Creative Transformation of Trauma
An Evening of Story, Art, Music
Five artists who have turned their experiences—and those of others around the globe–into works of art
The New School - Lang Community & Student Center
Welcome comments by Louise Montello, PhD, Coordinator
Friday, Nov 8, 2013, 06:30 PM
55 West 13th Street, New York City, NY
LAURA SIMMS
UNLOCKING NINE LOCKS
Transforming Trauma through Story
“We were witness to one of the most extraordinary storytellings I’ve ever seen or heard."
Laura Simms is an award winning performer, writer, and educator advocating storytelling as compassionate action for personal and community transformation. She is a Senior Research Fellow for the International Peace institute at Rutgers University Newark under the auspices of UNESCO. Laura performs worldwide for adult and young audiences. She received the Brimstone Award for Engaged Storytelling, CHOICE award for best story collection, and Sesame Street’s SUNNY DAYS award for her work with children worldwide.
Website: laurasimms.com
JUDITH SLOAN
“Funny and sad, topical and biting...Exquisite comic timing...
She can make you see your world in a slightly different way."
Judith Sloan is an actor, writer, radio producer, human rights activist, oral historian, poet, and audio artist whose commentaries, plays, poetry and documentaries have aired on NPR, PRI, and the BBC, among others. Her work has been produced internationally, including The Public Theater, The Smithsonian Institution, and the Market Theatre (Johannesburg, SA). She is a member of the faculty at Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU, where she teaches Oral History and Interdisciplinary Arts. In 2009, Judith founded Transforming Trauma Into Art, which provides theatre, music, and hip hop education to teenagers from war-zones and immigrant youth who have been displaced by natural disasters and poverty.
Website: earsay.org
BRIAN McCARTY
WAR-TOYS
Brian McCarty is an internationally exhibited artist and toy industry veteran based in California, whose work has earned praise from The New York Times, The Telegraph UK, and ABC World News. His most recent project, WAR-TOYS, has involved working with children from the Gaza Strip, Israel, and the West Bank to articulate their firsthand accounts of war. Under the guidance of art therapists, the children are encouraged to draw images of their experiences in order to begin a healing process as a starting point to therapy. Brian sources inexpensive toys from local markets and shops and recreates the children's often disturbing drawn images in situ, interpreting them into photographic works, often with direction from the children on setting up the shots. The WAR-TOYS project was profiled in an online feature by CNN in 2011, and is included in a current exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood in London.
Website: brianmccarty.com
JEREMY HOWARD BECK
VICARIOUS TRAUMA, EMPATHY & THE POWER OF MUSIC
". . . at once adventurous, eclectic, extreme, and emotionally immediate . . ."
Jeremy Howard Beck is an award-winning composer whose music has recently been described as "sparse and haunting" by NPR's Weekend Edition, hailed by the American Composers Forum for its "thrilling aural twists and bends," and performed throughout the country. He is a Composer-in-Residence with the Guidonian Hand Trombone quartet, and his works for trombone quartet have received a 2012 JFund/ACF grant and a 2011 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. A recent commission by the American Lyric Theater is the evening-length opera The Long Walk, based on the memoir of the same name by Iraq veteran Brian Castner.
Website: http://www.jeremyhowardbeck.com
Deborah Koff-Chapin
Deborah Koff-Chapin, BFA, has been developing Touch Drawing since 1974, and has taught the process at numerous conferences and educational institutions, such as California Institute of Integral Studies, where she is an adjunct professor. She leads workshops regularly at Omega Institute, Esalen, Hollyhock, Indralaya Theosophical Center, and Two Worlds Wisdom School. Deborah is creator of SoulCards and author of Drawing Out Your Soul. Her artwork has appeared in numerous magazines and books. As an interpretive artist, she visually portrays the content and feeling-tone of presentations by creating dozens of Touch Drawings. She has collaborated in this way for nearly 400 different events.
Website: deborahkoff-chapin.com
SNEAK PREVIEW . . .
WAR-TOYS and THE LONG WALK
DISCOVER THE SUMMIT!
Click HERE for Over a Dozen Other Summit Special Topic Flyers
Want to Learn More? Watch the Video Below.