Leaders of Color Institute

Sessions

“Empty Night” – A Creative Exploration of Science & Storytelling

Presenter: Abhisek Bhattacharya
Co-Presenter: Didhiti Mukherjee
Format: Performance + Interactive Discussion + Role-Play

Description:
This session features a 40-minute performance of Empty Night, a two-person play exploring climate change, human-animal conflict, and survival. The story follows an injured thief and a wounded tigress whose lives intersect as environmental destruction reshapes their world.

Following the performance, participants engage in a facilitated discussion and Q&A that bridges science and storytelling. The session concludes with interactive role-playing activities where participants explore ethical questions around survival, responsibility, and parenthood from both human and animal perspectives.

Journey: A Performance & Storytelling Workshop for Amplifying Youth Voice

Presenter: Jeneen Hammond
Format: Performance + Interactive Workshop

Description:
This session begins with a 30-minute excerpt from Journey, an award-winning one-woman show blending storytelling, music, and cultural history.

Participants then engage in a hands-on workshop using a structured storytelling framework designed for youth and educators. Through guided prompts and reflective exercises, participants will develop personal or community-based narratives and explore how storytelling can support identity, project-based learning, and intergenerational collaboration.

Play It Forward: Reclaiming Joy Through Radical Play

Presenter: Naelis A. Ervin
Format: Workshop

Description:
This embodied workshop invites participants to rediscover play as a tool for creativity, resilience, and connection. Through theatre games, improvisation, and movement-based exercises, participants explore how play can combat burnout and foster more equitable, imaginative spaces.

Participants collaborate in groups to create playful theatrical moments rooted in shared storytelling, emphasizing joy, curiosity, and collective care.

Every Voice on Stage: Empowering Young Artists with Diverse Learning Needs

Presenter: Jazmyn Ja'Net Roberson
Format: Workshop

Description:
This interactive session explores inclusive theatre practices for students with diverse learning needs, including autism, ADHD, and intellectual disabilities.

Participants will engage in adaptable activities such as movement exercises, storytelling, and puppetry-based techniques. The workshop also highlights how familiar narratives—like folktales—can support accessible and culturally responsive theatre-making.

Attendees will design their own inclusive theatre activities and leave with practical tools to foster confidence, communication, and creative expression in all learners.

Devising With, Not For: Amplifying Youth Voice Through Theatre

Presenter: Cecilia Abarca
Co-Presenters: Amaya Ravenell, Tristan Kissel
Format: Workshop

Description:
This workshop explores how to shift creative authority toward youth in theatre-making spaces. Participants engage in collaborative exercises that examine authorship, leadership, and power dynamics in the rehearsal room.

Drawing on practices from Stories that Soar!, participants will devise short performances based on real classroom scenarios and explore strategies for centering youth voice, identity, and lived experience.

Stories in Motion: Devising Theatre Through Role Reversal

Presenter: Moureen Namunyak
Format: Workshop

Description:
This hands-on session uses personal storytelling, movement, and role reversal to build empathy and intergenerational understanding. Participants reflect on moments of being heard (or unheard) and transform these into short performances.

Through collaborative creation and perspective-taking, participants explore how theatre can amplify unheard voices and deepen connection across generations.

Thumbelina, A Hiker’s Tale: Theatre in a Backpack

Presenter: Bonnie Lee
Format: Performance + Reflection

Description:
This session presents a staged reading of Thumbelina, A Hiker’s Tale, a portable “theatre in a backpack” performance using everyday objects and camping gear.

Following the performance, participants explore object-based storytelling as an accessible and culturally responsive practice. The session highlights how simple materials can expand creative possibilities and remove barriers to participation in theatre-making.

Everything Starts with a Dot: The Trajectory of Physical Actions

Presenter: Luciana Fins
Format: Workshop

Description:
This workshop explores the actor’s creative process through a pedagogical and performative lens, focusing on the development of physical actions as the foundation of scene-building. Participants will engage in an “alchemic” process of transforming pre-expressive training into expressive performance.

Drawing from principles of theatre anthropology and the work of Eugenio Barba, the session emphasizes the study of scenic action—both physical and vocal. Actors will learn to construct physical scores through metaphor, imagery, music, and verbs, moving beyond habitual patterns to create precise, repeatable, and poetic stage actions.

Through individual and group exercises, participants will explore how energy, rhythm, and presence shape performance, activating the body as a primary storytelling tool. This approach aligns with Barba’s focus on “pre-expressive” work—how performers organize energy and presence before character or text emerges .

The workshop ultimately invites participants to refine their ability to reduce action to its essential elements, heighten awareness, and generate impactful, embodied performance work.