EVENT SCHEDULE
THURSDAY: ARTISTIC WORKSHOPS
January 21, 2021
Learn new skills and gain valuable insight in workshops led by Pedro Fabiao, Julie-Anne Leblanc, Michelle Matlock, Kathleen Leroux & Heather Annis, and DRIVE Forward. Choose the workshops you’d like to attend after you purchase your ticket on Eventbrite. The conference kicks off Friday evening.
9AM-12:00PM – Pedro Fabiao
9AM-11:30AM – Julie-Anne LeBlanc
1:00PM-4:00PM – Pedro Fabiao
2:00pm-4:00PM – Michelle Matlock
3:00pm-5:00PM – Kathleen LeRoux & Heather Annis
6:00PM-7:30PM – DRIVE Forward
FRIDAY: ARTISTIC WORKSHOPS & CONFERENCE KICKOFF
January 22, 2021
Learn new skills and gain valuable insight in workshops led by Pedro Fabiao, Julie-Anne Leblanc, Michelle Matlock, Kathleen Leroux & Heather Annis, and DRIVE Forward. Choose the workshops you’d like to attend after you purchase your ticket on Eventbrite.
9AM-12:00PM – Pedro Fabiao
9AM-11:30AM – Julie-Anne LeBlanc
1:00PM-4:00PM – Pedro Fabiao
2:00pm-4:00PM – Michelle Matlock
3:00pm-5:00PM – Kathleen LeRoux & Heather Annis
7PM-9:30PM – Full Conference Kick-Off
SATURDAY: FULL VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
January 23, 2021
9AM-10:30AM – Resilience with Tim Cunningham
10:30AM-10:45AM – Break
10:45AM-12:30PM – Teaching Tips with Helen, Dick, Pedro, Magdalena
12:30PM-1:30PM – Lunch
1:30PM-3PM – Breakout Sessions
Tips for Zoom with Seniors with Craig Sjogerman
Relating Drama Therapy with Emily Faith
Creating Online Content with Denise Arribas
3PM-3:15PM - Break
3:15PM-4:45PM –Moving Toward Action: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with Liza Talusan, PhD
4:45PM-5PM – Break
5PM-6:30PM – Clown Bit Speed Dating with Tiffany Riley
6:30PM-7:30PM – Dinner
7:30PM-8:30PM – Yoga with Alison Hastings
8:30PM-9PM – Wrap-Up
SUNDAY: POST-CONFERENCE WRAP-UP
January 24, 2021
Sunday will include one final workshop opportunity with Pedro and Michelle, and a NAFHCO leadership meeting,
9:00AM-12:00PM – Pedro Fabiao
10:00AM-12:00PM NAFHCO MEETING
2:00pm-4:00PM – Michelle Matlock
Eventbrite Password: NOSES
Meet Our Workshop Leaders
Pedro Fabiao
Pedro is a professional actor, hospital clown and theatre director having performed and directed in 12 different countries. He’s an expert in clowning, improvisation, physical theatre and comedy. He is a renowned group leader, speaker and coach specialized in adapting the artistic tools of clowning and improv theatre to the specific needs of different organizations, mainly business/corporate and healthcare (medicine/psychology).
ONLINE CLOWN EXCURSION
Clowns stay relevant in our era by letting audiences in their performance, interacting with, and changing it. We are some of the highest representatives of human connection, emotional release and selfless co-creation. Facing extraordinary times when social distance is mandatory, we now find ourselves competing for attention and sharing the same medium - screens - with high quality sketch comedy and amazing animation. So how can we stay true to our art form and our audience? It's easy to fall into acting, losing the element of real discovery and surprise that characterizes our art form. Are we still finding true failure or success when we put on the nose? Could there be a real transformation in front of a camera? During this workshop, I invite you to an online small group to explore this theme with some practical experiments that I've been developing with clowns online over the last months. There are no specialists in this new field, so we will be pioneering this work together.
AVAILABLE WORKSHOPS (CHOOSE ONE)
Thursday, January 21 @ 9am-12pm or 1pm-4pm
Friday, January 22 @ 9am-12pm or 1pm-4pm
Sunday, January 24 @ 9am-12pm
Julie-Anne Leblanc
Julie-Anne has fifteen years’ experience in the performing arts as an actress, clown, slammer, and teacher in Quebec City and Montreal, and internationally in South America, Senegal and Europe. In 2009 she joined the Dr. Clown Foundation, where her roles include trainer and therapeutic clown with both children and elderly people. In 2018 she co-developed a novel approach to therapeutic clowning in adult palliative care. Julie-Anne holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theater from Université Laval.
INTRODUCTION TO CLOWNING IN PALLIATIVE CARE
We will look at the following strategies: how to prepare, internally and artistically. How to listen to one’s self and one's partner in order to have a better quality of presence for patients and their families. How to keep the lightness of the clown and have a sense of humor in the situation.
AVAILABLE WORKSHOPS (CHOOSE ONE)
Thursday, January 21 @ 9am-11:30am
Friday, January 22 @ 9am-11:30am
Michelle N. Matlock
Michelle is a performer, teacher, producer, and director. Most notably, she created the main character/clown Ladybug for Cirque Du Soleil’s touring show OVO. While with Cirque, she visited 15 countries and performed in over 2000 shows! She spent 15 years in New York acting, clowning and creating shows and currently resides in Washington.
POWER OF PLAY
The creative power of play is what keeps performers and creative entrepreneurs thriving. Michelle will lead the group through a variety of exercises and games that will allow you to discover your unique funny bone, sharpen your stage presence, and give in to every spontaneous opportunity. Clowning techniques, acting exercises and improv games will be used to explore the wonderful gift of failure, the ultimate skill of being present on stage, and the ability to embrace the unknown in order to create something new.
AVAILABLE WORKSHOPS (CHOOSE ONE)
Thursday, January 21 @ 2pm-4pm
Friday, January 22 @ 2pm-4pm
Kathleen Le Roux & Heather-Marie Annis
With a background in directing, performing, and arts management in both theatre and television, Kathleen found her way to her red nose practice in 2001. Since then, she has worked as a professional therapeutic clown artist in a wide range of health-care and community settings around Toronto and the GTA.
Heather-Marie is an actor, writer, theatre creator, educator and clown. She has worked as a therapeutic clown with Kathleen LeRoux since 2009, working in hospitals and long term care settings for adults and the elderly.
PANDEMIC FATIGUE & YOUR CLOWN: CLOWNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
How do we continue to offer playful, nurturing experiences to others during these chronically stressful times when we, ourselves are feeling depleted? Many of us are now experiencing various degrees of pandemic fatigue which can include lack of motivation, sadness, feelings of being stuck, anxiety, lethargy, diminished creativity, trouble focusing, exhaustion, frustration and memory loss. For healthcare clowns who are struggling with the weight of the times, we offer you a workshop to soothe the spirit, to normalize your experience and to gently embrace you and your clown exactly where you are.
AVAILABLE WORKSHOPS (CHOOSE ONE)
Thursday, January 21 @ 3pm-5pm
Friday, January 22 @ 3pm-5pm
D.R.I.V.E. Forward
For the past few months, D.R.I.V.E. forward has been facilitating a monthly Monday Anti-Racism Forum with the healthcare clowning community. Join us as we continue this forum to explore and share tools for navigating difficult conversations around racism and unconscious bias that arise in our work as healthcare clowns. Our goal is for participants to be able to utilize these tools, in how to approach the topic with partners and how to take the feedback openly if you are the partner being called in.
*You do not need to have attended the Anti-Racism Monday forum to take advantage of this workshop. This team is led by Denise Arribas, Meredith Gordon, Calvin Ku, Mal Malme, Leah Abel and Mike Garner.
AVAILABLE WORKSHOP
Thursday, January 21 @ 6pm-7:30pm
Main Conference Presenters
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 isVice 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, interprofessionalism and research around play in the most challenging of places.
Alison Hastings, YOGA
Alison Hastings is a certified yoga instructor with over 10 years of teaching experience. She blends her sense of humor, encouraging warmth, knowledge of anatomy, alignment, yoga philosophy, and creative sequencing to deliver an intimate, spirited and lighthearted practice for each student or group of students. She loves to talk about Outer Space and her cats.
She teaches how to develop and maintain a balance between strength and agility, movement and stillness, discipline and play.
She is dedicated to teaching the transformative power of yoga, how to use it to maximize long term physical wellness and manifest peace of mind through asana and gentle breath work.
Maha Devi met her Guru, Ma Jaya in 2007. She graduated from Kashi Atlanta’s 200 hr YTT in 2008 and continues to study with her Teacher Swami Jaya Devi Bhagavati. She studied alignment based yoga with Gina Minyard and Mukunda Stiles and has done extensive training with Darren Rhodes, creator of yogaHour and received her yogaHour certification in 2018.
Liza Talusan, Ph.D.
Dr. Liza Talusan is a nationally recognized educator, speaker, leader, writer, and leadership coach. With over 24 years of experience in PreK-20 education, Liza is an engaging facilitator in conversations about diversity, anti-racism, bias, privilege and power and creates environments that allow for people to discuss these difficult topics openly. Through her direct work with administrative teams, trustees, faculty and staff, students, and communities, Liza creates pathways for a more inclusive organization, environment, community and team.
Liza earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Child Development from Connecticut College; Masters of Arts in Higher Education Administration from New York University; Ph.D. in Higher Education from University of Massachusetts Boston; Certificate in Human Resources; and PCC Coaching Credentials from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching.She was the 2017 recipient of the Dissertation of the Year Award by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Asian American Special Interest Group.
Liza currently teaches at the University of Massachusetts Boston in both the Masters and Doctoral programs in the Department of Leadership and Education.
Breakout Session Leaders
Denise Arribas
Denise Arribas is a proud born and raised Puerto Rican living in Georgia since 2002, so now she considers herself a Georgia Rican. She got her BFA in Musical Theatre from Shorter College and has worked in all the professional theaters in Atlanta such as The Alliance Theatre, Actor’s Express, Center for Puppetry Arts, 7 Stages, Horizon Theatre and Aurora Theatre. In 2010 she was fortunate enough to be able to use her musical theater skills and the innate clowning skills she’s been honing since childhood and put them to good use in the hospital when she joined the Atlanta Clown Care Unit. In 2015 she became the Site Coordinator at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding. She's one of the founding members of Humorology Atlanta and in 2016 she became the Marketing Manager for HA!. She's been in charge of creating the HA! brand since its inception including design and social media. When not clowning around at the hospital she is a TV/Film actor with Houghton Talent and a translator/voice over actor with Enghouse Interactive.
TEN EASY STEPS TO MAKE YOUR ORGANIZATION’S SOCIAL MEDIA KICK ASS WITH ZERO DOLLARS
Come on over to this workshop to learn 10 easy ways you can use to take your organization's social media game to the next level even... if you have a budget of zero dollars. Using marketing, design and social media expertise we'll show you ways you can reach your audience more effectively and professionally.
Craig Sjogerman
Craig Sjogerman, clown, playwright, actor, storyteller & goofy vaudevillian, began performing professionally in San Francisco with 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 is co-founded and became artistic director of Vaudeville Chicago (VC). VC performs music, physical comedy, circus, and tells stories at senior centers throughout Chicago. Craig also writes plays & creative nonfiction, but refuses to write lists. As an actor, he has performed with the 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.
CLOWNING FOR SENIORS IN COVID TIMES
This will be an exploration of the joys and challenges of working with seniors and other adults in the Time of Covid. Since nursing homes and other senior centers will be among the last places to open up during the pandemic, most of us will be using Zoom and other virtual platforms for quite a while. Many places are under total lockdown and our role as a force of connection and joy becomes more essential when residents can have no visitors.
Emily P. Faith (Dr. Piggy Tales)
Emily Faith (Dr. Piggy Tales), is a masters candidate in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and Drama Therapy at Lesley University. As life-long performer and nonprofit theatre founder, Emily has a deep regard for the transformative power of the arts -a focal point of her research. Emily was awarded the Drama Therapy Research Assistantship position at Lesley University where she is a member of the Coalition for Circus Arts in Drama Therapy Research Lab and serves as a co-facilitator for the Drama Therapy Group run in partnership with UMASS medical school. She is the founder of "Unscripted Healing", a community group that facilitates in person and virtual devising workshops through the lens of drama therapy.
RELATING DRAMA THERAPY TO HEALTHCARE CLOWNING
Do you ever ask yourself, "What am I doing?" or, "Why is this bit/trick/joke working?" or, "How can I sit in the silence without feeling like I need to run out of the room?" If you answered yes to any of these questions, this workshop is for you. Join healthcare clown and drama therapy student Emily Faith as she breaks down the ideas of therapy vs. therapeutic, repeatable outcomes, and the role of clown.
Featured Panelists
Magdalena Schamberger
Theatre Director and Independent Creative Collaborator; Creative Director (Freelance) | bold, Bringing Out Leaders in Dementia; Honorary Professor, School of Health Sciences, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
Dick Monday
Co-founder of the Laughter League, The New York Goofs and former director of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College.
Helen Donnelly
Theatrical, circus and therapeutic clown. Co-Founder of Red Nose Remedy. Creator of the Therapeutic Clowning Certificate Program, George Brown College, Toronto
Pedro Fabiao
Pedro is also a professional actor, hospital clown and Theatre director having performed and directed in 12 different countries.
Register Now
Eventbrite Password: NOSES