Presenters

Betsy Pendry

I have been a mem­ber of the Social Ther­apy Devel­op­ment com­mu­nity since the late 1970’s. I trained as a dancer and in that capac­ity was intro­duced to impro­vi­sa­tion. I loved it then and love it now. It has been a joy to bring my “back­ground” in that together with social and com­mu­nity devel­op­ment on the issues of HIV/AIDS and cit­i­zen­ship. I trained as a Social Ther­a­pist in the early stages of the Ther­a­pist Train­ing Pro­gramme in the 80’s and hav­ing been using it as a method­ol­ogy since then. I have worked in the field of HIV/AIDS since 1988, first in the USA and since “98 in South Africa, when I started the Liv­ing Together Project. My work has come to focus on youth devel­op­ment, HIV/AIDS and the devel­op­ment of cit­i­zen­ship and com­mu­ni­ties. Over the years the LTP project has become more per­for­ma­tory, con­ver­sa­tional and cre­ative and less focussed on an “out­come”. We cre­ate the­atri­cal and musi­cal per­for­mances, and make masks, “Body Maps” and poetry as a col­lec­tive per­for­ma­tory activ­ity. In the work of the LTP we chal­lenge the under­stand­ing that being HIV+ is an “iden­tity” and we work to trans­form stigma and under-development at group and com­mu­nity lev­els through cre­at­ing together.

Annalie Pis­to­rius

 I grew up in Pha­l­aborwa, a rapidly devel­op­ing min­ing town in the North of South Africa where tar roads melt in the heat. I was a rebel­lious kid look­ing for love and feel­ing ashamed of my class sta­tus. Dur­ing the 80s as clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist, worked with ‘psy­chotic’ youth in a psy­chi­atric rehab ward, won­dered on to indus­try to extend my train­ing as indus­trial psy­chol­o­gist. I then shifted to prac­tic­ing and teach­ing com­mu­nity psy­chol­ogy at a Black Med­ical Uni­ver­sity. Dur­ing my doc­toral study, I real­ized that my pas­sion for par­tic­i­pa­tory com­mu­nity work stemmed from want­ing to change my strug­gle politic, which I share with fel­low South Africans. I found that we could shift our power based par­tic­i­pa­tion through a net­work­ing approach, wherein we as com­mu­nity par­tic­i­pants appre­ci­ated free flow­ing exchanges. We still missed out on col­lec­tive emo­tional devel­op­ment. So when dur­ing 2004–5 I ‘dis­cov­ered’ social ther­a­peu­tics through Lois Holzman’s online courses, I could intro­duce a new method into my work — per­form­ing par­tic­i­pa­tory action research, find­ing it socially ther­a­peu­tic and hav­ing fun with it!

Stom­pie Selibe

I was born in Soweto South Africa to Tswana and Sotho par­ents. As a child I lis­tened to my father and his friends play music as a way to deal with the impact of apartheid on their lives, that swerved as an intro­duc­tion to the heal­ing power of music for me. I started doing art and music at the local youth clubs and started play­ing drums as a teenager. I trained as an art teacher in the late ’90’s and cur­rently am a print­maker, teacher and music healer. I work in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties using art and musi­cal per­for­mance as a tool for heal­ing. I work with the Art Ther­apy Cen­ter work­ing with chil­dren affected by HIV/AIDS, with Dedelin’goma and their work with trauma work­ers and home based care work­ers deal­ing with HIV/AIDS and have worked with the Liv­ing Together Project since 2002, where I led a musi­cal per­for­mance of 350 peo­ple on World AIDS Day at Robben Island. In 1998 I trav­eled to Angola, Namibia, Bel­gium and Cuba as a mem­ber of the “inti­mas mar­cas” exhi­bi­tion and musi­cal exchange, play­ing with and learn­ing from some of the great musi­cians from those coun­tries and in 2004 I was a fel­low at Bran­deis Uni­ver­sity in their Recast­ing Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in Art and Cul­ture programme.

Dur­ing our pre­sen­ta­tion Per­form­ing South Africa we hope to share and co-create a sense of how per­for­mance is being used in some of our youth and com­mu­nity projects in Johan­nes­burg and Pre­to­ria. We will use indige­nous musi­cal instru­ments, col­lec­tive poetry, lan­guage games incor­po­rat­ing South African lan­guages and con­ver­sa­tions, and video clips of some of our work.

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I am Syed Miza­nur Rah­man, though peo­ple around me like to call me Raju Ahmed. I was born on the 3rd of Feb­ru­ary 1970 at a remote vil­lage of Tan­gail, a dis­trict of Bangladesh. As a per­son comes from poverty and cru­cial socio-culture setup, can real­ize most of the devel­op­ment issues from my empa­thetic heart. Issues like Poverty, Gen­der, Health, Gov­er­nance, Tol­er­ance etc. has been per­ceived by my life started from child­hood. Even then I goes to insti­tu­tional learn­ing to pro­nounce num­ber of good things and to drop CV for bet­ter work to reduce self-poverty and com­mu­nity as well, because my mother always helps me to feel psy­cho­log­i­cal poverty as major cause of finan­cial poverty. So, I started strug­gle to reduce psy­cho­log­i­cal and finan­cial poverty together.

While study­ing Eco­nom­ics at Jahangir­na­gar Uni­ver­sity, I devel­oped a deep inter­est in the­atre. I found it curi­ous that despite its immense impor­tance, Eco­nom­ics has remained sim­ply a dis­ci­pline to be stud­ied and peo­ple have lit­tle or no expo­sure to it. On the other hand, get­ting involved with the­atre and the­atri­cal­ity made me aware of a cru­cial gap between what is taught and what is applied, between inten­tion and moti­va­tion in both moti­va­tional and insti­tu­tional learn­ing. When I dis­cov­ered that the­atre enjoys an upper edge in both enter­tain­ing and moti­vat­ing, I started actively par­tic­i­pat­ing in the­atre, both as an actor, direc­tor and event orga­nizer with an inten­tion to dis­cover and asso­ciate moti­va­tional poten­tial to edu­cate peo­ple in issues related to eco­nom­ics and devel­op­ment. Along with stag­ing some clas­sics, I also pro­duced per­for­mances on Poverty, Drugs, Tobacco, HIV/AIDS, Social Har­mony etc. at the uni­ver­sity cam­pus and par­tic­i­pated National Radio and Tele­vi­sion pro­grams as an enlisted artist. Then I did my sec­ond Mas­ters in Drama (Direc­tion) from Rabindra Bharati Uni­ver­sity, India and Diploma in film direc­tion from National Insti­tute of Film and Fine Arts (NIFFA), India.

On my return, I joined an ad firm as Exec­u­tive Cre­ative, and later Direc­torate of Non-formal Edu­ca­tion as Audio-Visual Offi­cer. While work­ing there, I devel­oped a strong sense of the impor­tance and poten­tial of elec­tronic media as an effec­tive means for social mobi­liza­tion and mar­ket­ing. And also, being a the­atre per­son, I under­stood that elec­tronic media, if planned wisely, can use­fully be used for inter­ac­tion and advo­cacy. These and many other jobs with NGOs have helped me develop my expe­ri­ence and per­cep­tions about the­atre and its poten­tial as moti­vat­ing fac­tor, a case not cul­ti­vated prop­erly as yet.

In 1999, I along with some dynamic young peo­ple estab­lished TREE, The­atre for Research Edu­ca­tion and Empow­er­ment. Our aim is to fully exploit the poten­tial of the­atre to dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion, ensure effec­tive pen­e­tra­tion, and leave the audience/participants con­fi­dent enough to be active and empow­ered to meet their own problems.

I wish to share my views and strate­gies with all con­cerned to be enriched.

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Syed Miza­nur Rah­man
(alias Raju Ahmed)
Man­ag­ing Direc­tor
TREE Foun­da­tion Ltd.
House # 11–13, Road # 5
Block # C, Banashree
Ram­pura, Dhaka.
Phone: +88–02-7288216
Cell: +88–0175004484( Can call from All type of phone)
Web: www.treefoundation.net

NPR CALL TO ACTION—AIR YOUR BELIEFS

http://www.npr.org/thisibelieve/form.html

What if some­one had told me?  What if we’d all been look­ing for signs of men­tal illness—an obvi­ous part of our fam­ily his­tory, yet nobody ever talked about it?  Could an hon­est con­ver­sa­tion, telling the truth about our gene pool, have changed the course of my life?  I am sure the answer is yes, but that is not what hap­pened to me.  Here’s what happened…

“I was 24 years old, and after at least 4 manic episodes, I was diag­nosed with bipo­lar dis­or­der or manic-depression.  I had lost every­thing; my fiancé, my four-year old hair­dress­ing busi­ness, my apart­ment, and most impor­tantly, my san­ity.  I had to move back in and live with my par­ents, who at this point, finally revealed to me that that my pater­nal grand­mother had com­mit­ted sui­cide by shoot­ing her­self.  My father said it was because she had high blood pres­sure.  Hmm­m­mmm…  My mother told me that my grand­mother had been so depressed she would not leave her home.  What if they would have been hon­est with them­selves and with me and heeded signs of my dis-ease before my life turned into chaos?”

Look—we have to be able to tell the truth to our­selves and each other.  There is noth­ing to be ashamed of. I am the voice of the need to deal directly with men­tal health issues—by telling the truth and sup­port­ing one another.  What if we lis­tened to and embraced all of the flaws AND all of the poten­tials of our com­mu­nity mem­bers?  What would it feel like to live in a com­mu­nity, in a world, where every­one wants to live and every­body wants all of you in it?

It is has been part of my life expe­ri­ence, more than once, to lose every­thing that was impor­tant to me; my home, my most impor­tant rela­tion­ships, my work, my life sav­ings, my san­ity, everything…

Yet, I have gained much… I know what it feels like to be one with God—with all of life.  I have been over the edge of my own san­ity and emerged into the ecstasy of that most sacred con­nec­tion.  I have heard, seen, felt, and touched places that most peo­ple only dream of going, some of them bright and light and meta­phys­i­cal and some of them dark and scary and never, never, never ending.

I have been so far to and over the edges that my mid­dle is deep, but it is not deep enough to hold me cen­ter.  I need sup­port to hold me center—support of loved ones, med­ica­tions, con­nec­tion to Spirit and nature, and to give some­thing back.  I have made it my life’s work to serve oth­ers chal­lenged by men­tal health issues, and in turn, serve and heal myself.  This is what sus­tains me.

What sus­tains you?                                                            \

Paula Comunelli, MSOD
Lis­ten­ing Well CEO²
Chief Executive/Consumer Empow­er­ment Offi­cer
831.335.3378
P.O. Box 1169, Fel­ton, CA  95018
paula@listeningwell.net
www.listeningwell.net

Lis­ten­ing Well pro­vides men­tal health edu­ca­tion and aware­ness pro­grams for indi­vid­u­als, ser­vice providers, fam­ily mem­bers, orga­ni­za­tions, and com­mu­ni­ties.  We uncover, gather, and dis­trib­ute per­sonal sto­ries of resiliency to bust stigma, enhance pre­ven­tion, and offer hope and heal­ing to those who are impacted by men­tal health and sub­stance abuse issues

Lisa Hayes in “Nurse!”

At the con­fer­ence I will be per­form­ing a 2 hour excerpt from my one-woman show of “Nurse!” The play revolves around a nurs­ing strike and is based on oral his­to­ries I did with nurses, par­tic­u­larly those involved in a strike on Long Island in 2002. I’m an actress and play­wright now at the dis­ser­ta­tion stage of a PhD in Amer­i­can Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity at Buf­falo (dis­ser­ta­tion topic “The­atri­cal­iz­ing Oral His­tory in the U.S., Great Britain and Canada”). I have toured exten­sively (Eng­land, Scot­land, Prague, U.S.) in my one-woman show of “Jane Eyre” (80 min­utes, 25 char­ac­ters) and in “Nurse!” (off-Broadway, Inter­na­tional Oral His­tory Con­fer­ence in Rome). Am also col­lab­o­rat­ing with jour­nal­ist Suzanne Gor­don on a play called “Bed­side Man­ners,” which we hope to make the cen­ter of a cur­ricu­lum that helps trans­form com­mu­ni­ca­tion between doc­tors and nurses. Out of my inter­est in museum the­atre and community-based arts projects, I devel­oped and taught courses on both at the U. at Buf­falo. While I con­tinue to write and per­form (and com­plete my PhD!), I am look­ing for a fac­ulty posi­tion where I can involve stu­dents in cre­at­ing work that actively engages them with the world through their own community.

————————
Lisa Hayes
Lhayes@janeeyre.com

Lisa Hayes as Jane Eyre
80 Min­utes … 25 Char­ac­ters … 1 Actress

As one of the pre­sen­ters this year at Per­form­ing the World Three it’s excit­ing to be able to share some images of what I do here at The Children’s Hos­pi­tal at West­mead, Syd­ney Aus­tralia.  The images you are look­ing at are from an instal­la­tion called “The But­ter­fly Effect” an instal­la­tion of over 8000 card­board but­ter­flies dec­o­rated by patients, staff and the con­nected com­mu­nity. Enjoy.

Rose Lynn    Artist

den­zil j. mey­ers
wid­get­won­der
mod­er­at­ing • strat­egy • work­shops
orga­ni­za­tional cul­ture & con­sumer brands

415.643.6728 (voice)
www.widgetwonder.com (blog)

Paul Mur­ray

BA (hons): The­atre Arts, Uni­ver­sity of Leeds (Bret­ton Hall)

MA: Drama, Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture, Uni­ver­sity of Warwick.

Cur­rently in post as pro­gramme direc­tor of Art-Full, the Scot­tish arts, men­tal health and well-being pro­gramme, funded by the Scot­tish Exec­u­tive (gov­ern­ment) via the National Pro­gramme for Improv­ing Men­tal Health and Well-being to develop and pro­mote arts work in rela­tion to men­tal health and well-being in Scotland.

Also cur­rently study­ing for a PhD; explor­ing the rela­tion­ship between par­tic­i­pa­tion in play-based group the­atre mak­ing and human devel­op­ment. Research is based on broad con­struc­tion­ist and social devel­op­ment the­o­ries and is built on the secure foun­da­tions of play and play­ing within a broadly the­atri­cal con­text. Play­ing is being used and pro­posed as a research method­ol­ogy (tool and result) with the fool employed to ensure that things don’t get too serious.

With expe­ri­ence of lec­tur­ing, run­ning a the­atre com­pany, per­form­ing and hav­ing orig­i­nally being trained as a clown, the artic­u­la­tion of play­ful the­atre prac­tice as being a means of deliv­er­ing in action con­struc­tion­ist and post-modern devel­op­ment the­o­ries, and how these might trans­late into gov­ern­ment pol­icy has been a career long area of interest.

Tak­ing a pas­sion for social jus­tice, human devel­op­ment and play into some sup­pos­edly hos­tile envi­ron­ments, includ­ing pris­ons, schools and high secu­rity hos­pi­tals, 15 years expe­ri­ence in this field has con­vinced me not only of the trans­for­ma­tive power of peo­ple play­ing and per­form­ing together, but of the cur­rent momen­tum that across the globe is begin­ning to regard these claims and oth­ers like them in a more favourable light.

Janus is an inter­na­tional pub­lic sculp­tor who incor­po­rates per­for­mance art into her process and has iden­ti­fied VIPA as a move­ment, Visual Inter­ac­tive Per­for­mance Art. She also teaches, lec­tures and ini­ti­ates art cur­ricu­lums across South­ern Ontario, Canada. Sev­eral renowned art insti­tu­tions and muse­ums whom Janus is affil­i­ated include the Burling­ton Art Cen­tre, Dun­das Val­ley School of Art and The Hamil­ton Con­ser­va­tory for the Arts. In her art work, Janus uses asso­ci­a­tions of poetic images and con­cepts that include envi­ron­men­tal, soci­o­log­i­cal, equal­ity and com­mu­nal issues.

Greet­ings to all. I am look­ing for­ward to cre­at­ing with you. In the work­shop that I am propos­ing we will make visual the dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tions of body lan­guage. It is much sim­pler than it sounds and loads of fun. Yes, we will do a bit of draw­ing and the beauty is…I have no grand expec­ta­tions of your draft­ing skills because no mis­takes can be made! If you have any ques­tions feel free to write.

Meg­wetch, Janus

www.janusprojects.net

I WILL HIRE YOU AS A MINSTREL

Fol­low­ing per­for­mances and work­shops this year in Lon­don, Min­neapo­lis, San Fran­cisco, Los Ange­les, Las Vegas, and Hon­olulu, Wasim Galata, Shion Galata, and Andy Black, will present a per­for­mance and work­shop at the PTW3, focus­ing on the use of arts in dif­fer­ent cul­tures, races and eth­nic groups through­out his­tory, and how  the­atre, dance, poetry, music, song, sto­ry­telling has, is, and always will be use­ful in heal­ing human­ity from grief and mourning.

As the­atre, tele­vi­sion, radio, and audio book pro­duc­ers, writ­ers, direc­tors, sto­ry­tellers, actors, and dancers, Wasim and Andy are Direc­tors with the Cir­cle of Life Hos­pice Foun­da­tion in Reno, Nevada. Wasim is a retired rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Socio-Economic Coun­cil of the United Nations, an inter­na­tional dancer and sto­ry­teller, and producer/host of the long run­ning tele­vi­sion and radio pro­grams LISTENING IN, IMAGINATION MAKERS, and HOSPICE COMPANIONS. Andy is a nov­el­ist and audio book writer of sto­ries, as well as the founder and owner of wine shops, restau­rants, and a fundraiser for artistic-humanitarian agen­cies. Shion is a 9 year old actor who has appeared in many of his father’s pro­duc­tions, most recently spend­ing the sum­mer with his dad being cre­ative in Eng­land, Ire­land, Scot­land, and Wales.

Andy and Wasim’s most recent project and pro­duc­tion isTHE GOODBYE LADY, an audio CD of short sto­ries about 9 diverse char­ac­ters find­ing mean­ing and beauty in their lives while on their death beds. This unique and inspi­ra­tional project will be released in NYC dur­ing the PW3 con­fer­ence. In Decem­ber, the  60 mem­ber cast of singers, dancers, sto­ry­tellers, includ­ing Broad­way star Annie Mor­ri­sion, of the new pro­duc­tion SOUNDS WITHOUT STETHOSCOPES will open at the Prim Theatre.

The per­for­mance to be pre­sented at PTW3 within the I WILL HIRE YOU AS A MINSTREL work­shop, is I DANCE FOR MY DYING SON, writ­ten by Andy Black and Wasim Galata, and per­formed by Wasim and Shion. Com­bin­ing eth­nic dance, sto­ry­telling, and nar­ra­tive the­atre, this per­for­mance will be con­nected to the work­shop, facil­i­tated by Andy and Wasim, on the diverse aspects and nuances  of the per­form­ing arts in rela­tion to heal­ing from loss and heal­ing from grief and mourn­ing, as well as the logis­ti­cal aspects of grant writ­ing, fundrais­ing, Pub­lic Rela­tions, and mar­ket­ing for indi­vid­u­als, groups, and orga­ni­za­tions using the per­form­ing arts in socio-health/economic, edu­ca­tional settings.

To see pho­tos of recent inter­na­tional pro­duc­tions  includ­ing the acclaimed musi­cal dra­mas MY GRANDMOTHER’S DANCE, ARTISTS AND ANCESTORS, and I WILL HIRE YOU AS A MINSTREL, go to www.colhospice.com  and click on Arts-in-Education Productions