Cultural Healing

The systems and environments we grew up in often operate through oppressive structures, that are unjust and harmful towards individuals and minority groups. Most of us encountered in one way or another classism, racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, homophobia, imperialism, colonialism, poverty, or other injustices. If you also believe, that the best way to change oppressive systems is to create alternative ones, chances are that you have already started or intend to start bringing awareness to the subject of matter that weighs on your heart.

The medicine to the experienced unjust is often to address the very things that harmed us.

Addressing the very thing that harmed us is an act of cultural service. There are many forms it can take. But in one way or another, it is about bringing attention and awareness to the given issue at hand. It needs time until we have healed sufficiently on a personal level so that we can turn the traces of harm into passion and work with it in service for the collective. And when we are at that place, we might need support in creating the spaces we desire.

You want to take initiative but don’t know how?

If you find yourself wanting to create a topic sensitive workshop, that 1. is educational but also mindful of the potential fragility of the target group, e.g. children, and 2. you desire a playful, experiential structure for your workshop that yet conveys educational depth, but 3. feel that you may need some professional help with that, you are right here!

Why workshops?

Workshops can be a great way to hold a safe and structured container 1. for people who are either in need of processing and digesting the experiences from a particular structural harm, like sexism, racism, ableism, imperialism, etc., or 2. for folx who want a greater understanding and deeper insight into the subject at hand, or 3. for target groups like children, who’s proper education is of great social relevance for our cultures. Yet with target groups like, e.g. children it becomes even more so important to convey the complex and heavy subjects in a way that is adequate to their fragile psyche. In either way, transmitting deep insight and knowledge in a playful and mindful way is key to a successful workshop!

Workshops as safe and transformational containers

If the workshop is laid out skillfully, it will be 1. safe: it will provide a safe space in which the confrontation with the issue is navigated kindly and is mindful to the stance of where the target group is 2. mindful: it will be mindful not only towards the addressed subject but also to the diversity of the individual participants, 3. educational: it will enable the participants to get a deeper and broader understanding of the subject of matter, 4. digestible: it will enable the participants to digest the information easily and be thus mindful to their own pace, 5. versatile: it will honor the diverse ways in which we absorb knowledge. Intellectual understanding is only one way of processing knowledge. Integrating somatic, tactile, sentient, and visual ways of experiencing is a means for understanding in depth, 6. playful: it will hold a structure that varies between game, play, and the serious stuff.

Workshops as alternative and visionary spaces

I believe that we can bring healing, by creating alternative spaces, by bringing into life, that what we have missed ourselves in our world. In order to start creating our visions, we need a gestating space for them to become tangible for our minds. In that way, workshops serve as safe spaces for our fragile little visions as babies and allow new ideas to emerge and enfold in an environment that works collectively towards a shared vision.

How I can help

I provide professional assistance in creating a workshop, that will be well-structured, safe, educational, insightful, politically mindful, and yet will offer a playful experience that honors our versatile ways of perceiving and that makes place for somatic, tactile, sentient, visual, and performative experiences.

My background

With the mixture of a bachelor in philosophy, a master in experimental theater and my experiences with political theater, documentary theater and children’s theater, I have gathered professional knowledge and experience to address heavy and complex subjects in an easily accessible and playful way. I’m a creator of games, plays, and workshops. You can visit some of my projects here. It is my honor and my pleasure to provide my skills for making severe political subjects easily accessible and digestible without losing the quality of knowledge. I find that addressing politically and socially relevant topics with a sense of play and sometimes even with some degree of humor makes the chances of its effective spreading even wider. The split between education and pleasure is not necessary.

So if you find yourself drawn to a healing, playful and visionary way of addressing harm, I’m happy to collaborate with you and offer you my services.

My service as a workshop/ game creator contains:

• An online meeting/ call for us to discuss the context of your desired workshop, your needs and specific wishes.
• Research on theoretical and empirical resources and literature on the subject.
• Structure and plan of the workshop: volume, duration, content, schedule (including all details, like brakes, etc.)
• Coming up with perfect forms of game and play suitable for the target subject.
• Weaving in theater pedagogical methods of conveying knowledge through cognitive, sentient, somatic, visual senses.
• Integrating playful feedback opportunities into the broader structure.
• If the workshop shall be held online, I offer, by request, an additional service, of mediating and leading/ co-leading the workshop myself.
• The workshops are 100 % online compatible.

• The prices vary between $300 and $600, depending on 1. the complexity of the subject, 2. the accessibility of the resources (in case of need for research, that means if you have not already the desired literature and resources yourself that you want to have integrated in the workshop and that shall work as building blocks for the workshop intent) 3. from the duration of the workshop and 4. the estimated amount of participants.

Get in touch

Write me by e-mail or fill out the form. Let me know your subject, the desired workshop, and the context. I will get back to you!

Email: antadzea@gmail.com

Or fill out the form