because from my young age I was expressing and healing in a way myself through the art, especially through dancing and physical theater. Very soon I personal realized how therapeutic and helpful the art in a human life is!
In this festival I want to meet other people, to share our ideas and beings. Maybe together we can find a new “colour”.
Furthermore, I would love to participate in others workshops and performances , that they respond to some social groups like people with physical disabilities and migrants.
Rafaella Andreadou
Epineio Institute, Thessaloniki
Greece
Raven Kaliana has directed Puppet (R)Evolution theatre company since 2008, for which she has written scripts; directed and produced plays, films, and awareness-raising events; designed and constructed sets, props, and puppets. She’s presented ‘Hooray for Hollywood,’ her award-winning puppet-based autobiographical film for adults on surviving human trafficking at London City Hall, United Nations in Geneva, Oxford University, and NY Commission on the Status of Women. She has performed her live puppet performance ‘Love vs Trauma’ at Beijing International Puppet Festival; Titeretada Puppet Festival in Puerto Rico; at Play, Perform, Learn, Grow in Greece; Little Angel Theatre in London; Birmingham Broken Puppet Symposium; and Brighton Fringe Festival. She’s presented her films at national and international conferences; has organised panel discussions to follow from her issue-based films at Amnesty UK and Initiatives of Change in London. She created a series of workshops using puppet dramatherapy for trauma recovery and resilience education. BBC News featured both ‘Hooray for Hollywood’ and ‘Love vs Trauma’ in a video feature on her work. Raven’s work and journey have also been chronicled in the Guardian, New York Times, BBC Woman’s Hour, BBC World Service, Copenhagen Post, International Arts Manager, Changemakers Magazine, Puppetry Journal, and Puppetry International. Artist in Residency positions have been awarded by Puppet Centre Trust at Battersea Arts Centre, Little Angel Theatre, and AA2A at Brighton Met College. MA in Advanced Theatre Practice was conferred by Royal Central School of
Raven Kaliana
Puppet (R)Evolution, Brighton
United Kingdom
Rayssa Mesquita is an English teacher and researcher, being a doctorate student in Linguistics at UFPE, Brazil. She holds undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature, and a master’s degree in Linguistics, both also from UFPE. She has 11 years of teaching experience, focusing especially in bilingual education since 2013. Currently, she is a teacher at a bilingual school, and a member of various research groups in the field of Education and Applied Linguistics, such as: LACELI (UFPE), LACE (PUC-SP) and the BRINCADAS Extension Project.
Rayssa Mesquita
UFPE, Recife
Brazil
A social activist, communications professional, passionate cook, gender specialist, proud mother, practicing poet and exhibited artist, Reem has roots in a number of European and Arab countries. Some roots she was born with, others she planted during her many migrations.
She currently resides in Cyprus, working as a UN communication consultant and practicing as a narrative, visual and performance artist, and runs the Beirut based pan-Arab non-profit organization Sharq.Org.
Reem is currently leading a research project on the relationship between conflict, migration, belonging and identity in partnership with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The outputs of the ongoing project include a podcast, animations and a thought paper. Another research project run by Sharq.Org explores and documents instances of inter-religious and -ethnic cooperation across the Arab world during the pandemic.
Reem Maghribi
Sharq.Org, Beirut
Lebanon
Rian Evers (1985) is a Dutch theatre-maker and musician who graduated both from the theatre school as the conservatory. Self-employed, she works as a musical director for PS|theater, an independent singersongwriter and a workshop-leader (both in theatre as in music).
She has been working for the foundation “De Vrolijkheid” (The Cheerfulness) for over 2 years, as a music workshop leader at the AZC (asylum seeking centre) of Utrecht, including during the pandemic. De Vrolijkheid is a network of professional artists, volunteers and inhabitants of the AZC’s organising artistic and creative workshops in more than 25 asylum seeking centres in the Netherlands.
As a music workshop leader in Utrecht she has been hosting weekly music nights, both live and online, for all inhabitants of the AZC. Having lived abroad for several years she speaks multiple languages, but most importantly she advocates the language of music, believing strongly in the power of music in creating moments of togetherness, joy, empowerment and belonging.
Rian Evers
Stichting de Vrolijkheid, Utrecht
Netherlands
Rosina Eleni Filippidou, started as a professional dancer and dance teacher. Acquired her BSc (Hons) in Psychology and MSc in Psychological Research Methods from The Open University and a PGdip in Drama and Movement Therapy from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. She is also a certified EMDR therapist.
As a psychotherapist, she has worked in private therapeutic centers, psychiatric hospitals, centers for rehabilitation of people with learning difficulties and shelters for children and adolescents at risk. She now works privately as a psychotherapist in Thessaloniki, Greece.
She has participated with oral presentations and workshops, in numerous European and National conferences and has published articles referring to the importances of arts in therapy.
She is the scientific coordinator of the Institute for Therapy and Education Through Arts EPINEIO.
Rosina Eleni Filippidou
Epineio, Institute for Therapy and Training through Arts
Greece
Rubén has a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Iowa State University and a Master’s Degree in Violence and Mental Health from the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in Nicaragua. He has worked for more than 20 years with the foundation Puntos de Encuentro doing trainings and other forms of non-formal education for the development of leadership with young people and the promotion of equal rights between men and women, with emphasis on gender and masculinities. As part of this work, he is also co-author of several guides and manuals for trainnings on these issues. As an activist, he was one of the founders of the Association of Men against Violence (AHCV) and of the Masculinity Network for Gender Equality (REDMAS), as well as of the Latin American Network for Play and Leisure (RELAJO). For the past three years, Ruben has worked as an independent consultant facilitating workshops on the psychosocial approach, gender and masculinity.
Rubén Reyes Jirón
Puntos de Encuentro Foundation, Managua
Nicaragua
Sandra Borges is based in Brazil and has 18 years’ experience in the ELT field working as an English teacher, director of studies, and teacher trainer. She holds postgraduate degrees in Bilingual Education and English Language Teaching, a BA is in Languages, English/Portuguese and, now, she is pursuing a Master’s degree in Teaching English at Saint Mary’s University, Canada. She is a member of a study group on bi/multilingual education (GEEB) that is a partner with the research group LACE (Language in Activities in the School Context) affiliated to the University PUC-SP, where she participates in the BRINCADAS Extension Project. Currently, she works as a Partner Relationship Coordinator at Oxford University Press.
Sandra Borges
Saint Mary’s University, São Paulo
Brazil
Sandra Paola López Ramírez is an interdisciplinary dancemaker, cultural organizer, improviser and mother. She was born and raised in the luscious Andes mountains in what is currently known as Bogotá, Colombia and her relationship to the Andean landscape, the music and dances from Afro and indigenous peoples in this territory and her mixed heritage deeply influences her artistic work and activism. Sandra Paola now lives in the Chihuahuan desert straddling the U.S.-Mexico border, another beautiful and complex region that has shaped her understanding of the connection between body, ancestral memory and land. In her decades of work, she has developed her practice to radically integrate her creative process and her community organizing efforts creating small and large scale works that activate public spaces, non-traditional and formal performance venues, and natural landscapes. Her commitment to transformation and healing is mostly manifested in the work of the Institute for Improvisation and Social Action (ImprovISA), an organization that she co-founded and directs. Sandra Paola holds a M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts with a concentration on Performance Creation from Goddard College and a Master in Education with a focus on Aesthetics from the University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign.
Sandra Paola López Ramírez
Institute for Improvisation and Social Action, El Paso
Colombia, United States
Sanjay Kumar (New Delhi, India) is a practitioner of activist theatre. As the founding President of pandies’ theatre and the director/chief-facilitator of its productions and workshops since 1993, he has been creating performances with and for the marginalized in India for over 20 years. His work comprises: scripting and directing over 30 proscenium performances, creating protest and community theatre and above all, using the workshop mode for creating theatre with young people in the margins. A resident of the Rockefeller Bellagio Centre, Bellagio, Italy (2010), a participant of US Government’s prestigious IVLP program – Promoting Social Change Through the Arts (2011) and a Graduate of the International Class on Social Psychology of the ESI (East Side Institute of Short and Long Term Therapy, New York; at present he is an International Associate of the ESI), he has published in several journals, presented at seminars and conducted workshops all over the world. He wrote and directed Offtrack, (a play from years of experience of working with platform children) which was staged at the PTW, New York in 2012. He has been an Associate Professor of the Department of English, Hans Raj College, University of Delhi since 1984. His Ph.D. thesis covers a PaR (Performance as Research) on Activist theatre from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Sanjay Kumar
pandies’ theatre, New Delhi
India
Sarah Namuli
Sarah Namuli
Uganda
Sarai is a clinical and community psychologist, curious to explore the relations and connectivity between personal and social development.
Over the last seven years, she has worked as a psychologist with adults, teenagers, and children, led social community initiatives and participatory leadership programs. She incorporates writing and photography, as tools of observation in her work.
Sarai is a nomadic spirit, driving inspiration and experience by living in different communities, finding connection with a broad diversity of people, and stretching the boundaries of the familiar, time and time again.
Whether by photographing, facilitating, leading a community or by working as a psychologist- it all connects to the same core; Gaining and offering new perspectives that can drive personal and collective change.
Sarai Ella Smadja
The Windmill, Tel Aviv-Jaffa
Israel
Shakira Namuwaya
Makerere University
Uganda
Sharon Green
Davidson College, Davidson
USA
Sheila Katzman
ImaginAction / living network of ImaginAction, Brooklyn
USA
Originally from Spain, with a background in Media, Education and Theatre, Silvia is a passionate educator who has over a decade of experience living, teaching and developing and leading projects and workshops in six different continents – For example: Storytelling towards cultural inclusion in Morocco; Leadership Trainings focused on Cross-communities understanding in Northern Ireland; Active Citizens’ projects support and empowerment in Kenya; fomenting Sustainable community-based action plans in Peru, supporting young journalists at the European Parliament and Theatre for Self-awareness in China.
Silvia lived in Beijing for eight years, where she was working as a Spanish, Media, Creative Writing and Theatre teacher in a Chinese High School. She also was an official member of the Beijing Broads, China’s first all female Improv troupe, which stands for female empowerment, pushes back against stereotypes of women in comedy, aims to find humor in inclusiveness and donates all profits to Educating Girls of Rural China.
In her classes and workshops, she utilizes a holistic approach to foster dialogue, enhance communication and promote environmental, social and self-awareness, by using techniques from Applied Improv, Theatre of the Oppressed, Theatre for Living, The Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter and Mindfulness, among many others.
Silvia Perdiguero
Media, Education and Theatre, Bilbao
Spain
Steven T. Licardi, LMSW is an Autistic social worker, spoken word poet, actor, and performance activist working at the intersections of art and social policy. He (usually) travels internationally using the power of spoken word to create empathic dialogue around, to confront the realities of, and to assist communities in dismantling the stigma surrounding mental health and mental illness. Since 2016, his ever-evolving performance series #CoupDeMot has been confronting how mental illnesses manifest out of oppressive social pathologies by tracing the hidden history of mental health treatment in the U.S. and juxtaposing those truths to works appearing in his second collection of poetry, ‘a billion burning dreams’ (STL, 2018). Versions have appeared in Vigo, Spain in 2016; in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 2018; and Thessaloniki, Greece in 2019. www.thesvenbo.com
Steven Licardi
The East Side Institute, Blacksburg
USA
Stevi Basiakou is a Dance-Therapist through Primitive Expression (Association Danse Rythme Lien Social et Therapie-based in Paris). Her research paper was on the subject: “The beneficial effect of Dance Rhythm Therapy through Primitive expression on voice, self-esteem and teaching efficiency”. Furthermore, she has worked as a Consultant in Counseling and Vocational Guidance (Panteion University). She also studied English Literature and Linguistics (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). She has been involved in dance for 25 years, gradually moving from traditional dances and ballet to flamenco, Latin and Argentine tango with certified examinations (IDTA and Spanish Dance Society) and participation in performances. In 2014 she started attending training seminars of Dance Movement Therapy and in 2016 she started her training in Dance Therapy through Primitive Expression. She has attended vocal lessons, courses in African percussion, Physical Theater, Drama-Therapy (AION), Improvisation (Improvibe) and Theatrical Creation (Panhellenic Network for Theater in Education). She also participated in a play as a member of a theatrical group called: “No name”. Her long-term work as a Teacher, a Consultant, Organiser of conferences for the European Union Directorate of the Ministry of Education, her voluntary involvement as Head of Missions Abroad for the International Organization CISV, have offered her extensive experience in managing and animating groups.
Stevi Basiakou
DRLST Education of Northern Greece-Epineio, Athens
Greece
Subhashini Goda Venkataramani is a Bharatanatyam dancer, researcher, and a poet from Chennai, India. Coming from an academic background in English Literature, she has just completed her international Erasmus masters degree (Choreomundus), and her research interests incline towards performative practices from India and the Indian diaspora, aesthetics, ritual transgression, politics, migration and identity. With fifteen years of pedagogical and choreographic experience, she currently looks forward to artistic and academic collaborations with artists from varied creative practices.
Subhashini Goda
Choreomundus Master, Chennai
India
Sue Proctor is a doctoral student in the Concordia University Individualized Program (INDI), where the focus of her thesis is the relationship of clowning to community and culture. She is researching clowning after performing and teaching for over thirty years. Creator of six original fringe theatre shows, Sue was a founding member of the Canadian Association of Therapeutic Clowns and co-founded the St. Boniface hospital clown program. Sue uses clowning to inform her work teaching drama to all ages and abilities and creates performances combining clown with storytelling and puppets. Her Master’s thesis is available online – “The Archetypal Role of the Clown as a Catalyst for Individual and Societal Transformation” https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/977096/
Sue Proctor
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
present position is Head of the department of General Educational Development at Daffodil International University. He is also the university’s Director of Students’ Affairs, and in that role, has developed different training and skills building tools to develop employability skills. He has created a course called “Art of Living” jointly with Dr. Sabur Khan to develop young people with basic humanitarian qualities; it is attended by 22,000 students each semester. In addition to his university work, Syed has been conducting training and psychosocial support for women and children affected by poverty, catastrophic cyclones, and other disasters for the last 20 years. Syed is also very much attached with East Side Institute after graduation from there 13 years back. He is also a theatre director and co-founder of Theatre for Education, Research and Education ( TREE Foundation ). raju@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd
Syed Rahman
Daffodil University
Bangladesh
Brazilian visual artist and actress, teacher of theater initiation. He is currently finishing her master’s studies in Combined Artistic Languages of the National University of Arts – UNA, Buenos Aires. He studied at the School of Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro EAV – Parque Lage, worked in production and theatrical direction in the cities of Curitiba and Rio de Janeiro. He has worked in the local production of the play “San Barrabás” from the group“ Os PataPhisicos ”(Rio de Janeiro) in Buenos Aires.
Co-creator of the collective HUESO [visual collective]. He is currently implementing the sociocultural project “Barra do Sul Cultural” in the city of Barra do Sul in Brazil.
Taiane Carvalheiro
Collective Gestos de Cuidado , Santa Rita
Brazil
Tamsin is a social theatre practitioner, community organiser and Dramatherapist based in the UK. She has a background in both community arts and academic research. She has worked in a range of contexts, including community dialogue for social change, disability rights, community mental health, learning disabilities, prison, intercultural & cross border arts exchange, and with children and young people, and Legislative Theatre to rethink social security system. She is politically active around mental health and social justice and in 2014 co-founded Psychologists for Social Change, a UK-based organisation that campaigns around the political and economic impacts on community wellbeing and mental health.
Tamsin Curno
ImaginAction / living network of ImaginAction, London
United Kingdom
Tejaswinee Jhunjhunwala
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
A committed life-long learner, Thandi O’Hagan has 20 years’ experience working with and promoting innovative education projects designed to meet the needs of students, teachers and families in diverse communities across South Africa. Fascinated by the intersection of arts and science in service of humanity, Thandi is also an Embodied coach specializing in addiction recovery, an Expressive Movement dance facilitator, a Dj and a Kahuna massage therapist. Thandi is an avid dancer with over 30 years of free-form dance experience on a variety of dance floors. Thandi doesn’t much like being told what to do and is a fervent believer in personal freedom. She knows however, that her freedom is dependent on the freedom of others and is committed to creating a world in which we all feel safe to belong and freely express our individual beauty.
Box-breaker – Embodied Educator – Authentic Communicator – Inclusivity Mama
Thandi O’hagan
The Expressive Movement Foundation, Johannesburg
South Africa
During Covid Thecla further studied the social therapeutic approach to apply it to her coaching practice. She is interested in creating environments where individuals, family members, care givers and others can build an ensemble of support using play, radical acceptance and improv. Currently co-leading life coaching groups, Thecla works as an Operations Manager with a global alongside a new life coaching practice.
Thecla Farrell
Global Play Brigade, New York
Trinidad and Tobago, USA
Theodoros Kostidakis is a dramatherapist (MA Drama and Movement Therapy from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) and a shadow puppeteer (Greek traditional Karaghiozis) based in London. He also has a first degree and MA in architecture. Theodoros has worked as a drama teacher, performer, facilitator and/or dramatherapist with socially excluded children, unaccompanied asylum seekers and refugees in Greece, Cyprus and the UK. He currently works for the Refugee Council, as a therapist and manager of the therapeutic services for separated children across the UK. Theodoros has presented his work at several conferences; organised by the British Association of Dramatherapists, University of South Wales, the Royal Anthropological Institute and the British Museum, among others.
Thodoris Kostidakis
Dramatherapist, London
United Kingdom
I am artistic director of Creation Myth Puppets. For ten years I was artistic director of The Moveable Feast Workshop Company. I am a freelance puppeteer, performer, writer and workshop artist leading workshops nationally and internationally for over 30 years with children, adults and artists. I have lectured at the Royal College of Arts, Dartington College of Arts, Exeter, Concordia , Regina, Birmingham and Plymouth Universities. I specialise in leading workshops that end in spectacular puppet shows made by young people. I did a Masters degree in Applied Drama and have written two books on Workshop as a distinctive form of arts practice. In collaboration with Dr Warren Linds we have just completed a new book: “Workshop- the art of creative enquiry” to be published by Springer
Tony Gee
Creation Myth Puppets, Totnes
United Kingdom
Umut Erel
The Open University, Milton Keynes
United Kingdom
Uri Noy Meir was born in a small village near the sea of Galilee and is now based and lives in central Italy. He is well versed and experienced in facilitating and activating the untapped collective intelligence and dormant creativity in communities, organizations and multi-stakeholders eco-systems.
Uri has trained with the world’s leading experts in Theatre of the Oppressed, Dragon Dreaming and Social Presencing Theatre, and uses them as trans-formative ingredients with which to empower communities and individuals in diverse settings and contexts.
Uri is trained in Dragon Dreaming, a holistic method for the implementation of creative, collaborative, sustainable projects, and is dedicated to bringing the transformative power of the arts to turn “wounds” into “blessings”, and illuminate the “what is” and “what if” in communities, organizations and whole systems.
As an Advanced Practitioner of Social Presencing Theatre, Uri participated in the inaugural Presencing Institute’s Social Field Research Summer School, and he is part of a global network of researchers sensing and iterating new pathways for awareness-based system change.
Uri believes in the power of the arts to grow and make visible our interconnectedness nature and support greater well-being for people, organizations, and the world.
Uri Yitzchak Noy Meir
ImaginAction / University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Tuoro Sul Trasimeno
Italy
Valbona has a degree in Theatre Direction at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana (Albania). Have chosen to work in the intercultural sector and among my laboratory activities is working with persons coming from backgrounds from the cultural and social point of view. As such I work with refugees, victims of torture, immigrants, schools with major foreign pupils, care centres and communities. Have attended masterclass and workshops with Giorgio Strehler, Mamadou Diume, Maria Horne, Cesar Brie, Violeta Luna, Emma Dante, Julia Varley, Cristina Castrillo, Eugenio Barba etc.
Valbona Xibri
Ballkan Teater, Brescia
Italy
Valerie Green has been an active dancer, choreographer and teacher in the New York City dance community since 1995. She created her own company, Dance Entropy in 1998, adding a permanent company home in 2005 called Green Space. Green Space serves the dance community by providing an affordable and welcoming environment for rehearsals, classes, and performances. Her choreography has been seen throughout NYC and has also toured to various venues throughout the US. Internationally she has taught and performed in Albania, Armenia, Austria Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, France, Guatemala, Georgia, Greece, India, Italy, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Sweden. As a teacher, Green has integrated modern dance technique, and creative movement, along with her therapeutic somatic based movement practices to develop two individualized methodologies, Dance Your Frame and Skimming the Surface. She holds workshops for all populations rooted in the philosophy that all bodies can benefit from dance, from the professional or aspiring dancer to trauma survivors, senior citizens, persons with disabilities or at-risk youth, Green fosters creativity and physicality beyond the stage. Valerie’s choreographic work and teaching style is influenced by her formative years working with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, her certification in Body/Mind Fitness, her practice as a Somatic Psychotherapist, and undergraduate work at University of Wisconsin.
Valerie Green
Dance Entropy, Inc., New York City
USA
Xenia Orgielewski – member of the ChancesToChange Community, a growing international movement bringing a better world into being using the game and playing together to connect and co-create meaning
Xenia Orgielewski
ChancesToChange Community, Antwerp
Belgium
Warren Linds is Associate Professor, Department of Applied Human Sciences, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada and Graduate Program Director of the Masters in Human Systems Intervention in the same department. He has had extensive experience in applied theatre and community development. This background has been critical to his teaching approach where he brings practical experiences and theoretical approaches together. He is the co-editor (with Elinor Vettraino) of Playing in a Hall of Mirrors. Applied Theatre as Reflective Practice (Sense, 2015) and (with Linda Goulet and Ali Sammel), Emancipatory practices: Adult/youth engagement for social and environmental justice (Sense, 2010).
Warren Linds
Concordia University, Montreal
Canada
Viviane Carrijo holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from PUCSP. She works as a Portuguese language teacher and a textbook author. She is also a youth researcher at UNESCO and a member of LACE Research Group (PUCSP), focusing on educational practices. She has the dream of changing the world and wipe out social inequalities!
Viviane Carrijo
Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo
Brazil
Vasintha Pather is a South Africa based organisational development specialist and mental health professional. Her work is primarily focused on supporting organisational leaders and teams to craft cultures that promote mental health, innovation and whole-systems effectiveness. She is the founder of the Centre for Gestalt Leadership which provides organisational coaching and consulting services in culture design and trauma-informed approaches using arts, somatic and narrative-based methodologies.
As a registered Drama Therapist with the Health Professionals Council of South Africa, Vasintha has a private practice specialising in psycho-dramatic and somatic approaches in strengthening mental and emotional health.
She is part-time faculty at Henley Business School Africa where she leads learning experiences in visual thinking and strengths-based leadership; a part-time lecturer at the University of Johannesburg where she facilitates learning in the application of imagery in art therapy and counseling, and is on the management board of Lawyers Against Abuse (LvA), a not-for-profit entity providing legal and psychosocial support to survivors of gender-based violence.
Vasintha Pather
Centre for Gestalt Leadership, Johannesburg
South Africa
Licensed and professor in Social Communication Sciences, from the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires (UBA).
She has a Master’s degree (thesis in preparation process) from the postgraduate degree in Combined Artistic Languages at the National University of the Arts (UNA).
Her passage through the UNA has caused that she could approach to the artistic practice through installations, digital collages, performances and participation of group shows in exhibition spaces and also self-management generated.
She is a Secondary Education teacher in the School Support Network of the Socio-Educational Board of the Government of Buenos Aires City.
She also does freelance work writing articles, correcting monographs, producing audiovisual projects and graphic realizations.
She is a reading mediator in the popular reading workshops and popular library Donde Viven los Libros, inside the popular organization El Fogón, promoting training workshops for reading mediators from different territories, to guarantee the right to read and with it the meanings generation and the word democratization through collective reading practices.
Yana Bertolo
Collective Gestos de Cuidado , Wilde
Argentina
Yiannis Kaminis is exhibiting as an artist since 2014. He is a psychoanalyst since 2012; a lecturer of marketing and communications for BA and MA Degrees since 2004; a consultant for EUROPEAID projects since 2004, with overall 24 years of experience in advising public administration, NGO and private sector corporations and organizations.
As an international artist, he is inspired by people, ideas and phenomena evident in the sphere of conscious and unconscious life. His choice of colors represents vibrational dynamics and the paintings emerge as a flow of energy. Each painting has a multifaceted meaning unveiling archetypical signs and symbols with multilevel volumes and spaces. The artist is in an altered state of consciousness during the painting process and usually selects music to accompany the energy representation of themes. When he paints for people he selects their color dynamic and continues with the imagery on canvas as a finger print of unique identity. Yiannis Kaminis exhibits his paintings of acrylic on canvas through collaborating galleries, art fair shows and fundraising events in Europe, Beirut – Lebanon, Riyadh – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Seoul – South Korea, New York – USA, Kiev – Ukraine. Selected paintings can be seen at www.yianniskaminis.com
Yiannis Kaminis
yianniskaminis.com, Thessaloniki
Greece
Youla Koutsoubou holds a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Technology and has worked in educational – environmental actions, always with a creative orientation and the reuse of “useless” materials. She has cooperated with age mixed populations by travelling. She likes trees, nature and composing objects by giving them a new form and use.
Youla Koutsoubou
Lesvos Solidarity – Humade Crafts Workshop, Mosaik Support Center – Lesvos
Greece