Tag: Storytelling

Please email Carla at carla@smithcenter.org for further information about the program.

with Jodi Kanter

Individual Dramatherapy Work

Individual Dramatherapy

Come explore a new Smith Center one-on-one offering where drama and a therapeutic approach to healing come together.

 

Drama therapy is the art of the possible. It can help us to rewrite old scripts for interacting with the people around us. It can allow us to take less developed parts of ourselves and transform them into robust roles in our own life-dramas. And it can provide concrete ways of imagining—and rehearsing—the future we want to make happen for ourselves.

 

In your initial session with Jodi, you will explore the roles you already play comfortably and identify those you’d most like to develop.

If after our initial session you would like to continue, sessions 2, 3, and 4 will consist of exercises that allow you to better understand and embody these less familiar parts of yourself.

 

Additionally, Jodi is available to offer a second set of four sessions, focused on working with more specific content from your own life story.

About Jodi Kanter

Jodi Kanter

Jodi has been involved in theater since she was ten years old. She grew up acting and studying performance in American theater’s “Second City,” Chicago Illinois.  She is currently a professor of theatre in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, where she has been on faculty for nearly fifteen years. Her academic work in theater includes her book, Performing Loss: Strengthening Communities Through Theatre and Writing (2007). Jodi’s focus on performance as a tool for individual and social healing and change has led her to create workshops, events and productions in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, schools, and prisons. Most recently, she co-created a four-month diversity and inclusion program for members of DC’s fourteen Neighborhood Village associations using the methodology of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Jodi holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in dramatherapy at Lesley University. 

Please email Carla at carla@smithcenter.org for further information about the program.

with Jodi Kanter

Individual Dramatherapy Work

Individual Dramatherapy

Come explore a new Smith Center one-on-one offering where drama and a therapeutic approach to healing come together.

 

Drama therapy is the art of the possible. It can help us to rewrite old scripts for interacting with the people around us. It can allow us to take less developed parts of ourselves and transform them into robust roles in our own life-dramas. And it can provide concrete ways of imagining—and rehearsing—the future we want to make happen for ourselves.

 

In your initial session with Jodi, you will explore the roles you already play comfortably and identify those you’d most like to develop.

If after our initial session you would like to continue, sessions 2, 3, and 4 will consist of exercises that allow you to better understand and embody these less familiar parts of yourself.

 

Additionally, Jodi is available to offer a second set of four sessions, focused on working with more specific content from your own life story.

About Jodi Kanter

Jodi Kanter

Jodi has been involved in theater since she was ten years old. She grew up acting and studying performance in American theater’s “Second City,” Chicago Illinois.  She is currently a professor of theatre in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, where she has been on faculty for nearly fifteen years. Her academic work in theater includes her book, Performing Loss: Strengthening Communities Through Theatre and Writing (2007). Jodi’s focus on performance as a tool for individual and social healing and change has led her to create workshops, events and productions in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, schools, and prisons. Most recently, she co-created a four-month diversity and inclusion program for members of DC’s fourteen Neighborhood Village associations using the methodology of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Jodi holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in dramatherapy at Lesley University. 

Please email Carla at carla@smithcenter.org for further information about the program.

with Jodi Kanter

Individual Dramatherapy Work

Individual Dramatherapy

Come explore a new Smith Center one-on-one offering where drama and a therapeutic approach to healing come together.

 

Drama therapy is the art of the possible. It can help us to rewrite old scripts for interacting with the people around us. It can allow us to take less developed parts of ourselves and transform them into robust roles in our own life-dramas. And it can provide concrete ways of imagining—and rehearsing—the future we want to make happen for ourselves.

 

In your initial session with Jodi, you will explore the roles you already play comfortably and identify those you’d most like to develop.

If after our initial session you would like to continue, sessions 2, 3, and 4 will consist of exercises that allow you to better understand and embody these less familiar parts of yourself.

 

Additionally, Jodi is available to offer a second set of four sessions, focused on working with more specific content from your own life story.

About Jodi Kanter

Jodi Kanter

Jodi has been involved in theater since she was ten years old. She grew up acting and studying performance in American theater’s “Second City,” Chicago Illinois.  She is currently a professor of theatre in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, where she has been on faculty for nearly fifteen years. Her academic work in theater includes her book, Performing Loss: Strengthening Communities Through Theatre and Writing (2007). Jodi’s focus on performance as a tool for individual and social healing and change has led her to create workshops, events and productions in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, schools, and prisons. Most recently, she co-created a four-month diversity and inclusion program for members of DC’s fourteen Neighborhood Village associations using the methodology of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Jodi holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in dramatherapy at Lesley University. 

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Jodi Kanter

PC: https://spolingamesonline.org/

“Improvising is openness to contact with the environment and each other and willingness to play.”

— Viola Spolin

 

Take a break from your Monday and get in touch with your sense of play through theater games. Very different from “improv” shows designed for entertainment, these simple, structured improvisation sessions will lead us through building environments, creating characters, making images, moving and inventing new languages using nothing but our bodies and our virtually shared space.

The foundation of this workshop will be the theater games and explorations of Viola Spolin, author of the classic Improvisation for the Theatre. These games focus on a wide range of core acting skills including nonverbal communication, concentration, listening, observation, character, relationship, and sensory awareness.

Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner attested that the principles behind Spolin’s games “have formed the basis of all the work I’ve done.” Elsewhere, another writer described them as “structures designed to almost fool spontaneity into being.” Spolin’s work is taught all over the world to children and adults, professional actors, educators, and community members.

We will apply these skills to storytelling and our individual healing journeys. No previous theater experience required.

Theater Games Workshop will be hosted on the 1st & 3rd Mondays from 2:30-3:45pm ET. 

Upcoming Dates:

  • September 13 & 27
  • October 4 & 18
  • November 1 & 15
  • December 6 & 20

Suggested Donation: $10

About Jodi Kanter

Jodi Kanter

Jodi has been involved in theater since she was ten years old. She grew up acting and studying performance in American theater’s “Second City,” Chicago Illinois.  She is currently a professor of theatre in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, where she has been on faculty for nearly fifteen years. Her academic work in theater includes her book, Performing Loss: Strengthening Communities Through Theatre and Writing (2007). Jodi’s focus on performance as a tool for individual and social healing and change has led her to create workshops, events and productions in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, schools, and prisons. Most recently, she co-created a four-month diversity and inclusion program for members of DC’s fourteen Neighborhood Village associations using the methodology of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Jodi holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in dramatherapy at Lesley University.

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Jodi Kanter

PC: https://spolingamesonline.org/

“Improvising is openness to contact with the environment and each other and willingness to play.”

— Viola Spolin

 

Take a break from your Monday and get in touch with your sense of play through theater games. Very different from “improv” shows designed for entertainment, these simple, structured improvisation sessions will lead us through building environments, creating characters, making images, moving and inventing new languages using nothing but our bodies and our virtually shared space.

The foundation of this workshop will be the theater games and explorations of Viola Spolin, author of the classic Improvisation for the Theatre. These games focus on a wide range of core acting skills including nonverbal communication, concentration, listening, observation, character, relationship, and sensory awareness.

Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner attested that the principles behind Spolin’s games “have formed the basis of all the work I’ve done.” Elsewhere, another writer described them as “structures designed to almost fool spontaneity into being.” Spolin’s work is taught all over the world to children and adults, professional actors, educators, and community members.

We will apply these skills to storytelling and our individual healing journeys. No previous theater experience required.

Theater Games Workshop will be hosted on the 1st & 3rd Mondays from 2:30-3:45pm ET. 

Upcoming Dates:

  • September 13 & 27
  • October 4 & 18
  • November 1 & 15
  • December 6 & 20

Suggested Donation: $10

About Jodi Kanter

Jodi Kanter

Jodi has been involved in theater since she was ten years old. She grew up acting and studying performance in American theater’s “Second City,” Chicago Illinois.  She is currently a professor of theatre in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, where she has been on faculty for nearly fifteen years. Her academic work in theater includes her book, Performing Loss: Strengthening Communities Through Theatre and Writing (2007). Jodi’s focus on performance as a tool for individual and social healing and change has led her to create workshops, events and productions in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, schools, and prisons. Most recently, she co-created a four-month diversity and inclusion program for members of DC’s fourteen Neighborhood Village associations using the methodology of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Jodi holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in dramatherapy at Lesley University.

Please email Carla at carla@smithcenter.org for further information about the program.

with Jodi Kanter

Come explore a new Smith Center one-on-one offering where drama and a therapeutic approach to healing come together.

 

Drama therapy is the art of the possible. It can help us to rewrite old scripts for interacting with the people around us. It can allow us to take less developed parts of ourselves and transform them into robust roles in our own life-dramas. And it can provide concrete ways of imagining—and rehearsing—the future we want to make happen for ourselves.

 

In your initial session with Jodi, you will explore the roles you already play comfortably and identify those you’d most like to develop.

If after our initial session you would like to continue, sessions 2, 3, and 4 will consist of exercises that allow you to better understand and embody these less familiar parts of yourself.

 

Additionally, Jodi is available to offer a second set of four sessions, focused on working with more specific content from your own life story.

About Jodi Kanter

Jodi has been involved in theater since she was ten years old. She grew up acting and studying performance in American theater’s “Second City,” Chicago Illinois.  She is currently a professor of theatre in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, where she has been on faculty for nearly fifteen years. Her academic work in theater includes her book, Performing Loss: Strengthening Communities Through Theatre and Writing (2007). Jodi’s focus on performance as a tool for individual and social healing and change has led her to create workshops, events and productions in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, schools, and prisons. Most recently, she co-created a four-month diversity and inclusion program for members of DC’s fourteen Neighborhood Village associations using the methodology of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Jodi holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in dramatherapy at Lesley University. 

This program series is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must have attended the first session in the series.

with Leslie Lass, PhD, MFA, MSW Candidate

Sustainable Journaling

In the forward to Sandra Marinella’s book The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss, author Christina Baldwin writes, “When things happen that are unexpected, unwelcome, challenging, disorienting, or traumatic, we survive, but the storyline we were following is shattered. Untold stories don’t go away.”

In this three-part workshop series, we will explore our own “untold stories” – ones that have forever changed the storylines of our lives – by capturing one moment in time that can convey meaning about a larger experience, bring needed healing, and offer powerful insights about our shared humanity.

Using the micro-memoir, also called the flash memoir, as a vehicle for telling our untold stories, we will discuss techniques for distilling them to their essence (750 words or fewer) and for crafting them in ways that powerfully communicate what we intend.

Activities include:

  • learning about the essential elements of a micro-memoir
  • reading and discussing examples of published micro-memoirs
  • participating in writing activities
  • completing at-home assignments
  • talking about what it means to share our writing with a larger audience

By the end of the third session, you will have written a micro-memoir that tells the story you need to tell.

Reading your work aloud is voluntary. If you choose to do so, you will have an opportunity to read what you have written to the group, and you will have a chance to hear others read their “small stories” as well. After each reading, generous, positive feedback will be encouraged.

You do not have to consider yourself a writer to participate in this workshop. The only requirement is a willingness to tell your story as open-heartedly as you can and to compassionately support the efforts of others in the workshop who wish to do the same. The program is open to any adults who have been impacted by cancer as a patient or as a caregiver of any kind.

Writing a Micro-Memoir: The Stories that Don’t Go Away will be hosted in three parts. Participants are encouraged to attend all three sessions. Upon completion of the three parts, participants will have developed a working micro-memoir. Program limited to 8 participants.
Program dates:
  • May 5
  • May 12
  • May 19

Suggested Donation: $10/session or $25/series

About Leslie Lass, PhD, MFA, MSW Candidate

Leslie Lass, PhD, MFA, MSW candidate, has taught writing for more than 20 years at universities and community colleges on the east and west coasts, including Northern Virginia Community College, George Mason University, and The Evergreen State College. Her doctoral work focused on writing creative nonfiction and on Latin American testimonial literature. She is an author of a novel, a memoir, short stories, and poetry, and for the past nine years she has maintained a blog, where she writes “small stories” she hopes will point towards more universal themes that will resonate with her readers.