Programme

Thursday 05/09/2024
10.45AM (duration: 45 minutes)
Room 201-393, Building 201

Presenters: Madeleine McGirk, Managing Director of ITAC & ITAC Leadership Committee

Session Description:
To set the scene for ITAC7, find out how ITAC was formed, its history, it’s achievements, hopes and plans  for the future. 

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Lecture Theatre 201-440, Building 201

Presenter: Eric Booth, ITAC, USA

Session Description:
The goal of this session is to sharpen participants’ awareness of the big picture of the field they are part of. It has been my experience that a clearer grasp of the whole invigorates teaching artists to become more active locally, as well as globally with ITAC, in their areas of greatest passion and opportunity. This session strengthens advocacy skills. The workshop investigates the key questions that the field is addressing. the workshop providers an opportunity for discussion and inquiry into key areas of opportunity and challenge and spark our thinking about the ways they come to life in the various settings in our global network. Colleagues across countries rarely have an opportunity to think together about the field they are a part of—the biennial ITAC conference is the place where that happens. In this session, I will jumpstart the inquiry by sharing my sense of what seems to be moving and opening up in our field, and then tap the local wisdom in the room.

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-334, Building 201

Presenter: Jenny Dale Stables, Jenny Dale Designs / Arts Commons Calgary, Canada

Session Description:
Paper tells a story. From its beginning as a tree or plant to its initial intended use (packaging, books, plates, cups) it has traveled the world and encountered animals, humans, insects, and the elements. Yet despite this remarkable journey, we rarely pause to reflect on the value and significance of post consumer papers.
Participants will engage with a variety of post-consumer papers (magazines, newspapers, cardboard, cups, plates) by folding, bending, cutting, and crumpling them. They will be asked to reflect on the story of the paper. Where did it come from? Who has it been?
Participants will then pair this exploration with the construction of robot-like puppet characters using post consumer papers. The symbol of a robot, while often seen as cold and inhuman, can also be seen as a symbol of ingenuity- an attempt to bring life to inanimate objects. Yet with the speed of technology, they also represent the obsolete and forgotten. What stories and reflections can arise from pairing this symbol with post consumer papers?
Led by experienced teaching artist, Jenny Dale Stables, this workshop encourages us to pause, reflect, and celebrate that which makes us human- our stories, our imperfections, and our imagination.

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-326, Building 201

Presenters: Jacki Kauli & Verena Thomas, Papua New Guinea and Australia

Session Description:
While there has been progress in the inclusion and appreciation of Indigenous knowledge systems to support equitable change, much work is still needed to challenge systemic barriers that continue to ignore the value and importance of local knowledge systems. Connecting Indigenous practices and arts-based approaches provides opportunities to share and reflect on local systems and understand our relationships to each other and our environments.
The workshop facilitators Jackie Kauli and Verena Thomas work across the Pacific region, in the nexus of international development research and practice and arts-based pedagogy. Informing their work is the fundamental belief that Indigenous knowledge systems must inform ways of working and seeing in the Pacific, to forge collaborations and contribute to change. According to Shawn Wilson, researchers must engage in “deep listening and hearing with more than the ears,” and develop a “reflective, non-judgmental consideration of what is being seen and heard,” as well as “awareness and connection between logic of mind and the feelings of the heart.” Indigenous methodologies combined with arts-based approaches provide the tools to explore the stories of knowledge from within and thereby co-creating meaningful narratives and representations. They present opportunities to shift our perspectives towards relational understandings and engagements that move beyond words to better reflect the complex web of our histories and agencies and carve a path for collective hope.
In this workshop, the facilitators will share examples of how arts-based approaches can be utilised in Pacific and Indigenous contexts for collective action. Participants will have an opportunity to share their experiences and participate in activities to see the potential of these creative approaches in action.

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Arts Studio 201-122, Building 201

Presenter: Zoe Hogan, Australia

Session Description:
This participatory workshop will explore learning, unlearning, revisiting, and reconceiving of what we think we know about Teaching Artistry. With the figure of Penelope from the Greek myth The Odyssey at the centre, this workshop will explore teaching artistry as a process of weaving, unweaving, and reweaving. The metaphor of weaving is intended to invoke an incredibly ordered and meticulous approach to building knowledge, thread by thread, layer by layer. The name of Penelope has become synonymous with patience and fidelity. However, she can also be considered a transgressor and a trickster (Massoura, 2017), akin to the Teaching Artist who works in subversive and subtle ways.

Drawing on experiences of collaborating on a process drama with Community/Heritage Language teachers in Western Sydney, this workshop will consider the figure of Penelope anew, as a female leader and artist, an unconventional ‘hero’ who both does something (weaves a cloth) and then undoes that action (unweaves the cloth). It is in the circular actions of undoing and redoing that Penelope demonstrates her intelligence and independence. This embodied workshop will work with a diffractive approach to understanding Teaching Artistry, threading theory through experience, and experience through theory to weave new insights and learnings. Participants will engage with strands of theory, combined with their own experiences, in order to encounter new knowledges. The workshop approach encourages multiplicity, ambiguity, and continually unfolding reflections on participants’ Teaching Artist practices. Just as weaving is an embodied, performative task, in this conception of Teaching Artistry, experience and theory become co-constitutive forces, working with and upon the researcher/Teaching Artist (Taguchi, 2012) in a process of becoming-with (Haraway, 2008).

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Studio 201-120, Building 201

Presenter: Danica Rosengren, Maui Arts & Cultural Centre, USA

Session Description:
This interactive workshop will look at a case study of place responsive sensory gallery/immersive performance for neurodivergent young people/touring performance: Under the Blue, developed in partnership between Capitol Modern: The Hawai’i State Art Museum and Honolulu Theatre for Youth. Through activities, discussions and sharing, participants will be invited to reflect upon partnerships and possible spectacle-based opportunities for neurodivergent young people in their communities. The session will culminate with a discussion about youth self efficacy and cultural responsiveness to neurodiversity.

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Visual Arts Lab 201-465, Building 201

Presenter: Fié Neo, International Network for Socially Engaged Practitioners, UK & Singapore

Session Description:
Pop up of Dreams and Imagination is a public intervention ito imagine alternative futures, economies and ways of living. The intervention is a provocation and an invitation to collaborate and to dream together. The goal is to invite people of different backgrounds into a circle of conversation. Participation could look like organic conversations on the streets or adding something into one of the several booklets (The book of future reckoning(s), book of dreams and imagination etc) – it could be drawings, collage, poetry or text. The materials collected from participants will be exhibited at the conference and future exhibitions around the world
Teaching Artists will go out on local streets with a placard (that has a provoking question of their choice) and invite the public to be a part of future imaginings. The public can also be invited to hold a placard and talk to another stranger. Some initial provocations from the book of Future Reckoning(s) that could feature on the placard include:
How would nature design human economies? How would trees imagine human societies? What if we were land guardians not owners? What if legally we could only own one property? What if earnings from AI and robots go towards wages in the arts, environmental and community spaces? What if success was measured in terms of connectedness to community and how much is given back to our shared ecosystem? TAs are welcomed to create a placard with their own question. We will gather after the intervention to share reflections and learning.

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Dance Studio 201-130, Building 201

Presenter: Katherine Thomas, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
“The Scaffold” is a play about theatre and social change and was developed over a 10-year period with theatre-artists from the Auckland community. This session is an interactive play-reading showcasing the new performance. Theatre and Social Change take on human form in The Scaffold, and are affectionately known as Theo and Sos. The play explores their relationship, history and significantly invites audience and cast participation to be part of the stage show. The play highlights the deep challenges of creating theatre for change, the ever-moving relationships at play, and the bigger questions of how to encourage action and lasting impact.
This play will be the first New Zealand based reading before it is further developed by schools, communities and theatre practitioners.

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Dance Studio 201-132, Building 201

Presenter: Chi Lui Flora Wong, Griffith University, Australia

Session Description:
Musician, educator, and researcher Chi Lui Flora Wong shares a variety of creative research activities that reimagine the Artist-in-Residence as a methodology for artists and researchers who work with communities and wish to do so ethically and with reciprocity. Research in the field of community arts or socially-engaged arts is on the rise as the world grapples with rising inequity, but much of it relies on methodologies that sideline creativity and relationality. If we accept that art is inherently social, we must also embrace creative ways of doing sociological research, and discourage researchers from setting aside their artistic selves when conducting rigorous research. Via a series of musical offerings and a discussion of the role they play in her research, Flora demonstrates how an Artist-in-Residence methodology can provide a different way to listen, learn, and imagine the future with a community. Musicking is woven through her research; as literature, as data, as a site of data gathering, as analysis, and as knowledge-sharing.
This framework for understanding the Artist-in-Residence in a research context builds on artistic research, participatory action research, and autoethnographic methodologies, while drawing on place-based arts practices and the concept of artistic citizenship. By placing art-making at the centre of research design, Flora invites artists and researchers to reflect on how their practices can be interwoven.

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (45 minutes)
Fale Pasifika

Presenters: Molima Molly Pihigia QSM in conversation with Toluma’anave Barbara Makuati-Afitu & Kolokesa Uafā Māhina-Tuai from Lagi-Maama

Session Description:
More details to come…

Thursday 05/09/2024
12.15PM (45 minutes)
Fale Pasifika

Presenters: Louisa Humphry MNZM in conversation with Toluma’anave Barbara Makuati-Afitu & Kolokesa Uafā Māhina-Tuai from Lagi-Maama

Session Description:
More details to come…

Thursday 05/09/2024
11.30AM (1.5 hours)
Waipapa Marae – Whare Nui

Presenter: Dagmar Dyck, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
Storytelling through the arts is embedded in Pacific cultural ways and is meaningfully expressed by interweaving history, genealogy, cultural values, and beliefs. My investigation into Pasifika students’ success as Pasifika in visual arts was revealed through the students’ art works and stories. Visual art teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and pedagogical practices were also examined to illuminate the critical role they play in affirming Pasifika student success as Pasifika. The inclusion of my own experiences and art works as a visual artist of Tongan and German descent, grounds the research project and offers voice to my creative critical sense-making process. This presentation also offers an exploratory examination of falanoa as an intergenerational arts-based research method, specifically in the context of my own body of koloa, a personal collection of treasured artworks generated across a thirty-year period. Recognising my duality of distinct ancestral worlds, this presentation suggests that falanoa can be a valuable method for arts-based research, particularly in the context of creative critical sense-making, cultural preservation, and intergenerational knowledge.

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (1.5 hours)
Lecture Theatre 201-440, Building 201

Presenter: Tricia Tunstall, USA

Session Description:
Why don’t more people across the world “get” the full impact and value of teaching artistry?
This session will explore one possible answer: Teaching artists are great at doing creative, life-changing, community-changing work—but they’re sometimes less successful at communicating their full impact.As editor of The Ensemble for twelve years, I’ve had the unique opportunity to work with hundreds of teaching artists from over forty countries across the world, supporting them in the process of writing about their work. Over half are members of the global majority. For most, this is their first published article.This workshop will focus on how teaching artists communicate about what they do—and how they can do so with greater effectiveness. We’ll explore both the vast variety among global programs and also some basic writing precepts that can help any teaching artist, in any program, convey the essence of their work.

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (3 hours)
Room 201-334, Building 201

Presenters: Karen Youngberg & Jenny Dale Stables, Arts Commons Calgary, Canada

Session Description:
Join us in reimagining arts education with a team of multi-disciplinary artists.
Arts ReimaginED: the MAKING, is an innovative arts education program in Western Canada’s largest arts centre, Arts Commons. Connecting teachers, students, families, arts organizations, and artists, Arts ReimaginED: the MAKING shares authentic arts experiences to enrich lives and provide other ways of knowing.
Five diverse and talented artists from Calgary, Alberta have come together to activate the imaginations, possibilities, and artistry of the participants at ITAC 7. Offering a space to deepen the conversation about arts education; we are asking provoking questions:
What if we allowed children to linger in the creative process?
What if children created art to learn how to be in process?
What if we promote art making that fosters surprise and delight that gives voice to youth?
Calgary Arts ReimagED: Creativity in the Making will inspire and embolden teaching artists to celebrate their diverse practices to reinvigorate our local and our global communities.
Participants will engage in a hands-on, and thought-provoking journey designed to ignite imagination and curiosity. Starting with sensory experiences, participants are encouraged to play, fostering a deep sense of community, and belonging. We will then explore a rich tapestry of artistic expression using visual arts, poetry, stories, found object exploration, and assemblage..
Through reflection, collaboration, and sharing, participants are invited to explore their teaching artistry and how they can reimagine the messy middle of their creative process and the intrinsic benefits this can bring.
Transcend the ordinary, embrace the process, and redefine the boundaries of artistic education. Join us for a workshop that promises to be a beacon of inspiration, fostering a global community of teaching artists committed to pushing the limits of creative education.

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-326, Building 201

Presenter: Simon Sharkey, The Necessary Space, UK & Canada

Session Description:
This year the Doomsday clock was reset to register 90 seconds till midnight- the measure of how close we are to total collapse.
The climate clock tells us we only have 5 years to act before we reach the tipping point of not being able to stop global warming beyond 1.5 degrees.
Our youth and communities are drowning in anxiety and a sense of hopelessness and helplessness fuelled by news, a lack of leadership and inaction. We believe that the power to change things has has been corrupted and made ineffective. It is time to take action, but what can we do in the face of such immense power ? We can make a thousand acts of kindness and believe in the restorative power of joy and connection.
We want to offer positive solutions to turn back the doomsday and climate clocks.
Using the 90 seconds prediction, we will ask people to devise a connection and action that will mitigate against the disconnect, the inaction, the fear, the doom, the sense of isolation and polarisation. We will devise several 90 second encounters and encourage delegates to participate and post their encounters in an attempt to start a global viral trend. e.g planting a seed together, washing someone’s hands who has opposing points of view from you and staring into their eyes for 90 seconds. Spending 90 seconds with a homeless person. Stopping traffic for 90 seconds by placing flowers on their windscreens and exhaust pipes. We will be inspired by and copy some of the peace and love protests of the 60’s and 80’s and ally them to the wisdom of elders and indigenous thought leadership driving systems change that is lost in the maelstrom of consumerism. We will go viral.

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (1.5 hours)
Arts Studio 201-122, Building 201

Presenter: Kate Taylor Ellis, Kate Taylor Ellis Coaching; Drama Victoria, Australia

Session Description:
In a recent movie, ‘Past Lives’, there is an extraordinary 2minutes of stillness and silence held between the two protagonists. In Marina Abramović’s art piece ‘The Artist is Present’, stillness and silence is held with members of the public. In Tricia Hersey’s book ‘Rest is Resistance’, rest is seen as a political act. We could also speak to Susan Cain and Dr Thomas Boyce’s work on introversion and sensitivity; and then there’s the Victorian curriculum for VCE Drama which states that the Dramatic Element Sound is also ‘ …the absence of sound’.
We are supposed to be teaching this. But how many of us find moments for stillness and silence in our classrooms as much as our everyday lives? We scroll through our phones at the slightest hint of empty space, and the drama classroom is ‘supposed’ to be a lively, active and noisy space. Or is it?
In this workshop Kate will gift ways into approaching the power of stillness and silence in the Drama classroom as much as the treasures it bestows upon a world so busy now, it’s hard to give the brain time to file a day let alone to daydream, imagine and create.
At times borrowing from Mindfullness activities (such as the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, activity), at others using those practices used with professional actors (activities in intimacy, listening in a full-bodied way, silent play…) this workshop will be fun and embodied as well as transferable across a variety of disciplines and personal spheres.

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (1.5 hours)
Studio 201-120, Building 201

Presenter: Jan Mcconnell, Mauri Tui Tuia Creative Therapies, NZ

Session Description:
Mauri Tui Tuia is a creative therapy collective based in Te Tai Tokerau. Our mahi is grounded in bicultural practice as active partners to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We are focused on sustainably building resilience and maintaining wellbeing for kaiako, tamariki, whānau, and therapy professionals through creative endeavour. Our team of registered arts, dance movement and music therapists work throughout Tai Tokerau and Tāmaki Makaurau.
In 2019 founders Katie Pureti (music therapist) and Jan McConnell (dance and arts therapist/physiotherapist) developed a programme for early childhood kaiako. ‘Creative Therapy Tools for Calm Connection”. The programme seeks to empower individuals and teams to develop a kete of tools to support tamariki in building resilience and maintaining wellbeing, through the medium of trauma-informed music and arts, dance movement. The programme was initially developed and offered to Early Childhood Centres (ECE) in Northland, New Zealand; within the Ministry of Education’s ‘Strengthening Early Learning Opportunities’ for children, whānau, families and communities (SELO) suite.
This experiential movement and music workshop will introduce Mauri Tui Tuia and offer some practical tools using trauma-informed dance and music practices. By the end of the session, you will have a practical understanding and fun creative ways:
To create nervous system to nervous system safety though movement, dance, rhythm and music
To develop non-verbal social skills and support emotional literacy toward creative integration that scaffolds curiosity and new learning.
To explore connection and individual expression though play, music, movement, and dance

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-317, Building 201

Presenter: Ronald Kox, LKCA (Netherlands Centre of Expertise for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts), Netherlands

Session Description:
The UNESCO Framework for Culture and Arts Education calls for a different form and position of cultural education in education, and a revision of education itself. As early as 2016, the Dutch National Knowledge Institute for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts (LKCA) published a vision on education in general and the role of cultural education within it, already in line with the new Unesco framework. Our conclusion was that the position of cultural education within education can only improve sustainably if education itself changes fundamentally. In 2024, we released an improved version of our Basis for Cultural Education on the basis of the ten necessary elements of a curriculum. During this presentation, the vision of a new approach to cultural education will be explained using these curricular elements, followed by discussion of routes and opportunities for national implementation with the participants.

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (3 hours)
Room 201-311, Building 201

Presenter: Inés Sanguinetti, Crear Vale La Pena, Argentina y Latin America

Session Description:
Discover “Smashed Latin America”; a theatre project in schools present in 13 countries, which in 2023 alone reached over 984,000 young people, using performing arts as a preventive tool against underage alcohol consumption. What did this experience enable? What has it generated? Experience playful and creative activities to address resilience in young people and share your experiences on this topic. Build a poetic space of well-being through the Creative
Environments methodology of “Crear Vale la Pena”, used in public schools for over 12 years in Argentina and Latin America, training over 2000 teachers and health professionals annually.
Agenda:
– Group creative dynamics for getting to know each other.
– Presentation “Smashed Global” and its impacts.
– Experiences and academic endorsements of Entornos Creativos in the formal education system.
– Collaborative creation of a final performance.
Join this unique experience that combines art, prevention, and community!

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (1.5 hours)
Dance Studio 201-130, Building 201

Presenters: Molly Mullen, University of Auckland, & Becca Wood, Unitec, NZ

Session Description:
Walking Upstream is a live time-based event that invites audiences to listen and walk together along the edge of the mighty Waikato River in Kirikiriroa-Hamilton, Aotearoa, New Zealand. The soundscape, experienced through headphones, leads the audience from the city down to the riverbank; following the footsteps of many others who have walked against the current, they fall through time and the cosmos. Stories of the past, present, celestial and earthly life forms are evoked through an immersive poetic soundscape. This nomadic site-based performance calls attention to how we tune into and live with a river.

In this approach to walking performance, developed by Becca Wood, participants experience a choreoauratic space, where through sound they are guided, not only through the pathways and the anatomy of the landscape, and through contemporary and historic stories, but also in how they become immersed in their own anatomy as it meets the land, and how they experience their own bodies and their own stories as they collectively intersect with a landscape and its everyday inhabitants. Choreoauratic works like Walking Upstream invite audiences to tune in to stories that are no longer visible, are disappearing or that were never visible to the human eye.

For ITAC 7, we offer an immersive, participatory workshop that will give participants an experience of the work and the creative process, using some of the technologies and practices from this project. Participants will be invited to engage practically with the work and its methodologies via sound and listening, using aspects of the original audio score and site recordings.

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (3 hours)
Dance Studio 201-132, Building 201

Presenter: Elise Sterback, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
Join this session for an experience of bringing an ecosystem of relationships to life with our bodies. We will animate the system through playful processes – learning its feelings, needs and dreams, and ultimately leave with a deeper understanding of what it means to live interdependently within our human and more-than-human communities.
I developed these games as part of my PhD research, which sought to understand the creative sector systemically through the use of applied theatre and creative play. My intention was to move away from the dominant industrial lens often used to describe this community, which invokes machine-based, linear and capitalistic concepts of art-making, towards an approach that is more holistic and in alignment with living systems.
I think this approach could easily translate to the exploration of other types of human communities, such as education, and I am interested in exploring and co-creating what that might look like with the attendees of this session. The session will draw on drama games, object sculpture, dance and other forms of play (including whatever creative practices attendees bring with them into the room) to carry out our exploration. By the end, I hope we will have conjured forth a new being who is ready to dance out of the room and activate other parts of the conference.

Thursday 05/09/2024
2.00PM (1.5 hours)
Fale Pasifika

Presenters: Dr Siosifa Tualau Fifita & Professor Hūfanga-He-Ako-Moe-Lotu Dr ‘Ōkusitino Māhina with students: Meleseini Haitelenisia Fifita ‘O Lakepa Lolohea Fetu’u Tuai, Melevesi ‘Ulukilupetea Dasia Fakaola-Mei-Langi Fifita & Akesiumeimoana Tu’uliaikemipilisi Tupou Māhina Tuai

Session Description:
More details to come…

Thursday 05/09/2024
3.50PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-326, Building 201

Presenter: Brian Kaufman, University Of Maryland Baltimore County, USA

Session Description:
In this session, participants will engage with the creative process as means to: 1) express their ideas about a pressing social issue, 2) learn about others perspectives and experiences, and 3) communicate a message through the arts that advocates for a better world. Participants will co-create an artistic response on a topic related to social justice and will explore the following essential questions:
– How does creativity foster critical thinking about the need for change?
– How can a creative process be the catalyst for determining actionable steps toward positive change?
– How can I share what I have learned by creating with people in my work and social circles?
Following the creation of a draft artistic response, facilitators will guide a group reflection on how grounding our thinking in an active creative process can help us address social issues through creative and collaborative ways. In addition to helping participants unpack their creative experience, facilitators will help participants make connections with ways they can utilize this process in different contexts and invite others into provoking positive change. To give additional ideas and insight into potential outcomes, facilitators will share examples of artistic work created over many weeks by students and community members who engaged in a similar process. Unique approaches that the arts bring to the work of reckoning and the imagination of new futures will be discussed.

Thursday 05/09/2024
3.50PM (1.5 hours)
Arts Studio 201-122, Building 201

Presenter: Marit Ulvund, SEANSE Art Center, Norway

Session Description:
In this workshop we will work physically with our own stories and experiences through echo theatre. Our personal stories represent an important entrance to understanding both oneself and others, and can become important for developing meaningful artistic expressions. When we tell stories from our lives, they are based on actions we have experienced, and they refer to both embodied and reflective memories.
In the research project My Childhood, weused echo theatre to inquire and compare children’s expressions of childhood (verbal and embodied). The aim is to gather knowledge about how children experience their life and childhood in the 2020s and what they are engaged in and concerned about. We visit schools and communities in different cultural contexts and countries. So far, we have visited Brazil 2019 and Norway 2021-22, and in 2023 New Zealand. We plan on visiting USA 2024, South-Korea 2025, and an African country in 2026.
Experiences from early childhood often shape later experiences of self-esteem, identity and belonging. Childhood stories are therefore important to listen to. In this workshop, I will also share some of the echo theatre stories the children have told me.

Thursday 05/09/2024
3.50PM (1.5 hours)
Studio 201-120, Building 201

Presenter: Moema Gregorzewski, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
This session will share and explore an example of Drama Education practice I undertook in partnership with the teachers and students of two primary school classes in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2023. The aim of this practice-based pilot project was to investigate how drama-based pedagogies may fruitfully catalyse critical citizenship education. The practice consisted of 5 and 6 weekly Drama Education sessions respectively. During these lessons, the students, teachers, and I co-created a fictional story of a stranger who washes up onto the shore of an island and is met by its inhabitants with confusion, fear, distrust, and anger. This ITAC session will share and explore the overall structure of the sequence of lessons and the strategies employed, along with some of the emerging findings and wonderings co-created during the lessons and subsequent participant interviews.

Thursday 05/09/2024
3.50PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-317, Building 201

Presenter: Sandra Gattenhof, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Session Description:
Sandra Gattenhof works to improve thriveability, social connection and well-being of Australian individuals and communities in regional, rural and remote Australia. The work amplifies the existing strengths and innovation occurring in community-led arts, culture and creativity to build a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of what Brown and Trimboli (2011, p.617) describe as the “alterations in the quality of life” resulting from engagement in arts, culture and creativity. The presentation will share outcomes from two recently completed projects lead by Sandra – Valuing the Arts in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (2020) jointly commissioned by Creative Australia and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage (Aotearoa New Zealand) and an Australian Research Council Linkage Project The Role of the Creative Arts in Regional Australia: a social impact model. Both projects developed transformative language frameworks to assist rural, regional and remote communities to identify success markers resulting from engagement in arts, culture and creativity. The workshop will share approaches that centre people and place in the impact story. The frameworks suggest ways in which communities can meet the challenge of measuring the value of creative arts and propose a way forward to adequately articulate those values. Importantly the frameworks seek to reverse the overarching narrative of deficit and need in regional and remote communities.

Thursday 05/09/2024
3.50PM (1.5 hours)
Dance Studio 201-130, Building 201

Presenter: Nicholas Rowe, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
Over the next two decades, climate change and associated environmental, economic and political events will exponentially increase the number of individuals and communities subject to forced migration, or climate mobility. Maintaining social inclusion, diversity and cohesion amidst the unprecedented speed and scale of this migration is therefore emerging as the primary concern of community arts. As more and more people seek refuge, belonging and purpose in distant cultural locations, their ability to creatively co-construct meaning amongst the evolving communities and transforming landscapes that they encounter becomes a key concern for inclusive arts; shaping the opportunities of these individuals, and the futures of the societies that they inhabit.
The deeper integration of intercultural competence within arts activities is thus a key concern for research into inclusive arts. Intercultural competence provides learners with knowledge, skills and attitudes to effectively and appropriately communicate across cultures. Through intercultural competence, individuals and organisations can recognise the value of cultural differences, and engage in constructive approaches towards a pluralist society. To translate such intercultural encounters into cultural innovations, individuals require further creative dispositions and skills. This creative dimension of intercultural competence has been identified as transcultural competence. It involves a willingness and a capability to purposefully interact with differing cultures, in order to create new, complex and temporary expressions of culture. A transcultural disposition towards cultural co-creation is a critical dimension of intercultural competence; transcultural competence provides a collaborative intentionality, which prompts individuals to continually grow their sense of belonging amongst very diverse people. This workshop introduces these themes as a starting point, and then through practical, reflective small-group tasks explores the meanings and functions of transcultural competence within inclusive arts.

Thursday 05/09/2024
3.50PM (45 minutes)
Fale Pasifika

Presenter: Associate Professor Michael A. Mel, Mekeo, Papua New Guinea

Session Description:
More details to come…

Thursday 05/09/2024
4.35PM (45 minutes)
Fale Pasifika

Presenter: Simione Sevudredre, Fiji

Session Description:
More details to come…

Friday 06/09/2024
8.45AM (duration: 45 minutes)
Room 201-393, Building 201

Facilitators: Professor Peter O’Connor & Professor Selina Tusitala Marsh, CAST Co-Directors, University of Auckland

Session Description:
Teaching artistry manifests itself in different ways in different cultures across the globe as a means for passing on ancestral knowledges in confronting, resisting and defining the times in which we live.  How might we weave an understanding of our practice to make the difference we dream of in a world where nothing remains certain?  Hear from teaching artists around the world talk of their work confronts the corrosive effects of our times.

Friday 06/09/2024
9.30AM (3 hours)
Lecture Theatre 201-440, Building 201

Presenter: William Yip, Ximalaya Children, China

Session Description:
Crime and Investigation Academy for Children and Young People is a project established in 2021 by Ximalaya Children in China. The “Academy” is located in Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’an,
In the form of interactive seminar/ workshop, we will share the impacts of this learning program on children’s critical thinking, communication, collaboration skills, creativity as well as motivation in discovering science knowledge and literary skills with the basis of Elliot Eisner (2002) “10 distinctive lessons we find in the arts.”

Friday 06/09/2024
9.30AM (3 hours)
Room 201-334, Building 201

Presenters: Karen Youngberg, Arts Commons, Canada, & Chantal Chagnon, Cree8, Canada

Session Description:
Stories are powerful tools that make connections, build empathy and compassion, and encourage understanding of other points of view. Oral storytelling is a way knowledge is passed along in our Indigenous communities. Chantal Chagnon, a Cree/Metis Knowledge Keeper and Karen Youngberg, a second generation Canadian with deep ancestorial roots in Scotland and Holland, have come together in the spirit of playful collaboration, cultural exchange, and friendship to share an experiential workshop that explores how to empower youth voice using the Cree Creation Story. The space is carefully curated to represent the four directions, East, South, West and North, as on the Medicine Wheel. Chantal will share the Cree Creation Story, as we sit in circle listening. Karen will guide participants through some noticings after the story using the following prompts: -What did you hear? -What did you notice? -What did you connect to? Participants will then be invited to explore the room and see what they connect to. Chantal will tell the Cree Creation Story again. Participant are invited to bring the story to life/respond using the materials around the room – fabrics, instruments, smells, light. Once the story is complete, we will meet in circle to explore the same question. Afterwards, we will debrief the entire workshop using prompts such as -What made you feel comfortable in the space? -What did you notice about the space? How did you come to understand how the space was set up and how does this relate to youth in space? -How did you feel supported in the space? -How can you bring put/encourage/support young people to feel the same way as you did today? -How did “choice” help you decide what kind of response you were going to do?

Friday 06/09/2024
9.30AM (6 hours)
Arts Studio 201-122, Building 201

Presenters: Sam Scott, Max Palamo, & Tane Te Pakeke-Patterson, Massive Theatre Company, NZ

Session Description:
Massive only makes new work either by devising or commissioning writers. Massive is an ensemble company who work with personal stories, experiences, and perceptions as the foundation of their work. They work with the physical, text and music. The actor and who they are is at the centre of their theatre making practice. Massive likes to be playful and rigorous when working together. This ITAC7 workshop will be a full day so that you can experience who we are and how we like to create work with you. You will have three Massive teaching artists who are key company members so that you can get a sense of the ‘flavours’ that make Massive up. We will introduce you as to how we place play at the centre of our work. How we develop and build ensemble, followed by you creating some small, devised pieces of theatre using some of our processes. Prior to the workshop, we will send you examples of some of our theatre so you can see what we create when making larger theatre works. We will also ask you to prepare some small responses to provocations we will send out (nothing onerous we promise), and the work you devise will have these responses at the basis of your work. By the end of the day we hope you have had a chance to play and create with others plus gain insight into how Massive Theatre Company approaches devising theatre.

Friday 06/09/2024
9.30AM (3 hours)
Room 201-341, Building 201

Presenter: Erika Phillips, The Old Globe Theatre, USA

Session Description:
The Reflecting Shakespeare program builds community through a blend of Restorative and Theatrical Processes. Using a distant text as a launch point, participants create original creative and testimonial material that is performed alongside the classic.
We propose to lead the group through an example session of the Reflecting Shakespeare program, with special emphasis on pedagogical choices and potential pivots to make the process a model for building an investigative-conversational approach to community theatre-making that has a potentially transformative effect on the participants by reducing social isolation, deepening empathy, and building confidence in one’s own storytelling.
The methods of this practice have been transformative for communities as varied as incarcerated adults in maximum security prisons and university-bound teens seeking professional-level conservatory training.
Erika Phillips and James Pillar have been building civic and educational programs and performances in traditional and non-traditional spaces since they met in 2005.
In this workshop, participants will learn the basics of setting up a brave and safe space for work, simple techniques for empowering students with challenging text, formats to quickly generate and share original performative writing, and a way to imagine how actors can present to an audience both a dramatic story and their personal engagement with the story as one whole dramatic exercise.

Friday 06/09/2024
9.30AM (3 hours)
Dance Studio 201-132, Building 201

Presenters: Emma Willis & Alys Longley, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
Emma was recently working on a project with dancer and choreographer Rodney Bell. Reflecting on his experiences as a dancer, he talked about what he feels as a performance draws to a close: “At the ending of the show, you come across that river of hope to meet the people on the other side – the audience. And that’s quite special, you have to be even more present. To receive – because you’ve been giving and now they’re going to come and give to you.”
This workshop takes the image of crossing the “river of hope” to explore dramaturgies of reciprocity. We will do this by exploring one-to-one dialogue across three different modalities: drawing, speaking and moving. The simple format of question and answer, speaking and listening, will be used to structure our activities. Guided by principles of fast-making, the session will conclude with a short structured group improvisational exercise involving the collective of workshop participants.
We are attuned to newness of the conference participants’ relationships to one another and hope that our bridge-crossing workshop generates a sense of deep connectedness. We also hope that participants will take away ideas and experiences that they can apply in their own contexts as tools for fostering dialogue and connection.

Friday 06/09/2024
9.30AM (6 hours)
Tūtahi Tonu Marae

Presenters: Priya Gain, University of Auckland and Tai Orooro Tai Auaha Team, NZ

Session Description:
The title of the proposed presentation offers a metaphorical foundation to the proposed wānanga. ‘Tai’ connects with the nature and flow of the water tides and also the place where the noho marae centred education initiative, ‘Kia Rere te Mauri o Tai Orooro o Tai Auaha’, has been growing and evolving since 2019: Te Tai Tokerau (the Far North region of Aotearoa); Te Hiku o te Ika a Māui (the tail of the fish of Māui). The first part of this presentation being offered to ITAC 7 will be made up of a number of very well respected, ringatoi and ngā toi tohunga, (experts, artists, and educators) who have been involved with the development of the taonga pūoro centred marae based learning initiative for rangitahi (years 7-13), ‘Kia Rere te Mauri o Tai Orooro o Tai Auaha’. The kaupapa is continuing to grow and evolve with rapidly increasing numbers of taiohi (young people) attending along with growing whānau, hapū, and iwi support. We are keen to share the activity, work, and research we have been doing with the ITAC community as we believe this will connect us to a like-minded community of teaching artists and researchers. The focus of the proposed wānanga will be whakawhanaungatanga, relationship building, over the day concluding with a whare tapere style coming together at the end of the day (a celebration and sharing back of learning and art-making done through the day). There will be plenty of opportunities for taonga tākaro (games and play), facilitated by Wiremu Sarich, and a choice of various smaller wānanga, both planned and emergent, with ringatoi and tohunga who will be available on the marae, including opportunities to learn about taonga pūoro, raranga, rongoā, and waiata.

Friday 06/09/2024
9.30AM (3 hours)
Fale Pasifika

Presenter: Samantha Winterton, Sistema Whangarei – Toi Akorangi, NZ

Session Description:
This is an interactive session where participants are trained in real time as tuakana for the orchestra setting. In this workshop we will explain the principles of ako (Ako – to both teach and learn) and the relationships of tuakana – teina (A tuakana- teina relationship takes the values of ako further by allowing students to teach and learn from each other).
The introduction will include a brief history of Sistema Whangarei – Toi Akorangi ( an El Sistema inspired program in the north of the North Island of New Zealand) and how we overcame some of the barriers to music education for young people ( and subsequently all ages) in a rural New Zealand setting.
To create the space for learning will teach the participants how to play violins and cellos in an orchestral setting. This setting will be the vehicle for learning about the principles of ako and the relationships of tuakana – teina.
Participants will learning about the processes used which have resulted in some wide reaching skill and emotional development for rangatahi ( teenagers) in New Zealand.
We will introduce the participants to some of the rangatahi and share some of their stories as people and musicians.
Participants will also experience being in the role of tuakana and recognise the feelings of empathy created which allows for a greater openness for their own learning.
This experience can be a little confronting as it operates quite squarely in the space of growth mindset. So please come prepared to be challenged.
By the end of the session Participants will have played a few pieces as a group and have supported someone else in their experience.
This experience is very much inside the verb of art. Come prepared to be active.

Friday 06/09/2024
9.30AM (3 hours)
Visual Arts Lab 201-465, Building 201

Presenters: Jayne Jackson, Manukau Institute of Technology, & Sarah Probine, Auckland University of Technology, NZ

Session Description:
The extent to which the visual arts permeate children’s lives and learning depends very much upon the adults who surround them and how the visual arts are valued and enacted within the educational setting they attend. Teachers who have nurtured their artistic identities are better equipped to develop a visual arts curriculum that responds to young children’s interests and to position themselves within these encounters with intention.
The processes of self-reflection, collaborative reflection and engaging in artmaking are all strategies through which teachers can nurture their capacity and confidence to make art and to reconceptualise or reaffirm their images of themselves as artist/teachers (Denee et al., 2023). This workshop will explore this process through the construction of a collaborative identity quilt. The ideas explored in this workshop can be transferred and adapted by attendee artist teachers working with learners in their own communities.
In this workshop participants will explore their identity as artist and teacher as they identify aspects of the journey of self as artist and teacher and the nexus of the two selves. Through individual reflection attendees will identify key events that impacted their journey to become an artist/teacher. They will select one or several of these to represent on their identity quilt square.
Ideas will be rendered on fabric, using a multimedia approach. In the second part of the workshop each participant’s identity pieces will be combined to make a digital ‘quilt’. Together we will explore similarities and differences in the narratives that each piece explores. As connections are made, they will be made visible through the use of cord to indicate related symbols, patterns and images. The finished quilt will be digitally recorded and sent to participants before deconstructing the physical piece so that individual pieces can be used as future exemplars by attendees.

Friday 06/09/2024
1.30PM (1.5 hours)
Lecture Theatre 201-440, Building 201

Presenter: Cheng Hung Tan, RMIT University, Singapore

Session Description:
Mentors know how to draw out potential and they find joy in helping their peers, emerging artists and co-learners.
My Macbook dictionary defines a mentor as “an experienced and trusted adviser”. I think about mentors in the Hero’s Journey who do more than advise because they will challenge as well as guid. They can see what the heroes-to-be cannot see about themselves. I see clear parallels between this and relationships between teaching artist mentors, their colleagues and their co-learners.
Join me in this activity-filled workshop w to discuss and reflect on how mentoring helps teaching artists to share what we know with our co-learners. Bring your stories about your mentors and how you advise your co-learners. What mentoring skills would you like to learn? Drawing from your current teaching or artistic practice, the workshop group will design approaches to mentoring students and colleagues.
Mentoring is done with generosity of spirit to continue the cycle of knowledge and experience. We are here because of our mentors.

Friday 06/09/2024
1.30PM (3 hours)
Room 201-334, Building 201

Presenter: Fatiha Kheddaoui, USA & France

Session Description:
The workshop will introduce Not All Backpacks Carry the Same Weight and its process. This project was a collaboration with English Honor students from Moanalua High School and Residential Youth Services Empowerment (RYSE) residents and day visitors, focusing on youth homelessness. By volunteering at RYSE for the past five years, I connected with hundreds of youth aged 14 to 25 and saw an opportunity to bridge two groups to address this issue.I will present the backpacks, participants’ notes, and art statements of high schoolers and youth experiencing homelessness in Hawai’i.
The project had several goals: growing an understanding of art as an advocacy tool and bridging two communities about an issue concerning their demographic. It demonstrates the value of investing in the arts and contributes to developing future collaborations between diverse institutions and marginalized populations.
In the second part of the presentation, people will discuss youth homelessness using my art practice with a community embroidery session on Nomadic Art Net. With the mosquito net as canvas, which provides the illusion of shelter, we are invited to reflect on nomadism and homelessness. The slow process of embroidering allows us to stitch and converse.

Friday 06/09/2024
1.30PM (3 hours)
Room 201-326, Building 201

Presenter: Anna-Mari Laulumaa, Finland

Session Description:
This workshop studies relationship with nature with some basic (psycho)drama techniques; role revearsal, sculpture, improvisation and empty chair. During the workshop, participants are offered a chance to explore their own relationship with nature. The workshop asks a set of questions: Do we know nature? What or who is nature? How do we connect with nature? What is our relationship with it / him / her like? What kind of emotions are involved in our relationship with nature? What kind of stories, theories and belief systems constitute our nature relationship?
The workshop will be led by Anna-Mari Laulumaa, a certified psychodrama practitioner, Master of Arts in communication and drama, actor and director. It begins with a short introduction presenting the insights gained from the site-specific performance Sacred Place Laulumaa directed in 2020, and continues with drama we create together.
Focusing on the ideas shaping human behaviour is crucial to expand our understanding about human–nature relationship. This article elaborates on the benefits of integrating art into research. It describes a case study combining a site-specific performance in a nature conservation area with audience interviews. Drama has a capacity to intensify the sense of place. The captivating art and nature experience encouraged audience to reflect on their views of nature and shed light on how they observed the surroundings. An Arts-based approach created a setting for collective thinking and learning, which is necessary when intending to grasp the complexity of human–nature connections.

Friday 06/09/2024
1.30PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-341, Building 201

Presenter: Jirye Lee, Independent Artist-Researcher / Baekseok Arts University, USA & South Korea

Session Description:
The Hunter Heartbeat Method (HHM) is a collection of drama games designed for children on the autism spectrum, conceived by British actor Kelly Hunter after years of fieldwork. Hunter’s journey began during her tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1991 when she was invited to conduct a workshop at a correctional facility. Initially planning to use Shakespearean speeches, she had to adapt her approach when she discovered that none of the participants could read. Instead, she utilized short phrases from the plays, encouraged physical expression, improvised body-sculpting, and introduced characters via facial expressions and physicalization. The transformation she witnessed in the participants was incredible. Those who previously felt ashamed due to their inability to read became individuals with a desire to share their perspectives, fierce opinions, and passionate questions about life. This experience transformed Hunter as well. Ever since this experience, her “motivation to teach Shakespeare would focus on invigorating the learners’ souls in the present, rather than on raising future well-behaved theatergoers.” Recognizing Shakespeare’s characters and texts as powerful tools for breaking communication barriers, particularly for individuals with ASD, Hunter developed sets of rules and roles to create a playground for neurodivergent children. In HHM workshops, children engage in multidimensional learning experiences, particularly benefiting non-verbal participants. Through Shakespeare’s texts, they learn interpersonal communication techniques, social interaction norms, personal boundaries, and modes of self-expression, whether verbal or non-verbal. By introducing selected games from HHM, I aim to demonstrate how drama can effectively facilitate language learning, serving not only as a communication tool but also as a means of self-expression.

Friday 06/09/2024
1.30PM (1.5 hours)
Dance Studio 201-132, Building 201

Presenter: Gaenor Brown, University of Waikato, NZ

Session Description:
Join us on a socially engaged moving arts experience in which we will explore, react to and enact upon a famous local street in Tāmaki Makaurau, chosen for its rich, diverse cultural and architectural intersections. This street has undergone significant change over the last decade and witnessed arrivals, and departures, of a range of commercial enterprises that have enriched and connected with the local community. As we journey together from the conference to our destination, we invite you to consider the act of artswalking as transportational, rather than transformational (Nicholson, 2005) where you might move for a brief moment into another world, which on the surface might look familiar, to experience something new (Alrutz, 2020). We will consider the intersecting roads as physical manifestations of the intersections of our lives and our opportunities as artist educators to cross paths and travel somewhere new. Once back at the conference space we will explore the images we experienced, generated and imagined along the route, the inner and the outer landscapes (Pujol, 2018) of our emotions, and ourselves-in-place. Referencing our subjective (inner) and objective (outer) responses as artswalkers we will create dramatic responses informed and shaped by Augusto Boal’s Image Theatre and concepts from Rainbow of Desire. Our practical approach draws upon Braidotti’s (2013) post-human theories of space and place, in terms of how we might represent the entangled relationships emerging from artswalking, challenging us to rethink “on the move” our connections to the human and non-human world, technology, and new materialism. Our practice is informed by Sally Mackey’s (2016) research on performing places, in which everyday activities are experienced as a fresh encounter, a new perspective on the intersections we pass through, and chance to reconnect.

Friday 06/09/2024
1.30PM (3 hours)
Studio 201-120, Building 201

Presenters: Patricia Cruz, Transcontinental Educator Artist Collective For Humanity, & Carrie Ziegler, Earth Art

Session Description:
Our CLIMATE Dilemma: We are essentially asking people to transform their entire way of being on earth and haven’t given them a vision of a future that is more compelling than our present predicament.
Our job is to turn the dominant narrative from scarcity to abundance—from ‘have to’ to ‘get to’. We GET TO be part of creating a new reality! Our role as artists is to help people envision a future where we not only survive, but thrive. Collaborative art can do that.
Imagine the transformative process within a chrysalis, where a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. Picture humanity within this cocoon, dissolving into primordial goo, leaving behind Imaginal Cells, the bearers of a new vision. Despite resistance, Imaginal Cells persist, multiply, and resonate, forming clusters that connect and grow until a butterfly emerges.
Artists embody these Imaginal Cells, harboring the potential to shape a better future. Our collective action transforms fear and societal challenges into opportunities for creativity and connection. Together, we propel communities from apathy to action.
Together, we embark on a journey of cultural exploration and creation, weaving threads of individuality into a collective large-scale installation that celebrates our interconnectedness.

Friday 06/09/2024
1.30PM (3 hours)
Visual Arts Lab 201-465, Building 201

Presenter: Megan Carter, Corban Estate Arts Centre, NZ

Session Description:
CEAC Education Team will guide delegates through a practical mixed-media visual art workshop, demonstrating and discussing the pedagogy that informs our practice.
Based on the wild west coast seascapes of Tamaki Makaurau this workshop will weave in tales of Tāwirimātea (the Atua of weather) as the participants try out a variety of techniques designed to align with the feeling of a stormy wind-swept beach. Commencing with paint, the workshop will also include making a paintbrush, the use of foliage, twigs, paper and cardboard as a means of mark-making, and incorporating gesso, sand, ink, charcoal and chalk pastels.
This workshop is designed for participants to develop skills to engage their imaginations, and learn techniques to express emotion and energy within their artworks. They will also familiarise themselves with Tāwhirimātea and the potential for storytelling to inform their own art practice.
This workshop will engage with our guiding principles which include: We nurturing creative thinking. We activate the creative environment. We are a comprehensive pathway into the Arts. I Nga Wa O Mua – We look at the past to guide our future. Everyone is born an artist and we protect that artist, we allow individual expression and encourage play. It is safe to make a mess with us! We inspire imagination, ask open questions, encourage sharing and reflection. Our lesson plans are well developed and open to the child’s own outcome, decision making is an important part of being an artist. We teach complex art concepts in simple ways, students are taught to trust the process. We push boundaries with the knowledge that mistakes can be discoveries and the learning journey is paramount rather than perfection.
The CEAC Education team uses a collaborative methodology to workshop design and introduces multi-modal approaches where possible.

Friday 06/09/2024
1.30PM (3 hours)
Open Studio, Level 12, Whitecliffe, 67 Symonds Street, Grafton, Auckland 1010

Presenter: Rob Mills, Whitecliffe College, NZ

Session Description:
This interactive workshop explores a human-centred approach to teaching creative learners in the age of machine learning. Grounded in Piaget’s cognitive developmental theories, it delves into creative education, traditional idea generation methods, and contemporary tools. The workshop celebrates a learner’s unique “field of experience” and introduces the concept of “farms of experiences” (deep learning outputs) for creative discovery, visualization, and rapid prototyping.
Participants will engage in an open discussion on creativity, teaching methods, and technology’s influence on the creative process. They will then explore technology-infused ideation techniques and transition into a maker space with a creative challenge. Using generative AI and a Riso machine, participants will design and print their own poster.
This workshop aims to equip educators with practical methods for the classroom and explore AI’s potential in collaborative creative processes.

Friday 06/09/2024
3.15PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-342, Building 201

Presenters: Thomas De Angelis & Robyn Ewing, University of Sydney – CREATE Centre, Australia

Session Description:
If theatre is an interweaving of memory and liveness and learning is constructed in negotiation and dialogue, theatre education offers a powerful place to encounter the unexpected, to extend horizons of expectations and consider where we are positioned in the world.(Nicholson, 2011)
This presentation reports on an ongoing research project undertaken by the CREATE Centre, University of Sydney in partnership with Barking Gecko Theatre Company, a children’s theatre company based in Perth, Western Australia. It builds on previous research that investigates the impacts on children who attend theatre and performance over the long-term(for example, the New Victory Theatre, 2019; Meiners et al, 2004). This project aims to understand participant young people’s expectations, wonderings, and questions, before and after a live theatre experience, and at later intervals over 2 years.
Our presentation principally focuses on the innovative co-design approach undertaken for the project. Researchers from CREATE alongside members of Barking Gecko Theatre Company Learning Team, and independent teaching artists, worked collaboratively to design a research project that centred on participant responses to arts-rich workshops conducted in the classrooms of students who attended Barking Gecko’s original theatrical work, “Snow”. The workshop employs a range of drama-rich tasks that enable learners to recall their memories of the performance and then respond creatively to reflect their thoughts, feelings and ideas and is repeated at periodic intervals over two years. The activities draw on the themes, visual elements, and textual extracts from “Snow” and enable researchers to observe the children’s creative and artistic responses. The process prioritises learner agency and provides feedback about wonderings and questions that have emerged for them since their initial viewing of “Snow”. Examples of initial workshop strategies, participant children’s responses, and teaching artists’ reflections will be shared and discussed along with the project’s research aims. Early data points that appear to indicate how live theatre nurtures young people’s imagination, curiosity, hope and core capacities over time.

Friday 06/09/2024
3.15PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-341, Building 201

Presenter: Chantal Chagnon, Cree8, Canada

Session Description:
Chantal shares Traditional Drumming, Songs, Storytelling, Indigenous Culture, History and Traditional Teachings of North American First Nations and Métis People. Storytelling and Music connects us as all people and is in aspects of cultures around the world. Drums carry powerful significance in many traditional Indigenous cultures. Drums are used for healing, ceremony, and celebration, and each song and drum beat carries the messages and intentions of our Ancestors.
Chantal will share stories of how the drum came into being. Participants will learn about the hides in relation to the Medicine Wheel and how the drums and drumsticks are made. Chantal shares the significance and history of various drum weaving styles in connection to the nations and lands they originated from, the culture behind each style, and how each style teaches us lessons we can relate to our own lives. Chantal will also share the significance and teachings behind drumsticks, and how to properly and respectfully, honour, care for, maintain and play our drums.
Chantal shares the stories and teachings behind the songs, breaking down each song to learn. Together we will, drum, sing, learn songs and hear the stories from several North American First Nations including Cree, Ojibwe/Anishinaabe, Blackfoot, Cherokee and Métis.
Traditional Hand Drums will be provided for use.

Friday 06/09/2024
3.15PM (1.5 hours)
Dance Studio 201-132, Building 201

Presenter: Joanna Cook, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
This workshop explores the materiality of tension in inter/transdisciplinary choreographic practices. It draws inspiration from Sara Ahmed’s Phenomenology of Objects (2006), helping to discern the things we are drawn to and, therefore, turn away from. Participants will engage in embodied improvised scores to navigate the interplay of physicality, materiality, and tension within their lived experiences. We will ponder: How can we intentionally acknowledge the tensions within our specific context? The things we resist, the things we yield into, or are crushed by… the things that are present within the ‘water that we swim in’. Through layering/building up physical tasks and ideas, workshop participants are invited to use these provocations, to inscribe space and membrane skins (cheesecloth) in order to make them visible and give voice to the tensions around and between us. How might these (at)tensions hinder and support us? How might we hinder and support each other? How can the membrane skin create connections and tensions between us? How might we tend to things that are not always visible?
Throughout my artistic journey, I have developed the concept of Tender(e) Practices, blending the qualities of tenderness from mindful engagement with the essence of tension, rooted in the Latin word Tendere, meaning to stretch. This play on words intertwines tension with attention (attendere) – the act of reaching out, and intention (intendere) – the practice of directing focus, stretching towards. This approach views tensions not as hindrances but as forces to reach for and pull away from.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (3 hours)
Visual Arts Lab 201-465, Building 201

Presenter: Luz Helena Thompson, Path With Art, USA

Session Description:
Design Thinking for Creative Expression is an approach that utilizes the principles of design thinking to enhance creativity and inspire innovation through artistic expression. Design thinking originally emerged from the field of product design as a problem-solving methodology that has been adapted and applied to a wide range of creative industries and domains. Design Thinking, when specifically applied to creative expression, encourages individuals to experiment with a variety of techniques and materials in the pursuit of producing original artistic works throughout various mediums. By fostering an environment free of judgment that embraces challenges and barriers, individuals are able to fully explore their ideas and concepts. The process invites artists and creators to empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test and implement their final works of art for private or public display. This interactive workshop will provide a structured framework for creative expression through the use of the design thinking process, where individuals can tap into their unlimited potential with confidence. Participants will collaborate in a design challenge that will ask them to explore the fundamental question of what it means to be an artist. The goal will be to gain a deeper understanding of our individual processes and perspectives allowing us to evaluate where our collective strengths and opportunities lie, rather than focus solely on finding individual solutions.
This process can transform how we approach producing meaningful and impactful artistic works and offer a powerful display of beauty, creativity and the innovation of Teaching Artists worldwide. It encourages discovery through a human centered approach where the artist engages with their fears, vulnerabilities and emotions to better understand their artistic objectives on a deeper level, as both a teacher and a student. The end result is that we collectively awaken to the extraordinary possibilities of the arts for healing, learning and growing.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-334, Building 201

Presenter: Jeffrey Tan, Theatre Today, Singapore

Session Description:
Many community theatre programmes for Seniors can reduce the seniors to becoming merely participants. Ironically, the Active Ageing Centres then struggle to find and manage programmes that will engage and sustain the interests of the seniors. the workshop used a process drama to identify the leadership qualities of the seniors.
This Process Drama uses the inspiration of Singaporean Children’s writer Sophia Huang’s ‘Mr. Roll finds New Life’ as a pretext for the senior participants to identify their leadership styles and collectively experience Collaborative Leadership. Through the Process Drama, the participants will:
• Explore the themes of ‘Mr. Roll finds New Life’. i.e. Finding value and purpose in work and retirement.
• Discover about one’s own Leadership styles and Collaborative Leadership.
• Bond and learn through the arts based approach of storytelling, craft and games making.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (3 hours)
Room 201-326, Building 201

Presenter: Brad Haseman, Australia & PNG

Session Description:
What are the benefits of teaching artistry in 2024? They seem harder to identify and defend in this post-truth era; an age of deep fakery, where ‘fake news’, ‘alternative facts’, misinformation, disinformation and crackpot conspiracy theories grow exponentially. What does it mean for educators and artists to be truthful in the post-truth age? What might post-truth teaching artist practice be? How might such contemporary practice be evolving? These issues will be workshopped in practice by investigating a contemporary work called Art of Courage Ukraine.
Art of Courage is a project designed to raise awareness and funds for Ukrainian children affected by war. Created by emerging Australian theatre makers, this immersive theatre piece follows a friendship group; some of whom are fighting, some volunteering and some displaced.
The workshop will address ways Art of Courage ‘lives in truth’ (from Havel) by ensuring that content is factually credible, plausible and trusted. It investigates, for example, how poetic truth is built alongside the world of objective fact in matters like the Executed Renaissance which saw the decimation of Ukrainian intellectuals by the Russian KGB in the 1920’s and 30’s.
Alongside the attention to the curation of content, is a commitment to the curation of those artistic forms best able to empower audiences and learners to make changes in the world around them. This deliberately deploys strategies which challenge learners and audiences to continually re-write the world (including immersive techniques to mix locations and different levels of theatricality), rather than merely present the world, and accept it as it is (from Brecht and Boal).
The workshop illustrates how poly-cultural approaches to learning and teaching (from Konai Helu Thaman) can resist the dehumanizing forces of our post-truth era.
This workshop has been designed for teaching artists of all art forms.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (1.5 hours)
Arts Studio 201-122, Building 201

Presenter: Lerato Islam, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
As part of her PhD research at the University of Acckland , Lerato delivered creative workshops with young refugees and asylum-seekers in the UK. The workshops will explore how they identify, how they want to be represented and what their understanding and hopes for creative work with, for and by them might be Lerato will model and facilitate activities pulled from these workshops with ITAC delegates. This will enable attendees to not only actively explore and experience Applied Theatre as Research approaches, but also reflect on how they could use these models within their own work.
The workshop will consist of practical games and exercises, critical discussions around their purpose and the results they may yield, and reflections on how these approaches may be used more broadly to foster inclusive and community-responsive work within theatre spaces.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (3 hours)
Studio 201-120, Building 201

Presenter: Moira Pirsch, Maui Arts & Cultural Centre, USA

Session Description:
Pūpūkahi Ke Aloha— Unite to Move Forward with Love, is an exploration of an initiative by the Maui Arts & Cultural Center (MACC), addressing the critical need for arts education resources in times of disaster. This workshop explores five interconnected outcomes, from national and local working groups to Hawaii-based resource development, professional development, and community programming. Grounded in principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural responsiveness, the initiative honors indigenous wisdom and collaborates on both national and international levels. Participants will discover how MACC’s approach empowers communities, educators, and teaching artists with the tools and knowledge needed to navigate challenges while harnessing the transformative power of the arts. The workshop invites applicants to delve into specific opportunities and challenges, showcasing successful problem-solving strategies. Through arts-based practices, the session promotes social-emotional development and well-being, centers student voice, and serves as an exemplary model for the Partners in Education Network. Attendees will leave with a deep understanding of disaster-responsive arts education and the ability to apply transformative practices in their own contexts.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-342, Building 201

Presenter: Annie Cole, New Zealand

Session Description:
My early PhD research explores the nature of resource, sustainable practice, and personal and professional wellness within the context of Dance Movement Therapy (DMT). Engaging in creative practice I am particularly interested in developing DMT resources in micro-form. Small nuggets of practice that can be easily integrated throughout the day.
This presentation will be a sharing of some early research reflections about resourcing self and resourcing others, how we can make resources, but also how we can reflect on the notion of resource and care as a philosophical subject. I’ll share some of the embodied resources I’ve developed that work for myself, and talk about the potential ways they can transfer to other educational or therapeutic settings.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-341, Building 201

Presenter: Neil Wallace, Arts Access Aotearoa, NZ

Session Description:
Our reoffending rates in Aotearoa are high. The arts are the answer.
Around 56.5% of people with previous convictions are reconvicted within 2 years following release from prison.
Around 35.8% are re-imprisoned after 2 years following release from prison but there is hope.
3 decades of evaluations of arts in corrections programs have established the impact of arts in prisons programs with studies showing a $4.00 return on every $1.00 invested that is clearly evidenced in recidivism rates.
The arts give many things that assist in the rehabilitation of people in prisons but there are three specific things that the arts bring with them. They are:
1) Identity Formation – People discover who they are or who they choose to become.
2) Communication – People discover a creative language to say the things that need saying. In this way people can release what holds them back and forge new relationships through their ever improving creative vocabulary.
3) Innovation – People learn to problem solve through the design process of ideation, iteration and refinement..
Arts in Corrections programs enable people in prisons to figure out who they are, what they want to say and how to say it. They learn to work through what challenges them in meaningful and productive ways.
In this informal, question and answer session, Neil will walk you through what it takes to be a prison arts provider.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (3 hours)
Room 206-202, Building 206

Presenter: Amanda Cantrell Roche, USA

Session Description:
The Narrative 4 Story Exchange is a simple yet profound experience for building empathy and connection through our personal stories. Narrative 4 was founded in 2012 by a group of literary minds, artists, philanthropists, and educators looking for a way to harness the power of personal stories for social change. The Story Exchange is Narrative 4’s core methodology through which we build connection and compassion, which often fosters action. Paired with the arts, this is a particularly potent combination.
In this workshop participants will be given a choice of prompts and will reflect on a true, personal story they would like to share. In pairs, participants share their story, and listen deeply to their partner’s story. Then, in a small group, participants come together to share their partner’s story in first person as best as they can retell it, and hear their own story reflected back to them in first person. With prompts related to our work as teaching artists, this process is also a meaningful way to share our own work and hear about the work of others.
Following the Story Exchange and reflection, participants are invited to participate in a brief art project inspired by the stories told and connections made. We’ll also consider possibilities for collaborative art-making and residencies rooted in the power of this ancient and global art form.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (1.5 hours)
Room 206-210, Building 206

Presenter: Barry Mann, USA, Colombia, Perú, Chile, Argentina, México, India

Session Description:
As Teaching Artists, we sometimes work in our own communities, and sometimes we visit, for briefer or longer performances, projects and residencies, communities and institutions far from our homes, cities, nations, and familiar cultures and milieux. This ‘parachuting in,’ as it has been called, offers great benefits, but pitfalls as well. A visiting TA brings novelty, exoticism, expertise, and an outsider’s perspective; but they may also hold inaccurate assumptions and breed suspicion and resentment. In this session, I will share reflections on working as a visiting TA in numerous states of the US and nations of the world (including a 5-week project in India, directly prior to the conference); lead interactive theatre- and storytelling-based exercises to unearth our collective body of experience as visiting Teaching Artists; and guide us into articulating best practices for our itinerant work as we come in and out of institutions and communities. How is ‘parachuting in’ perceived in different cultures, countries, or parts of the world? How can Teaching Artists support each other as we make connections and explore opportunities for work far from home, sometimes in each others’ backyards? How do we navigate the ambiguities that can arise among TA’s, presenting organizations, hosts, project participants, and communities at large? What have constituted our best and worst experiences, and how can we cultivate the former and avoid the latter? What are the ethical questions around ‘parachuting in,’ and where do such issues as privilege and appropriation come into play? This session will be a guided and facilitated conversation about a frequent dimension of our unique and evolving profession, and one that is likely to expand as our network continues to grow larger, stronger, and more interconnected.

Saturday 07/09/2024
8.30AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-317, Building 201

Presenter: Kelly Love, Susten8 And Vestavia Hills Arts Council, USA/Scotland

Session Description:
Recently I was at the Alabama Summit for the Arts, in my hometown of Birmingham, conversing with the Head of Arts Education for Alabama. We talked about the roots of our work sustaining this constantly emergent arts-based culture we propagate for the greater good.
We extolled the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly of a few decades developing arts-based work in this fragile ecology we call humanity.
We shared a concern that we are both artists and more and more are being separated from the heart of what created us to be in this field all about creating. Wondering aloud how we hold on to our creative heart while inspiring arts-based work and nourishing the creative leaders in the field. The many brilliant spirits who amass at these “arts’ summits”; tired, hopeful and inspirational.
And I think, “We are all seedlings, wondering, becoming, created and creating anew this wonder and work of arts-based living.” I also think, “damn I haven’t turned in my proposal for the ITAC New Zealand conference.”
I will lead a “Creatings” Mandala seminar provoking arts-based leaders to remember their creative roots, understand their fruition and visualize potential “Creatings” to be. The circles of the mandala will ripple out, like pebbles in a lake; from the center “roots”, to current fruit, to emergent soul seedlings. Helping attendees center their Creatings; the “art” of their identity, the fruit of their current “work” and envision seedling “Creatings” yet to be propagated. A visual wondering exercise designed to revitalize our spirits for this next season of our collective existence.
Based upon my own research and the default mode network; brain space which is a “catalyst for wondering”, “home of mind wandering” and “dreaming/envisioning the future”, where the memories are collected.
Materials: found natural materials, coloured chalk/pencils/paints, twine, canvases.

Saturday 07/09/2024
10.15AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-334, Building 201

Presenter: Eliza Oliver, University of Sydney, Australia

Session Description:
In New South Wales, Australia, over 25% of learners from diverse cultural and language backgrounds are navigating the complexities of learning English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) Our session is based on the learnings from the CREATE Centre’s Arts Rich EAL/D)Project. Arts Rich EAL/D is a multi-arts co-mentoring program implemented in South-Western Sydney schools in 2024. The project teamed Teaching Artists with EAL/D teachers and aimed to use drama-rich strategies with quality literature, translanguaging and visual arts to enhance the learning outcomes of EAL/D learners. Three primary themes emerged from the interviews with teaching artists: learner engagement and embodiment, successful strategies, and challenges. Specific strategies to support EAL/D learners became key to flexibly adapting the program. The session will include some examples of these strategies, alongside the “Mapping our Languages” exercise to share our successful learnings to date.

Saturday 07/09/2024
10.15AM (1.5 hours)
Arts Studio 201-122, Building 201

Presenter: Cymbeline Buhler King & Amy Matthews, Western Sydney University, Australia

Session Description:
This workshop interactively presents findings from research investigating facilitation of theatre by young people. The research is being undertaken with participating teachers and producers from Sharp Short Theatre, an annual competitive festival run by Riverside Theatres since 2015. Sharp Short Theatre invites participants 18 years and under to submit original theatre up to ten minutes in length. The work must be conceived, developed, written, directed and performed by young people. Collaborating on Sharp Short Theatre as mentors since 2016, the workshop presenters have observed the importance of the drama teacher role in supporting students to develop strong authentic work. This is counter-intuitive, as the eligibility and judging criteria insist on originality and student ownership. However, it aligns with the Lundy Model of children’s participation, which states that children need to be facilitated to express their views and adults often need training in how to listen actively to what and how young people express themselves. The research question thus emerged from practice: in what ways do highly skilled teachers facilitate their students to generate powerful student-driven work?
The research involves a thematic analysis of data from the eight years since the festival began, including interviews with teachers whose students have been selected for the finals on more than three occasions, feedback provided to students following the heats each year, notes from judge’s deliberations, and focus group interviews with judges and former students who have succeeded in past festivals.
Intended equally for academic and practitioner audiences, this research helps to demystify the role of adult facilitators of theatre by young people. We take a dialogic approach to the notion of best practice: articulating a breadth of theatre practices that can be effective when facilitating youth voice in performance. The workshop incorporates theatre making activities with presentation of findings.

Saturday 07/09/2024
10.15AM (6 hours)
Tūtahi Tonu Marae

Presenters: Priya Gain, University of Auckland, NZ & Remedy Project Team, Australia

Session Description:
Remedy Project in collaboration with Kia Rere Te Mauri o Tai Orooro o Tai Auaha: Wānanga Part Two.
This wānanga is an offering as part of a longer wānanga being held with Priya Gain and the Kia Rere Te Mauri o Tai Orooro o Tai Auaha team, at Tūtahi Tonu, Auckland University. This is an opportunity to explore connections between the Remedy Project and this Māori led educational initiative evolving in Te Hiku o Te Ika (the far north region of Aotearoa New Zealand).
Professor Naomi Sunderland (Wiradjuri, Australia) and PhD candidates Kristy Apps (non-Indigenous, Australia) and Uncle Glenn Barry (Gamilaraay, Australia) will co-facilitate collective and creative research and healing approaches from The Remedy Project which examines and promotes First Nations Music as a Determinant of Health (www.remedyproject.org). The Remedy Project honours the role of musical engagement and participation as a natural “remedy” in cultural healing and ceremony that has happened over Millennia in First Nations communities. It reflects the resolute strength of First Nations music and musicians despite historical and ongoing colonisation.
This Yulagi or place of ceremony is the ground, initiation, and pathway connecting two rings of thanbaraan – of where we meet, and of a place and time to play. These two rings are reconnecting our Pasifika and Australian Dreaming worlds together.
We will share strength based, creative, relational, and interactive approaches that bring us to collectively and personally remember our own spaces of art, research, and healing via musicking, reflective journaling, songwriting, art making, and vibrational healing. These will be deepened through ancestral practices such as Dadirri (deep listening and quiet still awareness) and guwa-li – to speak.

Saturday 07/09/2024
10.15AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-342, Building 201

Presenters: ITAC Global Working Group on Accessibility, USA, Scotland, Singapore, Canada, South Africa, Ghana

Session Description:
In this session, participants will actively engage with members of ITAC’s Global Working Group on Accessibility through a panel session and an introduction to digital accessibility resources.
The working group came together after the last ITAC Conference with the goals of increasing representation, sharing practices related to arts access, and creating resources. Members of the working group are teaching artists and arts leaders with varied perspectives on disability. About half the members of our group identify as disabled and the rest identify as non-disabled allies. We prioritize learning from and with each other.
We firmly believe in the statement “nothing about us without us” and center the voices and lived experiences of people with disabilities in our work. By sharing individual (varied) perspectives, cultural contexts of disability, and resources based on inquiry and lived experience, we hope to create opportunities for meaningful dialogue and further access to the arts for all.
Our digital resources include information on Access Statements, perspectives on language from individuals who identify as disabled, and more. This offering centers individuals with disabilities and is intended to generate new understandings about our international community, introduce resources, and together consider how global perspectives can impact local practices. Participants will actively engage in discussion and activities during the panel session. We invite further participation from participants and see this as the beginning of a larger dialogue.
During the panel, we hope to introduce a conference-wide “Access Scavenger Hunt” in which participants look for accessibility resources during the conference and examples of accessible spaces. In addition to this proposal, the Global Working Group on Accessibility is submitting a workshop proposal and a quiet space proposal.

Saturday 07/09/2024
10.15AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-341, Building 201

Presenter: Jacqui Moyes, Home Ground, NZ

Session Description:
Home Ground will present a sound installation, and hold a conversation around our creative practice in Prison and the community.
The sound instaillation is called “Take the Space, My Love” and is an eight episode Audio Journey discussing the lived experience of women that have been impacted by the justice system, and Home Ground’s creative practice in response to these experiences.
The presentation is a conversation supported by Home Ground rituals and frameworks, using a ‘rubber-band style’ facilitation team. Our discussionscentre on the impact of incarceration, reclamation of our Mana and carving out space for ourselves and our whānau through creative practice.

Saturday 07/09/2024
10.15AM (1.5 hours)
Room 206-210, Building 206

Presenter: Nicole Cherry, The University of Texas San Antonio, USA

Session Description:
The violin, in its many forms, holds a significant place in world history as a communicator, a language with which we can all identify, and understand. In this session, I will offer two commissioned pieces that in the process of creating them and performing them, seek to connect us.
As a champion of new music, I have commissioned several works and companion pieces from all over the world based on my research of nineteenth-century Afro-European violinist, George Bridgtower.The first commission, by American violist, David Wallace “The Bridgtower, for singing, speaking, rapping, solo violinist” is based on a poem by Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Rita Dove.. Having experienced the performance of this piece in the UK and Australia and North America, I have found it allows me to share a conversation with this unrecognized yet accomplished historical figure. This will be paired with the latest commission “Diggin’ the Violin” by Afro-Swiss composer Jessie Cox. Together we learned we share desire to evoke narratives through a multi-phased sound journey.
I strive to find connections through community engagement, teaching, and programming. This is what manifested, ForgewithGeorge, which invites composers globally to reimagine and reexamine the contributions of George Bridgtower through sound.
I believe embracing community and music making intersect – one feeds the other. Music is an interaction. The interaction of sound, time, space, body, mind, soul. This in so many ways are a microcosm of life’s experience; how we interact is who we become. Throughout my life, I have allowed my interactions to guide me.
In this session, through anecdotes, lessons I have learned, discovery and my own exploration, I will point to 3 interactions that have empowered me as an artist-teacher and in what ways they have become an important part of my commitment to commission for a connected community.

Saturday 07/09/2024
10.15AM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-317, Building 201

Presenter: Kathrin Marks & Heleina Dalton, Whitecliffe College, NZ

Session Description:
In this workshop, we offer an exploration of ecotones (the concept) and ecotoning (the act of bringing the ecotone to life).
Generally speaking, ecotones are transition areas between habitats (such as ocean and land). Art Therapist Lynn Kapitan relates this concept to meeting places that occur in social and/or cultural environments; here, we relate to ourselves and one another.
Leaning into and drawing from the word (eco)toning, we consider various meanings:
• in art creation, toning speaks to making areas lighter or darker to bring out the whole or accentuate certain aspects of it – we aponder the whole of who we are as a collective alongside our unique place within it
• in musical expression, vocal toning speaks to creating sounds to facilitate healing – we will invite sounding as a healing component
• in physical exercise terms, it speaks to making the body firmer and stronger – we are curious about how this exploration can tone us energetically
In this workshop, we invite each other to explore and create a collective ecotone
• where Māori, Pākehā, tauiwi, and manuhiri meet
• as we consider the ecotonal landscape of tangata whenua and tangata tiriti,
• leaning into te taiaoa, using only natural materials, followed by
• inviting poetic and tonal responses to the mahi toi and the ‘something’ that emerges.
To do so, we will offer a scaffolding for this process, leaning into communitas (creating as a collective) and poiesis (inviting the arts process to lead). Our intention is to offer a space where we can explore and create an ecotonal landscape, bringing out both the whole and accentuate its parts, followed by ecotoning and sounding the emergent mahi toi to facilitate healing. Our hope is that we may leave the space more ‘eco/toned’ and connected.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (3 hours)
Visual Arts Lab 201-465, Building 201

Presenter: Marcie Wolf-Hubbard, USA

Session Description:
It takes a village! Workshop starts with an introduction to Building Tiny Houses and includes a presentation of houses and interiors featured in students’ Tiny Home Tours sharing descriptions of successful workshops with tiny home art created by children and adults. The tiny homes were created in person and virtually with Building a Tiny House as the the teaching artist’s initial virtual program at the beginning of the pandemic (late March 2020) for adult learners.
Marcie Wolf-Hubbard developed her first tiny house art sessions (pre-pandemic) for youth with severe emotional struggles in a Wraparound program with Family Preservation Services. As a provider of Expressive Arts, Ms. Wolf-Hubbard chose construction as a project likely to interest a family of four boys ages 2 to 10.
Positive outcomes for children and adults of all ages include:
– Building and connecting in a community
– Strengthening family relations
– Cooperating, and sharing
– Increasing confidence and problem solving skills while being inventive with materials and tools, and
– Learning new skills.
In this workshop, participants construct their own tiny houses or interiors in mixed media. We begin with construction using cardboard and tape. We will personalize the structures with acrylics and mixed media.
Mixed media brings exploration of a range of materials in fabricating the houses. Participants will see the possibilities of adding photo transfers, and a variety of techniques to make their house their own. Additional mixed media embellishments (fabric, textures and bling) will be demonstrated and available for students’ use on their houses.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (3 hours)
Room 201-334, Building 201

Presenter: Kara Seigal, Spotlight Peru, Peru & Brazil

Session Description:
What is the connection between the stage and second language acquisition? What transformative change can we bring about in the lives of young people of all backgrounds when we empower them to learn language and lifelong skills through the arts?
Drawing on half a decade of hands-on experience at Spotlight Performing Arts, an arts education organization working across Peru and Brazil, this session will lead participants in an applied musical theater workshop to gain tangible tools and skills that help practitioners shape young learners’ acquisition of critical second language and lifelong skills. Participants will use musical theater techniques as a conduit for teaching themselves and young learners communication skills, the power of vulnerability, and building confidence, skills that are critical in developing language fluency.
Acquiring a second language can impact brain development, access to economic and academic opportunities, and understanding of other cultures. However, most traditional learning environments make language learning tedious and taxing for young learners. Teaching artists can play a critical role at the intersection of education and play to deliver the key tools needed to foster a fun learning environment. Using the ABC+M framework and experiential learning theory, the practical tools provided in this session will help teaching artists and practitioners foster learner autonomy, belonging, competence and meaning to empower young people to engage in joyful language learning experiences. All teaching artists, practitioners and arts enthusiasts alike are welcome to participate in this workshop regardless of their experience in musical theater.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (3 hours)
Room 201-326, Building 201

Presenter: Walter MacDonald White Bear, Canada

Session Description:
Inspired by the land, water, and sky, Canadian cross-cultural musician/teaching artist duo Walter White Bear and Samantha Whelan Kotkas use the arts to reconnect people with nature. Their strong cross-cultural approach to working in communities allows them to break down barriers and invite people from various backgrounds to engage with music and stories.
In this interactive workshop, participants will share experiences, collaborate, and reflect as they actively participate in dancing, singing, and creating poetry based on nature and the seven Cree teachings: honesty, love, courage, truth, wisdom, humility, and respect.
Recently, Walter and Samantha worked together on an immersive multi-disciplinary land-based work entitled ‘Wandering with Wonder’. This project explored the ways people have looked to nature as inspiration for songs, dance, and storytelling and how, when people listen to the earth speak, they ultimately connect with themselves. Using what was learned from this award-winning project, Walter and Samantha will share the transformative power of music and storytelling as a doorway to a more just and equitable world.Activities included in this session:
• Live introductory music performed by Walter and Samantha
• Shared experiences of bringing a cross-cultural mentality and philosophy to the communities they work in and how the principles of reconciliation are at the core of the work they do as they activate the artistry of others
• Exploration of the Medicine Wheel (a sacred symbol used by the Indigenous people of Turtle Island (North America) reflecting the knowledge of the four nations of humanity)
• Learning Indigenous Songs and Participation in a Round Dance
• Relationship Building Activities
• Stories from the Land based on the seven sacred teachings and ‘Wandering with Wonder’
• Guided activity where participants will create music and poetry inspired by visual art and the poem ‘My Heart Soars’ by Chief Dan George

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (1.5 hours)
Arts Studio 201-122, Building 201

Presenter: Kisha September, New Zealand

Session Description:
Theworkshop centres on the presentation and interacation with a choreographic resource that can be used in the dance classroom that is focused on multi-modality to foster cultural safety.
The resource is based on learning competencies that have been acknowledged by several scholars such as Howard Gardner, but looks at it from the lens and framework of Ubuntology (an African framework) that challenges the structures of assessment and classroom resource towards a circular engagement, that allows for all participants of all ethnicities to partake, engage and respond to the creative task.
The workshop will be tiered so that it feesl like a choreographic workshop experience in dance, that allows for cultural inclusion and cultural safety of the learners in the space.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (1.5 hours)
Studio 201-120, Building 201

Presenter: Puchao Yang, China & New Zealand

Session Description:
In today’s performance-driven society, led by economic rationalization and hyper-utilitarianism, individuals are constantly pressured to derive value from their bodies or to overcome perceived bodily ‘defects’ in exceptional ways to conform to societal standards. This overlooks the freedom and ease with which we may move our bodies in intimate spaces at any given moment. Inclusive dance serves as a crucial opportunity to reconsider the rights, potentials, and contributions of those excluded from the discourse of art, challenging stereotypes such as the supercrip, abnormal, and deformed body, and presenting beneficial synergies between community and inclusivity ideals.
As a practitioner and researcher who engages with community art, I attempt to reconsider: how does the concept, knowledge, and ideology of “supercrip” reinforce societal expectations of ‘normalcy’ and ‘success’ through the perspective of dance, segregating those deemed ‘abnormal’ to form a new form of exclusion. Therefore, this workshop will focus on exploring how individuals engage in intra-action with everyday life through embodied dialogue and bodily experiences, providing more space for things that do not conform to efficiency or practical logic, and beyond the ideologies of ableism and ‘superhuman’.
Guided by critical disability studies and theories of liquid modernity, this workshop will utilize methods such as crip time and public pedagogy as practical tools, focusing on two types of movement vocabulary: firstly, the habitual and familiar daily movements that participants possess in intimate or public spaces. By awakening these often overlooked yet life-constructing movement vocabularies, they will be transformed into ways of self-expression. Secondly, through embodied interactions with daily objects, the deconstruction and reconstruction of idealized “super” movements will be attempted, exploring the interplay of the body, daily life, and time through games. In this space, there is no need for higher, faster, or stronger actions; rather, it is about encounters, freedom and celebration.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-342, Building 201

Presenters: Nicole Issa & Finn Ó Branagáin, Outloud, Australia

Session Description:
Outloud makes award-winning youth-arts by partnering professional artists with community care organisations. We have a 30+ year legacy of community-integrated youth arts initiatives in Bankstown, Western Sydney, which is one of Australia’s most culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse places, a place of many celebrations and many ways of understanding the world, with pockets of severe disadvantage amongst the many strengths – a true global microcosm.
Within our spiral ‘pathway of engagement’ we work with young people from the pre-artist stage, providing skills, opportunities and support all the way through their development to them becoming the professional artists we hire as facilitators.
In this interactive workshop we’ll show you how we work, giving examples, advice and inspiration about integrating social work practices, community service organisations and into your own practices. Look at the benefits, challenges, and practical tools for fostering collaborative relationships and involving community organisations in your artistic process through methods like development co-design groups, theory of change, and logic models for the smallest to the largest projects.
Case studies include RESPECT and UNITY, award-winning early intervention programs that teach singing and songwriting through the lens of preventing domestic violence. We work with 10-12-year-olds who write their own song and make a professional music video!
Experience Wear Your Art on Your Sleeve, a values-based badgemaking workshop that centres on strengths and identity, and making a tiny artwork that starts the conversations you’d rather be having.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (3 hours)
Room 201-341, Building 201

Presenter: Betsaleel Charmelus, Artistyear, USA

Session Description:
Teaching artists often find themselves navigating a compelling contradiction. Our work often seeks to invite our “students” to draw out their best creative selves in public, but creative potential and creative expression is an intimate experience and often very private. With this, some important questions arise: How do we nurture an environment that honors both the communal celebration of creativity and the individual’s need for privacy in this exploration? How can we more mindfully invite marginalized humans to participate in such an intimate practice, especially if a culture of self-intimacy feels so foreign? What assumptions are we making as teaching artists about our goals? As we strive for a more equitable world through arts-based practices, it becomes imperative to delve into the essence of creative exploration itself.
While discussing this as a group, I aim to utilize music and video visualizers to create interactive “art experience” breakouts. Participants will engage in collaborative exercises designed to foster a collective understanding of creative potential, while also respecting the personal nature of creative expression. These activities aim to model softness, fluidity, and vulnerability in learning spaces, encouraging educators to rethink traditional classroom dynamics, their own privilege, language and assumptions about learning and teaching.
The goal is to move slowly and gently. We will explore this paradox through discussion, experience art together and work through a deeper understanding of how systems can prevent brains and bodies from accessing creativity. The session will also open a dialogue on control and authority in creative learning spaces, inviting a shift towards more inclusive teaching methodologies.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (3 hours)
Room 206-202, Building 206

Presenter: Tasha Milkman, Broken Box Mime Theater, USA

Session Description:
What happens when we remove spoken language from our teaching artistry?
This session will be taught without spoken language as an experiential iteration of my ITAC Nonverbal Teaching Artistry Toolkit. Wordless teaching artistry can increase access, enhance impact, and help to build the foundation of a joyful, collaborative group culture.
Like the Toolkit, the workshop will be conducted in four sections:
1. Introduction: A nonverbal follow-the-leader warm-up that requires no training, technique, or study. (Your body is perfect the way it is!) Movements, graphics, and some simple written language will lay out the expectations and agenda.
2. Big Picture: This section will ground us in the purpose of the workshop, its potential applications, and the mix of intellectual and physical engagement that will characterize our exploration.
3. Tips & Tenets / Activity Library: Games! We will play with body language, collaborate to create group images, explore facial expressions, and strengthen our storytelling skills. Periodically I will reflect on the tip or tenet that was illustrated by the activity we just completed. I hope to co-teach the workshop with the Associate Artistic Director of Broken Box and Education Co-Lead, Tasha Milkman. Together we can model many of these games at a more effective level than if taught alone.
4. Further Reading: To close, I will facilitate a (spoken, yet embodied!) conversation where we reflect on our experiences, share insights, and brainstorm on how this work could apply to different mediums and/or communities. I will record and transcribe it, and add our findings to the “Further Reading” section of the Toolkit.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (3 hours)
Room 206-210, Building 206

Presenter: Ann Way, Night Owl Art, NZ

Session Description:
Dance Movement Therapy practitioners use Physical Storytelling (PS) as a creative improvisational practice in group therapy, group supervision, or artistic inquiry research. PS is rooted in Contact Improvisation, Physical Theatre, and Narrative storytelling.
This workshop uses PS in a group process format, where the participants nonverbally tell their stories about their birthplace and residence location. The workshop encourages creative expression, self-reflection, and cultural exploration through movement within the landscape or environment where the participants are located or chosen. The teaching artist will structure and conduct the workshop based on the structure of Physical Storytelling practice: Solo, Duet and Group process.

Saturday 07/09/2024
1.05PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-317, Building 201

Presenter: Shana Habel, Language of Dance Center, USA

Session Description:
In this session, we will explore the potential of embodied experiences to address social issues in a powerful way, to inform and heighten awareness and inspire action towards meaningful change. We will begin the session by 1) acknowledging and calling out global water concerns, and 2) acknowledging the fact that as human beings, it is through our bodies that we first became aware of and responded to the world around us; we are connected. We will then explore a narrative score of a “water dance” created and performed as a part of the 2023 Global Water Dances. Participants will then be invited to jump into the problem kinesthetically, co-creating embodied “responses” to the water crisis based on a dynamic exploration of targeted movement concepts and ideas. We will use written motif notation symbols from the Language of Dance® to help us craft embodied responses, creating movement scores to be shared and witnessed. Reflecting on the process of exploring and responding to an issue in an embodied way, we will consider how to re-engage our embodied sense to be able to respond to what the earth is now calling upon us to do. When we look at our current global water crisis, we can all agree that action is needed. How do we inspire, enervate and energize ourselves and those around us to take action, individually and globally? It is the hope of this workshop to ignite and deepen thoughts and feelings around the issue; expand our vision of what activism looks like; encourage embodied explorations in our work to counter the apathy and disconnect too often present around critical global issues; and ultimately, to gain insight and inspiration towards next steps and tip the scale from awareness to action.

Saturday 07/09/2024
2.35PM (3 hours)
Arts Studio 201-122, Building 201

Presenters: Charlotte Slinger & Kate Hadley, Bearface Theatre CIC, UK

Session Description:
This workshop comprises of a [remote] introduction to the Choices project by Annabel Cook from Artswork, followed by an in-person interactive Applied Theatre workshop run by Kate Hadley from BearFace Theatre. Choices is an innovative youth project for the prevention of youth violence in Hampshire. 560 workshops will be run in schools across Hampshire between 2023-2025, engaging thousands of young people aged 10-12 with relevant issues using drama. The school workshop starts with an animation, inspired by the voices and experiences of prisoners in HMP/YOI Winchester. BearFace Theatre then use Applied Theatre techniques to explore some of the challenges young people face growing up, and empower them to make informed decisions in the future. Other elements of the project include teacher inset training and developing legacy materials. The programme is funded by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Violence Reduction Unit. In this bespoke workshop for ITAC7, we will: – Explain the context and background of the Choices project – Show the animated film and run part of the workshop with delegates – Talk about the process of writing the animation story and script with the young offenders (aged 18-25) in HMP/YOI Winchester – Present the experiences and reflections of BearFace Theatre freelance artists working in schools. – Present the work-in-progress evaluation and impact (on-going) – Q&A about the project

Saturday 07/09/2024
2.35PM (3 hours)
Studio 201-120, Building 201

Presenter: Jill Greenbaum, icoachidesign, USA

Session Description:
This session is comprised of two complementary halves. Participants will be given a hand-drawn roadmap/template for our journey together, which can be used for note-making, and their own set of materials for art-making that will be theirs to work with and keep.
Initially, participants will discover the easy-to-learn, relaxing Zentangle® method of mark-making to create structured patterns that become beautiful designs. We will explore with “tiles”/small squares of Italian paper, Micron pen, pencil, and smudger, how to mindfully make simple, deliberate strokes that build on each other in mesmerizing and surprising ways. While practicing with a half dozen “tangles” (patterns), learners will work with the philosophy, which infuses the method throughout the creative experience. As participants work and play with the materials, they will achieve a greater sense of calm, increased focus, and delight in their new found skills.
In the second half of the session, we will explore trauma-informed teaching: as a large group, we will define it, discuss the core tenets of trauma-informed care, and underscore the need for such a lens and methodology for our work in the world today. Following the introduction to trauma-informed teaching, participants will work in small groups to identify how aspects of a trauma-informed approach were integrated into the design of the first half of the session (learning the Zentange method). I will harvest the learning from the small groups’ work by creating a live graphic recording of the participants’ ideas, learning, and questions. The session will conclude with participants developing initial plans for incorporating aspects of trauma-informed care into their own work and sharing their plans in dyads. Resources will be provided for their ongoing journey into Zentangle and trauma-informed teaching.

Saturday 07/09/2024
2.35PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-342, Building 201

Presenter: Mary Suk, USA

Session Description:
The workshop explores a framework for creating narrative dance/movement theater work that provides opportunities for students to be represented, problem solve, generate solutions, and investigate current events and issues. No dance experience is necessary. Provocation for the workshop is to consider what is democracy.
Participants will consider incorporating democratic practices in collaborative student-driven art making; Explore world-making as a container for narratives with multiple protagonists.

Saturday 07/09/2024
2.35PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-317, Building 201

Presenter: Alison Grove O’Grady, University of Sydney, Australia

Session Description:
‘Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine’ – Mary Oliver Wild Geese

This is not a tome or a treatise of despair. This work seeks to do is three things. The performance utilises artistic methods to shine a light on the cracks and my chasm – of grief. It attempts to articulate the critical role of the arts in developing grief literacy and elevating the continuing bonds of love. The work is a performance of moments, that integrates poetry, song and memoir to heighten and give voice to those affected and shaped, after an earthly life ceases. Finally it relies on the collected artistic works of the subject, my son – Xavier Patrick O’Grady, to shape and inform the past and to reconfigure the life and the living through the continuing bonds of love. It also unashamedly argues for space and place of and for grief in our constellation of lives and of the living.
It is at its heart a homage to my son and the love we continue to share.

Saturday 07/09/2024
4.20PM (1.5 hours)
Visual Arts Lab 201-465, Building 201

Presenter: Kobie Meiring, Cape Peninsula University Of Technology, South Africa

Session Description:
The workshop aims to challenge conventional ways of seeing in art education by introducing embodied mark-making practices to art teachers. By experiencing a shift in sensory awareness/attunement, attendees will explore how embodied learning can transform traditional perspectives in art education, offering new opportunities for creative expression and engagement in the classroom.
Context and relevance to the field of TA: Prescriptive methodologies in elementary art classrooms – where outcomes are regarded more important than process – are generally normalised in public school curricula in South Africa. The activities introduced in the workshop will be arts-based with the focus on embodied mark-making. The activities will emphasise materiality through sensory focus and will embody the effort to disrupt the product-process divide in art education. This workshop is based on a PhD research study with student teachers in the foundation phase and the findings indicated that the omission of embodied awareness in learning and teaching visual art in classrooms are both personal and collective manifestations of dominant Eurocentric worldviews that shape teachers’ ways of seeing, aesthetic sensibilities, subjectivity, teaching methodologies, and visual representation. Shifting focus from content, skills, and aesthetics to developing methodologies for including sensory intelligence in terms of how teachers relate to content in full body-mind awareness is a way to address prescriptive methodologies and to shift ways of seeing for teachers. Workshop attendees will explore through attention to visceral, sensory and emotional notions the possibilities of embodied mark-making activities to facilitate a shift in sensory awareness and attunement.

Saturday 07/09/2024
4.20PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-334, Building 201

Presenter: Thea Martin, Connecting The Dots in Music, Australia

Session Description:
How do we articulate the way we feel and hear sounds? What methods are we drawn to? What do they uniquely communicate?
The ‘Post-Scores Project’ invites people to become ‘scorers’, through an embodied mode of listening to sound, and to share insights with others through ‘scoring’ – the process of writing down/articulating sounds. Inspired by the work of 2 experimental composers, the Postal Pieces of James Tenney and the Deep Listening Practices of Pauline Oliveros, workshop participants are invited to engage in a group listening and scoring meditation, reflecting on the sounds that are integral to their teaching artist practices and exploring intuitive modes of sonic expression. Each workshop participant will be given a blank postcard and asked to capture a sound in a way that best preserves its sonic qualities, before being guided through discussions and composition activities that explore their imagined and remembered sonic worlds. This project has been previously undertaken in a school setting by students aged 9-12, as well as with young adults of various artistic disciplines. In both settings, we collectively reflected on the ways we listen to sounds, their roles in our lives, and the ways we can be assisted by shape, line, texture and language to communicate these sounds to others. The ‘Post-Scores Project’ aims to reframe the way we teach and interact with Western music notation, by embracing a multitude of literacies in dialogue with one another, uncovered through young people’s intuitive creative expression and exploration. Scoring is therefore understood as a tool for articulating sonic ideas, rather than a system to be learnt without its sonic context. Over the course of this session, we will reimagine what literacies in music education ‘count’, and the sonic worlds we can access and create within when we listen with our whole selves, in community.

Saturday 07/09/2024
4.20PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-326, Building 201

Presenter: Nicholas Grew, Whangārei Girls’ High School, NZ

Session Description:
The context of this workshopis a New Zealand high school songwriting and music production course. It explores how teachers and students develop and maintain a sense of purpose, motivation and creativity in a post-COVID lockdown education context; working with inevitable disruption rather than counter to it?
This showcase will explore the concepts of radical inclusion (Dempsey & Brafman) as well as the relationship of learning environment and motivation (Kaplan & Patrick) to attempt to define the main influences that contribute to developing a culture of empathy in a high school music programme as well as in community music contexts. Through a flexible, collaborative approach to composition and improvisation, students seem to be better equipped to navigate through these uncertain, anxiety-induced times; finding their own pathway, identity, belonging and connection in a perceived climate of disconnectivity.
The showcase will present the idea of facilitating group music-making and its practical considerations including resources, learning spaces and pedagogy all stemming from a place of empathy and how it might occur to an individual student. There will be opportunity for participants to explore these ideas through a practical activity centred around improvisation and compositional building blocks for diverse groups of individuals. Recommendations and advice around group facilitation skills and setting up a conducive learning space as well as making considered choices of appropriate resources will also be discussed and demonstrated.

Saturday 07/09/2024
4.20PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-342, Building 201

Presenter: Ian Mok, Hong Kong

Session Description:
For a city that has traditionally focused on achievement at the expense of mental health, Hong Kong has yet to realise that musical activities can be critical to improving one’s well-being. At best, music is seen as a way of boosting a child’s university application – a means to an end where the love of the art is sacrificed, and the inevitable gathering of dust on an instrument begins the moment there are no more grades to conquer.
Given this backdrop, I will use musical activities to share how and why musical engagement is so important to our well-being, and how I developed these activities to create a fun, culturally inclusive music programme for happiness. They are designed for play with an intergenerational audience – the first of its kind in the city – and I’ll share with you how these activities meet some of the challenges and cultural quirks that come with working in Hong Kong. Finally, I’ll also highlight the positive psychology elements that contribute to happiness so you can meld and adapt them into your own practices – after all, aren’t we here to bring a little more joy to the world through what we do?
So please come along and enjoy – no musical experience is necessary!

Saturday 07/09/2024
4.20PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-341, Building 201

Presenter: Ladona Tornabene, University Of Minnesota Duluth, USA

Session Description:
As a fine-art photographer, poet, and writer with an academic background in public health, my interpretative work stems from my belief that the arts and nature are integral to our health. Health encompasses social, emotional, mental/intellectual, physical, environmental and spiritual dimensions of wellness. Throughout this session I will be showing examples of outdoor art that I have strived to photograph in aesthetically vibrant and creative ways. I will also share a bit about the art and the connections that I have made to health, thus interpreting outdoor art through the lens of health. For example: In a New Orleans outdoor sculpture garden, I photographed an abstract piece titled “Runner”, by Tony Cragg. Cragg created intentional nuances within the sculpture to evoke mindfulness while inviting viewers to discover shapes embedded within it that resembled runner’s faces/knees. Engaging my own mindfulness enabled me to find a creative angle to photograph this work–through an opening in the middle of the sculpture–which perfectly framed a nearby live oak tree. I felt as though I had photographed the “heart” of the runner because oak trees, which can live over 300 years, absorb up to 10 pounds of air pollution annually and can help runner’s obtain healthy air to breathe, thus contributing to heart-health. This is the type of arts and health connection that is applicable to all of us.
Using outdoor art as a conversation catalyst can impact health on multiple levels. First, people are invited to practice arts engagement and mindfulness as a beholder. Second, they are in settings where elements of nature (e.g., sky, grass, natural light) are present. Third, they are engaged when discussing how the art piece could pertain to any dimension of health, thus activating social and intellectual health.

Saturday 07/09/2024
4.20PM (1.5 hours)
Room 206-202, Building 206

Presenter: Deborah Green, Whitecliffe College, NZ

Session Description:
Many arts-based practices, like creative arts therapy (CAT), use arts’ processes to effect change rather than produce commercial products. When students are learning to facilitate such processes, what indicates they’re succeeding? Transformation may manifest in a shiver down the spine, a tolerance of uncertainty, an unexpected reversal – the presence of ‘Something-more…’. Within assessments, how might we ‘measure’ the surprising, emotionally vivid, creatively capricious when institutions require rubric-shaped outcomes? In this workshop, we’ll use multi-modal arts to play with and collaboratively push beyond research undertaken by CATs-educators regarding ways to cultivate ‘Something-more…’ within confines of educational conventions.
Dr Deborah Green PhD, M Ed, Registered Clinical Creative Arts Therapist (CAThR) is Head of the School of Creative Arts Therapies, Whitecliffe, Aotearoa NZ. Her academic/practitioner career encompasses educational/community theatre, adult education, community development, lifeskills/AIDS education and counselling (South Africa), and creative arts therapy (NZ). A passionate therapist, educator and arts-based researcher, she’s published and presented in/at several international journals/books and conferences/symposia.

Saturday 07/09/2024
4.20PM (1.5 hours)
Lecture Theatre 201-440, Building 201

Presenters: Alison Talmage & members of the CeleBRation Choir, University of Auckland, NZ

Session Description:
This interactive, song-based presentation will be presented by Alison Talmage and members of the CeleBRation Choir, a “neurological choir” or singing group for adults with acquired neurological conditions (https://www.auckland.ac.nz/cbr-choir). Launched in 2009 by the newly formed Centre for Brain Research, the Choir brings together researchers, clinicians and the community. Participants are people living with conditions such as post-stroke aphasia, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, or traumatic brain injury, which impact all aspects of life, as well as some family members and community and student volunteers. The Choir programme includes weekly sessions and special events, including community engagement through performances in retirement villages, university events and professional conferences.
Now in its fifteenth year, the Choir has been the focus of several studies, including Alison Talmage’s practice-based doctoral action research (expected submission mid-2024). Past research includes a feasibility study highlighting potential social and communication benefits, and a correlation between health-related quality of life and participation in community or therapeutic choirs in New Zealand.
Songwriting for and with the choir has become an important aspect of practice, within semi-structured sessions of vocal exercises and negotiated song repertoire. Methods have included song parody, lyric writing with music created by the music therapist, and co-created lyrics and music. An exciting community collaboration resulted in the Choir recording a specially composed song by jazz musician Ben Fernandez.
In this presentation, the audience will be invited to listen and participate as the Choir share original songs and spontaneous song parody, with a linked narrative to illustrate their individual, collective and research stories.

Saturday 07/09/2024
4.20PM (1.5 hours)
Room 201-317, Building 201

Presenters: Leigh Tesch & Kirsty Grierson, The Small Stories Project, Australia

Session Description:
Small Stories Exchange is an intergenerational project delivered in 4 different communities in Tasmania involving young children and their caregivers with older people who are living in an aged care facility in their community. This carefully crafted and unique project supports storytelling with each group, exploring their sense of place, what is important to them, and experiences as a young child. Through a creative exchange between generations, stories are shared and strong long-lasting connections are built.
This workshop session will explore the creative practices that have been developed through this amazing project. It will bring people of different backgrounds and generations together. Leigh and Kirsty will share their models and approaches to working with storytelling, play, performance and puppetry as a way to build strong connections with people who may not have many opportunities to be with people outside their everyday lives. Kirsty and Leigh will offer their learnings from their recent project Small Stories Exchange and will facilitate discussion about the positives and challenges of this work.
The session will invite participants to create and explore in taster exercises that will reveal a shared sense of community and provide a playful pathway to tell of past and present experiences. Together we will build connections between and beyond our stories into a shared performance that will explore our own experiences of community, childhood, and family.