Participant Profiles

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT / YOUTH THEATRE

CANADA

Andrew Bur­ton — a long­time com­mu­nity the­atre direc­tor and trained in psy­chodrama and drama ther­apy – works as a drug pre­ven­tion coun­selor in British Colum­bia. In 1999, he founded the award-winning Street Spir­its The­atre, a com­mu­nity the­atre troupe made up of 25 active vol­un­teers, ages 13–24 years, who travel through­out British Colum­bia per­form­ing inter­ac­tive the­atre that explores issues of drug addic­tion, racism, sex­ual exploita­tion, and fam­ily violence.

ETHIOPIA / JAMESTOWN, NY

David Schein, a vet­eran com­mu­nity the­atre orga­nizer, is the found­ing direc­tor of Awassa Children’s Project and the One Love AIDS Edu­ca­tion The­atre in Ethiopia. Founded in 2002, the project cre­atively engages issues sur­round­ing the AIDS epi­demic in Ethiopia, where 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple live with the dis­ease. Inspired by a group of young peo­ple who per­formed gym­nas­tics in the streets, David helped direct and shape their per­for­mances to engage issues of sex­u­al­ity and AIDS. The troupe was inspired to go beyond a didac­tic “teach­ing of infor­ma­tion,” and instead looked to cre­ate a mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence – “the­atri­cal gym­nas­tics” — that could touch and impact audi­ences. Made up of young per­form­ers, the troupe trav­els across the coun­try, going into refugee camps, sports sta­di­ums, mar­ket­places and vil­lage squares – where they cre­ate circus-like spec­ta­cles, com­plete with vir­tu­oso gymnastics.

KENYA

Pamela Ateka, a 30-year-old poet and youth worker, is from Nairobi, Kenya. in 2000, Pamela’s sis­ter died from AIDS, leav­ing her nephew an orphan. In response to the grow­ing num­ber of chil­dren orphaned by the epi­demic, Pamela founded “Com­mu­nity Focus Group” to address the mate­r­ial, emo­tional and devel­op­men­tal needs of these young peo­ple. The pro­gram cur­rently has three staff and three vol­un­teers who help some 50 young peo­ple, ages 7–14. Another 200 chil­dren are on the wait­ing list. Most of them, like Pamela’s nephew, are orphans and liv­ing with rel­a­tives. Pamela approached the Ford Foun­da­tion and other grant­ing orga­ni­za­tions, but as a new­comer with no pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence in run­ning a youth pro­gram, tra­di­tional fun­ders turned her down. She then turned to her com­mu­nity for sup­port — orga­niz­ing fundrais­ing events, where she would per­form her poetry and tell sto­ries. Soon she broad­ened her out­reach — attend­ing con­fer­ences and net­work­ing through­out Kenya and beyond.

With dozens of new sup­port­ers includ­ing many local busi­nesses, Pamela was able to open the pro­gram in 2003. Pamela orga­nizes cloth­ing dri­ves and has brought on part­ners who offer entre­pre­neur­ial, job train­ing. Poetry and sto­ry­telling are part of the program’s sta­ples, help­ing to “soothe the children’s souls.” Pamela is the author of Sing Africa Sing (Com­mu­nity Focus Group, 2004). Her co-presenters include: Charles Muthiora, Moses Man­yara, Aggrey Mukolwe and Ever­lyn Rebbecca Ondiso.

NETHERLANDS

Elise Griede, who has a back­ground in psy­chol­ogy and the­atre, is a drama trainer with War Child Hol­land. Part of the world-wide relief orga­ni­za­tion, War Child, the Netherlands-based group pro­vides med­ical, social and psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port to thou­sands of young peo­ple in 11 war-torn coun­tries. Trained at the The­atre School of Ams­ter­dam, Elise has helped develop par­tic­i­pa­tory the­atre projects and trained teams work­ing with chil­dren in Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Uganda, and Afghanistan.

SOUTH AFRICA

Kennedy Chiny­owa is a post-doctoral research fel­low in The­atre for Devel­op­ment at the Uni­ver­sity of KwaZulu-Natal in Pieter­mar­itzburg, South Africa. He cur­rently works with dis­ad­van­taged youths to stage community-based the­atre per­for­mances.  Kennedy received his Ph.D. in The­atre for Devel­op­ment at Grif­fith Uni­ver­sity in Bris­bane, Aus­tralia and has pub­lished widely in schol­arly jour­nals such as Stud­ies in The­atre and Per­for­mance (UK) and the Research Jour­nal of National Drama (UK).

USA—New York / Connecticut

Jeff Smith­son is an actor, impro­viser, cor­po­rate trainer and pas­sion­ate pros­e­ly­tizer for the impor­tance of play. Describ­ing him­self as “play­ing for a liv­ing,” he has a degree in clown­ing and phys­i­cal the­atre from the Rin­gling Clown Col­lege and the Dell’Arte Inter­na­tional School of Phys­i­cal The­ater.  Jeff is the Hos­pi­tal Out­reach Spe­cial­ist at Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. The camp works with about 1,000 young peo­ple, ages 7–15, who are suf­fer­ing from can­cer and other life threat­en­ing ill­nesses. As out­reach chief, Jeff trav­els to hos­pi­tals each sum­mer with his “Camp in a Suit­case,” cheer­ing young peo­ple too sick to par­tic­i­pate in Camp. He is also a trainer with the improv-based exec­u­tive train­ing firm, Per­for­mance of a Lifetime.

Brian Mullin is a the­atre direc­tor, teacher, and pro­gram man­ager for Youth Onstage! (YO!), the youth the­atre of the New York City-based All Stars Project. The pro­gram offers young peo­ple (ages 14–21)

the oppor­tu­nity to per­form in plays that have some­thing to say about the world and its future. A the­atre scholar and direc­tor, Brian com­pleted his under­grad­u­ate the­atre stud­ies at Yale and his grad­u­ate stud­ies in Renais­sance Drama at Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Brian will bring YO! Per­form­ers onto the PTW 4 stage to demon­strate the impro­vi­sa­tional process they undergo to cre­ate their exper­i­men­tal theatre.

EDUCATION

BRAZIL

Dan Baron Cohen is an inde­pen­dent performance-based arts edu­ca­tor, cul­tural activist and free­lance play­wright, liv­ing and work­ing in Brazil since 1988. Dan leads the Inter­na­tional Drama/Education and The­ater Asso­ci­a­tion (IDEA) and is also the chair of the World Alliance of Arts Edu­ca­tion. Founded in 1992, IDEA is a coali­tion of cul­tural activists work­ing in 90 coun­tries on a broad vari­ety of projects, which encour­age drama/theatre edu­ca­tion and inter­na­tional dia­logue on issues of human rights and peace. Dan and his co-presenter Manoela Souza will dis­cuss how story-telling, dance, drama and col­lec­tive improv tech­niques can be used to help trans­form schools, work­places and com­mu­ni­ties into the­atri­cal stages for coop­er­a­tive and demo­c­ra­tic learning.

DENMARK

Volker Bun­zen­dahl, a self-described “hip­pie since 1976,” moved to Den­mark from his native Ger­many to par­tic­i­pate in a self-sufficient agri­cul­tural com­mune. Trained as a psy­chol­o­gist and Vygot­skian edu­ca­tor, he is cur­rently an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor and con­sul­tant at Norkjyl­land Uni­ver­sity. With a pas­sion for cre­at­ing ever-more devel­op­men­tal learn­ing envi­ron­ments, he con­sults with pub­lic schools, help­ing teach­ers and stu­dents sub­vert the “nor­mal” struc­ture of the school day.  He works with the entire school com­mu­nity to stage “car­ni­val days” — filled with music, poetry, the­atre and “inten­tion­ally chaotic” role-reversals. With new friends from Per­form­ing the World 3, Volker facil­i­tated a student-to-student con­ver­sa­tion between young peo­ple in schools in Den­mark, Mace­do­nia and Argentina, who blogged, chat­ted, and exchanged online accounts of their per­for­mance activities.

USA – Georgia

Lau­rent Dit­mann is vice prin­ci­pal at the Inter­na­tional Com­mu­nity School in Decatur, Geor­gia.  Founded in 2002, the school houses 350, mostly war-impacted refugee chil­dren from 45 coun­tries, who are referred from refugee reset­tle­ment orga­ni­za­tions abroad. The school also draws from severely impov­er­ished fam­i­lies in nearby coun­ties. The school pro­vides a basic K-6th grade cur­ricu­lum, with a strong the­atre and arts com­po­nent. Lau­rent and co-presenter Jen­nifer Green will report on the school’s performance-based activ­i­ties.

BUSINESS / ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

AUSTRALIA

John Find­lay is an entre­pre­neur and edu­ca­tor based in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia, and the founder of the con­sult­ing com­pany, Zing. Zing helps cor­po­rate and orga­ni­za­tional clients (includ­ing school dis­tricts around the world) use wire­less key­board tech­nol­ogy to facil­i­tate group col­lab­o­ra­tion and cre­ativ­ity.  A Ph.D. can­di­date at the Uni­ver­sity of Wol­lon­gong, John has explored the work of Lev Vygot­sky and other activ­ity the­o­rists to invent and envi­sion hi-tech, elec­tronic learn­ing envi­ron­ments where teams can actively cre­ate new knowl­edge, work col­lab­o­ra­tively, make bet­ter deci­sions and learn faster.

USA – New York

Kat Kop­pett — a busi­ness con­sul­tant, author and tal­ented improv per­former — is the train­ing direc­tor for the Albany-based Mop & Bucket impro­vi­sa­tional the­atre com­pany and con­sult­ing firm. Mop & Bucket cre­ates cus­tomized impro­vi­sa­tional per­for­mances for busi­nesses and orga­ni­za­tions look­ing to enhance work­place cre­ativ­ity, team­work, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. Kat is also a trainer with the improv-based exec­u­tive train­ing and con­sult­ing firm, Per­for­mance of a Lifetime.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

BRAZIL

Edmil­ton Reis is the cap­tain of the Police Depart­ment in Bahia, Brazil. A grad­u­ate of the Mil­i­tary Police Acad­emy and a stu­dent of pub­lic rela­tions, Reis spear­headed an inno­v­a­tive edu­ca­tional project to impact on the his­tor­i­cally neg­a­tive rep­u­ta­tion of the Bahia police. Called the “Learn­ing Orga­ni­za­tions Project,” police offi­cers go into the com­mu­nity and host con­ver­sa­tions to help allay cit­i­zens’ sus­pi­cions and fears about police cor­rup­tion and bru­tal­ity. The par­tic­i­pat­ing offi­cers work to intro­duce them­selves as “real peo­ple,” and share their com­mit­ment to pub­lic safety and to pos­i­tive social change.

Co-presenters include: Regina Lucia Portela, Heloisa Helena and Soares Dias.

SERBIA

Vera Erac, a psy­chol­o­gist and com­mu­nity activist work­ing with the Roma (Gypsy) com­mu­nity, is a post-graduate stu­dent in Social Psy­chol­ogy at the Uni­ver­sity of Belgrade’s Fac­ulty of Phi­los­o­phy. As a field orga­nizer in the pub­lic schools, she has devel­oped performance-based pro­grams that engage the exclu­sion and mar­gin­al­iza­tion of Roma (Gypsy) stu­dents. An NGO activist, she devotes her time to the Soci­ety for Pro­tec­tion and Improve­ment of Men­tal Health of Chil­dren and Youth. Vera and a multi-national panel of co-presenters and Inter­na­tional Class alumni (Ker­stin Gauf­fin, Rebecca Widom, Syed Miza­nur Rah­man, and Kate Stauf­fer) will share their look at the “Global Vil­lage: Grow­ing the Seeds of the Institute’s Inter­na­tional Class.”

SOUTH AFRICA

Betsi Pendry, a social ther­a­pist and com­mu­nity orga­nizer since the late 1980s, is the founder and direc­tor of “The Liv­ing Together Project” in Johan­nes­burg, South Africa. With a Mas­ters Degree in Pub­lic Health from Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity and a per­for­mance back­ground as a dancer, Betsi has brought an artis­tic, cultural/performatory approach to help­ing com­mu­ni­ties to live with rel­a­tives and neigh­bors who have HIV/AIDS.  Betsi and co-presenters Stom­pie Selibe, Fan­ito Masike, Ice Ngubane, Chiliza Nkabinde will present an overview of the Project, dis­cussing how it uses cul­tural activ­i­ties to encour­age com­mu­nity activism, con­sti­tu­tional edu­ca­tion, and crime prevention.