April 1 - 5, 2022
2022 Meeting
of the Noses: Ressourcement
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Event Kickoff
2:00pm PST / 3:00pm MST / 4:00pm CST / 5:00pm ESTWORKSHOP: Diversity Equity Inclusion with LTHJ Global
(90 min / will be recorded)
3:00pm PST / 4:00pm MST / 5:00pm CST / 6:00pm EST -
WORKSHOP 1: Partner Development - Josh Matthews (90 min)
OR
WORKSHOP 2: Navigating Language Barriers - Calvin Kai Ku (90 min)9:30am PST / 10:30am MST / 11:30am CST / 12:30pm EST
PANEL: The Role of Improvisation and Play in Therapeutic Modalities
11:30am PST / 12:30pm MST / 1:30pm CST / 2:30pm EST
SOCIAL HOUR OR SKILLS EXCHANGE (60mins)
2:00pm PST / 3:00pm MST / 4:00pm CST / 5:00pm EST
WORKSHOP 1: Partner Development - Josh Matthews (90 min)
OR
WORKSHOP 2: Navigating Language Barriers - Calvin Kai Ku (90 min)
3:00pm PST / 4:00pm MST / 5:00pm CST / 6:00pm EST
CLOSING & SKILLS EXCHANGE/SOCIAL HOUR (2 Hours)
4:30pm PST / 5:30 MST/ 6:30 CST / 7:30 EST
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WORKSHOP 3: Room-To-Room Intimacy & Large Group Show Interaction - Craig Sjogerman & Pam Chermansky (90 min)
OR
WORKSHOP 4: "Get Embodied Soul Movement" with Ifasina Clear (90 min)
9:30am PST / 10:30am MST / 11:30am CST / 12:30pm EST
PANEL: Michelle Matlock - Scarcity Mindset (90 min / will be recorded)
11:30am PST / 12:30pm MST / 1:30pm CST / 2:30pm EST
SOCIAL HOUR OR SKILLS EXCHANGE (60mins)
2:00pm PST / 3:00pm MST / 4:00pm CST / 5:00pm EST
WORKSHOP 3: Room-To-Room Intimacy & Large Group Show Interaction - Craig Sjogerman & Pam Chermansky (90 min)
OR
WORKSHOP 4: "Get Embodied Soul Movement" with Ifasina Clear (90 min)
3:00pm PST / 4:00pm MST / 5:00pm CST / 6:00pm EST
CLOSING & SKILLS EXCHANGE/SOCIAL HOUR (2 Hours)
4:30pm PST / 5:30 MST/ 6:30 CST / 7:30 EST
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WORKSHOP 5: Why Stop The Music? - Meredith Gordon (90 min)
OR
WORKSHOP 6: Virtual Playground - Shannon Calcutt (90 min)
9:30am PST / 10:30am MST / 11:30am CST / 12:30pm EST
WORKSHOP: Diversity Equity Inclusion with LTHJ Global (90 min / will be recorded)
11:30am PST / 12:30pm MST / 1:30pm CST / 2:30pm EST
SOCIAL HOUR OR SKILLS EXCHANGE (60mins)
2:00pm PST / 3:00pm MST / 4:00pm CST / 5:00pm EST
WORKSHOP 5: Why Stop The Music? - Meredith Gordon (90 min)
OR
WORKSHOP 6: TBA (90 min)
3:00pm PST / 4:00pm MST / 5:00pm CST / 6:00pm EST
CLOSING & SKILLS EXCHANGE/SOCIAL HOUR (2 Hours)
4:30pm PST / 5:30 MST/ 6:30 CST / 7:30 EST
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WORKSHOP 7: Sound And Rhythm Workshop - Cinthia Sabetti (90 min)
OR
WORKSHOP 8: What’s Your Story? -Dick Monday and Tiffany Riley
9:30am PST / 10:30am MST / 11:30am CST / 12:30pm ESTPANEL Replenishing Research - Melissa Holland (90 min)
11:30am PST / 12:30pm MST / 1:30pm CST / 2:30pm EST
SOCIAL HOUR OR SKILLS EXCHANGE (60mins)
2:00pm PST / 3:00pm MST / 4:00pm CST / 5:00pm EST
WORKSHOP 7: Sound And Rhythm Workshop - Cinthia Sabetti (90 min)
OR
WORKSHOP 8: Habits, Routines & Rituals: Playing with Repetition - Jeff Smithson (90 min)
3:00pm PST / 4:00pm MST / 5:00pm CST / 6:00pm EST
CLOSING & SKILLS EXCHANGE/SOCIAL HOUR (2 Hours)
4:30pm PST / 5:30 MST/ 6:30 CST / 7:30 EST
We can’t wait to see you (virtually) at this year’s Meeting of the Noses!
Workshops & Bios
Opening Speaker
Leader: Tim Cunningham
Tim Cunningham is a graduate of the Dell'Arte International School who has performed with Clowns Without Borders and Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit. He went to nursing school and worked as a front-line nurse during the West Africa Ebola outbreak. This work informed his doctoral studies in public health, which he completed in 2016. He currently serves on the board of Clowns Without Borders and is Vice President of Practice and Innovation at Emory Healthcare. Tim's work and presentations focus on resilience (of children & clowns & nurses & doctors & allied health professionals), laughter, playfulness, the intersections of art, nursing, medicine, collaboration, inter-professionalism and research around play in the most challenging of places.
Why Stop the Music
Leader: Meredith Gordon
Why Stop The Music explores musical possibilities in clown play, how the music of clown play affects us in your clown routines. We move with a sense of timing, weight, and direction. This movement affects how we interact with the world, interact with each other, and how others see us. These elements help us understand how our audience sees, hears, and feels our clown characters. The participants leave with a heightened sense of musicality in their clown work and a vocabulary to describe that musicality.
Meredith Gordon is a circus artist, actor, and musician. Meredith fell in love with theater and circus at an early age. He taught himself to juggle as a teenager and developed a passion for theater as a college student. Over the past 30 years, Meredith has trained and worked as an actor and circus artist. He freelances as a circus artist who juggles, stiltwalks, clowns. In 2000 he became a medical clown with the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit and served as the supervisor for the Atlanta Clown Care Unit from 2012 to 2016. He is a founding member of Humorology Atlanta which continues the laughter giving work of medical clowning. He began working in social circus as a coach with Cirque du Monde in 2001 and continues his work as a circus educator. He is a 2019 recipient of the Tanne Award which recognizes outstanding achievement by artists. In 2020 he joined the Board of Directors for Clowns Without Borders.
Replenishing Research
Leaders: Melissa Holland & Stefanie Blain-Moraes
Over the last 2 years, The Dr Clown Foundation has collaborated with Dr. Stefanie Blain-Moraes of McGill University in setting up research projects involving the effects of clowning on-line, clowning with the elderly, and with patients suffering from a disorder of consciousness (on-going). Come and listen to the results, ask questions and get replenished listening to vital feedback from scientific experts on the impact of healthcare clowns.
Melissa Holland is a therapeutic clown, co-artistic director and co-founder of the Dr Clown Foundation based in Montreal, Quebec. She obtained a BFA in Drama in Human development from Concordia University and a Bachelor of Education from McGill. Along the way, the clown came calling. She was trained in clown by Sue Morrison, Francine Côté and Magdalena Schamberger. In 1999 she was hired and trained by the hospital clown organisation “Hearts and Minds” in Scotland. She works regularly as a clown in hospital and long-term care for the elderly as well as in development and promotion, training and research for the Dr Clown Foundation.
Stefanie Blain-Moraes is a biomedical engineer and the Canada Research Chair in Consciousness and Personhood Technologies. She is currently an assistant professor at the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy at McGill University, where she leads the Biosignal Interaction and Personhood Technology (BIAPT) Lab. Her research focuses on developing assistive technologies to enhance the assessment of and interaction with individuals who are behaviourally unresponsive. She has published several articles exploring the effectiveness of healthcare clowning on various populations including the profoundly disabled, nurses, the elderly and the therapeutic relationship in an on-line format.
The Joy of Your Voice
Leader: Cinthia Siabetti
How can we explore our vocal colors with our own unique voice without singing a song that has already been written? How can we animate an object or a situation by singing it? This workshop will give you a glimpse into one of the many ways that you can create your own original tune and integrate it into your interventions in a spontaneous, joyous, and ludicrous way! No vocal experience is necessary. Come sing your heart out and leave your brains in a drawer.
Cinthia Sabetti started her career as a professional modern dancer at the age of 16, dancing with renowned choreographers all across Canada. At the age of 28 she reoriented her career and became a Yoga teacher and teacher trainer, giving classes to all ages and levels.
In 2014, she embarked on the journey to fulfill her dream of becoming a therapeutic clown. She studied clown at the Francine Côté Clown and Comedy School in Montreal and began working for the Dr. Clown Foundation as a therapeutic clown in 2018. She continually trains and seeks for new ways to become a better and more complete artist and for different ways to bring joy, benevolence and comfort to the people she meets as a therapeutic clown.
Scarcity Mindset
Leader: Michelle Matlock
Michelle Matlock is an independent performing artist, director, producer, teacher and creative coach. Michelle has been in the entertainment industry for over 30 years and has had the pleasure of playing and or teaching for Cirque du Soleil, Big Apple Clown Care, Circus Amok, Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, Clown Gym, Laughter League, The Clown School and Dell’Arte International. Michelle has spent the past 2 years developing and launching Passport to Thrive Academy, an online course designed specifically for independent performing artists who want to stay creatively free, thriving and financially independent. She is thrilled to share the first module of the course with participants at MOTN this year! Visit MichelleNicoleMatlock.com for more info.
Workshop:
Crushing Your Scarcity Mindset, the number #1 Limiting Belief that holds us back as performing artists.
All of us have beliefs that limit us and hold us back. Some of these beliefs were instilled in us by our parents. Others we’ve adopted at some point in our lives. Whatever the case, these beliefs seriously limit us. They keep us from achieving our full potential. They hamper our progress and stunt your growth.
In this workshop we will discuss and identify the most common limiting beliefs that hold us back from our full potential. Including #1 - Scarcity Mindset. Then you will reframe those limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs and finally discover ways to burn those new empowering beliefs into your heart and mind. Anyone that wants to learn how to be a more effective version of themselves will benefit from this workshop.
Navigating Language Barriers
Leader: Calvin Kai Ku
Healthcare and Hospital populations can be filled with diverse voices. Inevitably, we, as healthcare clowns, will interact with languages we have not yet learned. There are a variety of communication avenues to travel alongside diverse cultures to experience. Immerse yourselves into the world of languages, both verbal & non-verbal, and discover how you can respectfully learn & authentically communicate with other people from all over the world.
With a mission to build meaningful connections through humor and empathy, Calvin Kai Ku uses his growing experience working as a professional variety performer to build bridges with his audience. With his versatility in magic, music, circus, and theater, he is able to transform even the most stressful environments to ease anxiety and create a safe space of joy.
Methods of Finding The Groove: Better Partnership and Communication
Leader: Josh Matthews
Working as a clown in a hospital, oftentimes has you partnering with a variety of performers with different skills, sensibilities and experience levels. Sometimes the work just clicks into place and other times it doesn't flow as naturally.
In this workshop we will delve into strategies and communication methods to be able to partner in a more satisfying, truthful and pleasurable way. Through exercises and discussions we will look at safe ways to give and receive direction and feedback for a better performing relationship. We will explore how to rely on each other's strengths and help each other shine brighter together. This workshop will be interesting, fun and possibly useful.
Josh Matthews is a performer, director and teaching artist based out of Oakland CA. He has performed as a hospital clown for over 20 years and has performed with the Medical Clown project, Big Apple Circus’ clown care unit and Vaudeville Caravan. He has conducted professional development in the great field of hospital clowning for Big Apple Circus’ clown care unit, Medical Clown project, Danske Hospitalsklovne, Lev Leytzan and is super pumped to teach workshops for Prescription Joy this spring. Josh is committed to the unrelenting power of the ridiculous and he can do a very convincing goose impression.
Get Embodied Soul Movement
Leader: TaMeicka "Ifasina" Clear
Participants will get a chance to shape the class experience based on themes that they choose from. We will use improv and afro-beat based movements to explore things like history and ancestors, harvest, personal power and protection, celebration and much more! You may sit, stand, lie down, and use any mobility device you need as this space centers the diversity in our capacity to move. Participants will leave having shared a unique experience with others and practices to take with them into their daily life.
TaMeicka "Ifasina" Clear is a big bodied Black genderqueer peson (they/them)from Texas living and working across the south and California. Ifasina is an embodiment practitioner that uses dance and embodied meaningful movement to practice intentionally engaging with the human condition. In workshops and classes with Ifasina, participants get to share and create a space that allows one to be with their body in honest, gentle ways. Ifasina, also known as ThaHood AlKemist, is the student of many traditions, including Ifa and Usui Reiki. They use these traditions and tools, among others, to increase their own self mastery, practice being in beloved community, and engage in liberation work. It is their joy and passion to join with others that are doing the same at their own pace. Follow their embodiment practice space and work at https://www.facebook.com/groups/924559280990198 (Facebook group: Get Embodied Soul Movement and Dance) or IG: get.embodied
Habits, Routines & Rituals: Playing with Repetition
Leader: Jeff Smithson
Healthcare clowning is an incredible laboratory for the study of energy and relationship: “What is the energy I carry; How do I relate it to others?”
This facilitated discussion will explore the value of intention in shaping the beginning, middle, and end of your Healthcare Clown day. We will share stories and suggestions on how to “bring y/our best and release the rest.”
Jeff Smithson fosters the power of play in a wide variety of settings: from hospital rooms to classrooms; from board rooms to halfway houses. Through his consulting company, Proponent of Play, Jeff delivers programs in Mindfulness and Movement to Medical Professionals, Teachers, Parents and Parolees.
He is a founding member of both the NY Goofs and The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp’s Hospital Outreach Program. He is a graduate of Bates College, Ringling Clown College, and Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre.
Virtual Playground
Leader: Shannan Calcutt
Play big, risk gloriously and fail better. This class was workshopped and designed to be experienced virtually. It's time to bring the playground into your own home where all the props, toys, and costumes you often wish for in the studio are suddenly at your disposal. Participants must explain to housemates ahead of time that they will be noisy, move throughout the house and be free of inhibitions. It’s recess for grownups! A chance to play, get moving, let loose, be silly and make genuine connections with other fabulous fools. Common side effects include (but are not limited to) feeling more alive, awake, joyful, connected, playful, confident, hopeful, present and creative.
A multi-award winning performer and instructor, Shannan Calcutt she has conducted workshops in clown and play worldwide. She’s a regular instructor at Cirque du Soleil, Celebration Barn Theater and Vegas Theatre Hub. Calcutt has played an eclectic range of venues from the Sydney Opera House, to San Francisco's Bimbo's 365 Club, to the Vegas Strip, where she performed her breast implant routine, Scotch Baggies, for millions of spectators at Cirque du Soleil's, ZUMANITY. She has designed comic acts for Cirque du Soleil, Spiegelworld, the philanthropic event One Night for One Drop, and Berlin’s Friedrichstadt-Palast, the world's biggest theatre stage. Shannan is fluent in English and sarcasm. More about Shannan here: shannancalcutt.com
Healthcare Storytelling & Engagement
Leaders: Tiffany Riley & Dick Monday
Our workshop will focus on how the elements of storytelling that can be utilized when creating a rich engagement. We will focus on the idea that “a story is a routine broken” - Keith Johnstone. Everyone has a story. We will ask the question, what is your story, and how can it be applied to your work as a healthcare clown.
Tiffany Riley and Dick Monday, known as Slappy and Monday, have headlined with circuses and festivals worldwide. They co-founded the New York Goofs Clown Troupe and the Laughter League, a non-profit organization dedicated to uplifting lives with humor through performance outreach and education. Their performances can be seen in theatres, schools, libraries, pediatric hospitals, senior centers, and now virtually. The pair have produced live circus, variety, and immersive events for many years. They also teach the art of engagement through the lens of clowning and physical comedy to high school theater students, college students, hospital professionals, and executives. Their passion is in practicing the craft of physical comedy in all kinds of environments, and they hope to continue passing the art form on to more generations of comedic artists.
Room-To-Room Intimacy & Large Group Show Interaction
Leaders: Craig Sjogerman & Pam Chermansky
As healthcare clowns, our essential DNA is based on intimate, partner-based, room-to-room encounters. This is our raison d’etre and our passion. The COVID-19 pandemic interfered with this. Some of us had to stop performing, at least for a while, altogether. Some of us were able to simulate this with Zoom/Facetime visits. This was a stop-gap and limited, but still valuable, solution. As the pandemic progressed, we were able to return to our facilities, but, especially for those of us in senior facilities and nursing homes, we still couldn’t go room-to-room. Our experience in senior centers became one of larger group shows, both outside and inside. Even before COVID many of us who go to senior centers had many experiences with group performances, especially for those with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Many adjustments are counter-intuitive to our instincts as performers. The challenge is: How do we take the principles of room-to-room experiences and apply them to larger group interactions? I’m glad you asked. Craig Sjogerman and Pam Chermansky have been performing in group situations for seniors for over 16 years. We’d like to share what we’ve learned about changes that must be made to presentational shows to help us bring improvisational intimacy to larger groups, and the over-worked staff who care for them. We’d also like to learn from your experiences in these challenging situations. With new variants, we may not be able to go room-to-room for a long time. Does this mean we can’t fulfill our basic objectives? Join us to figure this out.
Craig Sjogerman, clown, playwright, actor, storyteller & goof, began performing professionally in San Francisco with Picadilly Clowns and Make-A-Circus in 1979. Boy are his arms tired. Craig worked and supervised for the Chicago Clown Care Unit of the Big Apple Circus from 1999 until it dissolved. He helped create and lead their ground-breaking senior clowning program. In 2016 Craig co-founded and became artistic director of Vaudeville Chicago (VC). VC performs improvisation, variety art, music, physical comedy, circus, and tells stories at senior centers throughout Chicago. Craig has written over 15 produced plays & now writes creative nonfiction, but refuses to write lists. Craig performed his solo show, Dr. Gesundheit’s Clown Therapy, throughout the country, including north of the Arctic Circle. Craig has also performed with the Keith Terry’s Body Music Ensemble, Chicago Actor’s Ensemble, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Imagination Theater, Centre Theater, Whirlwind, Annoyance Theater, the Evanston Dance Ensemble, and the Bailiwick Director’s Festival. He likes to smell things. So there.
LTHJ Global
Leader: Lindsey T. H. Jackson
LTHJ Global team members are pioneering consultants, researchers, curriculum designers and operations leads who have dedicated their lives to being on the cutting edge of inclusive design, the theory and practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), brain science, and trauma-informed coaching methodologies.
At LTHJ Global we are pioneering the next phase of work by moving from theory to practice in how we communicate, collaborate, and co-create the future of work inside and outside of our organization.
In everything we do we return to the analogy of dancing. We train and execute at a high level so that we can, as a team, support one another in delivering flawless outcomes and products by embracing our core principles of: determination, grace, creativity, flexibility, and ownership.
Lindsey T. H. Jackson, is a North American based leader serving humans around the world. Serving in the role of CEO at LTHJ Global, Lindsey empowers people, leaders, and organizations to pursue and achieve their full potential. For 15+ years Lindsey has been authentically leading empowering entities for personal and organizational wellness. Lindsey specializes in executive coaching using the Enneagram, group facilitation, DEI training and implementation, and team development.
Originally from the Paris of the United States, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Lindsey’s key influences include her parents, Mr. Rogers, and curly-fries from The O. She has been honored to help diverse individuals across four continents transform their lives and their businesses through her unique blend of storytelling, trauma-informed coaching, and research.
Lindsey has worked nationally and internationally with small to mid-size businesses, nonprofits, corporations, founders and CEOs to embed meaningful and lasting change. Lindsey’s research model, The Enneagram of Bias(TM), fills an important gap in the DEI space by creating a methodology to prepare individuals, leaders, and organizations to embrace a culture of learning and preparedness to embrace DEI principles.
