ART IS CHANGE: Strategies & Skills for Activist Artists & Cultural Organizers

Àmọ̀kẹ́ Kubat's work rises up in a dozen different overlapping directions. In North Minneapolis you'll likely hear her described as an organizer, a puppeteer, a healer, a priestess, a playwright, a counselor, a writer, a teacher, an actress, a curator, a storyteller, and more often than not, a provocateur.

Amoke Kubat is an artist, weaver, sacred doll maker, and sometimes stand-up comedian, who uses her art to speak truth to power and hold a position of wellness in an America sick with inequality and inequity. In 2010, Amoke began developing her Art of Mothering workshops, which became the foundation of Yo Mama’s House: a cooperative for women who are artists, mothers, activists, and healers in North Minneapolis. Amoke used her residency to support the development of Yo Mama’s House by building relationships with researchers of African history, race studies, and other fields that might inform her work to reclaim Indigenous African sensibilities.

Creative Community Leadership Institute (CCLI) Established in 2002 CCLI was a community arts leadership development training program developed by Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, MN. Over its 22 year history the program supported a network of creative change agents who continue to use arts and culture to help build caring, capable, and sustainable communities. When Intermedia closed its doors in 2017 the program was suspended. The program re-emerged in 2021 under the auspices of Springboard for the Arts in St. Paul Minnesota, and Racing Magpie in Rapid City, South Dakota. The program supports the development of strong leaders capable of challenging and disrupting oppressive systems in their communities by approaching their work with a critical lens and commitment to recognizing systems of oppression and normalizing conversations about race and colonialism. CCLI serves Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota artists.

North Minneapolis: Northside is one of Minneapolis’ most diverse neighborhood areas. Prince spent a few important formative, guitar-strumming, piano-tapping years in the area. The local businesses, events and entrepreneurs are bringing a new life and energy to the area with a focus on community-led growth. These changes include a thriving cultural presence, often seen through food and artistic expression.

 Paul Wellstone: (July 21, 1944 – October 25, 2002) was an American academic, author, and politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 1991 until he was killed in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, in 2002. Over the years, Wellstone worked with senators whose views were much more conservative than his, but he consistently championed the interests of the poor, the farmers, and the union workers against large banks, agribusiness, and multinational corporations.

Yo Mama's House: Mission: Our philosophy and practice is to empower mothers by disrupting the devaluation of women’s invisible labor and increasing the recognition of the ART of Mothering. It is MOTHERS’ collective legacies of maternal wisdom and know how that informs, nurtures, and sustains women. Healthy mothers raise healthy children, families and communities. Arts

Walker Arts Center: From the Walker Webpage: The Walker Art Center is a renowned multidisciplinary arts institution that presents, collects, and supports the creation of groundbreaking work across the visual and performing arts, moving image, and design. Guided by the belief that art has the power to bring joy and solace and the ability to unite people through dialogue and shared experiences, the Walker engages communities through a dynamic array of exhibitions, performances, events, and initiatives. 

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired Rocking Chair,

Kulture Klub Collaborative: The mission of Kulture Klub Collaborative (KKC) is to provide a safe, consistent space for youth ages 16-24 experiencing homelessness to freely enjoy access to the arts. At KKC, we believe that everyone is an artist. We expose, educate, and empower youth through quality multidisciplinary art experiences. We use art and creativity as a positive force in their lives for personal growth, social justice, actionable compassion, and community improvement. Mama

Center for Cultural Innovations, Ambitious Fund: AmbitioUS is an initiative of the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) encouraging the development of burgeoning alternative economies and fresh social contracts in ways that artists and cultural communities can achieve financial freedom. Art Center at the University of Minnesota. 

Angry Black Woman and Well-intentioned White Girl. Angry Black Woman & Well-Intentioned White Girl explores the cultural impact surrounding “Minnesota Nice” and the misunderstanding it can cause in interracial interactions. This play “Goes there!” by expressing the daily “unsaids” between black and white women.The accusations and silences reflect our miseducation about each other - the superficial and deep conflicts around our womanhood, ethnicities, rights, power, and constant juxtaposition of roles within the politics of white male patriarchy.

 Minnesota Nice: While there's no official definition, the term typically refers to Minnesotans' tendency to be polite and friendly, yet emotionally reserved; our penchant for self-deprecation and unwillingness to draw attention to ourselves; and, most controversially, our maddening habit of substituting passive-aggressiveness for direct confrontation. Cities Detoxifying Masculinity

Yoruba, Ori: Ori is regarded as an intermediary between every man and the divinity whom he worships. Each individual’s Ori is his personal divinity who regulates his life in conformity with the wishes of the divinities who exist for the general public interest. Whatever has not been sanctioned by one’s Ori cannot be done by the divinities

Mr. Jamar Clark: Jamar Clark was 24 years old when he was killed by Minneapolis police on November 15, 2015. He was at a friend’s birthday party when his girlfriend got into an altercation that resulted in someone calling the paramedics and police. Jamar was near the ambulance as paramedics treated his girlfriend. An onlooker reported that for some unknown reason police asked Jamar to step away from the ambulance. A confrontation ensued between Jamar and two police officers, who attempted to detain him, forced him to the ground, and fatally shot him. Jamar was unarmed, and according to eyewitnesses, was not resisting arrest.

The officers were not disciplined by the department, and no charges were brought against them. Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists and supporters protested for 18 days outside the police precinct, protesting against hiding information, demanding the release of police dashcam and bodycam videos containing material evidence that can settle the truth of police accounts of the incident.

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Barry Gillespie was introduced to meditation practice in 1978, through the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Ashram. In 2003 he began exploring Theravada Buddhist practice, sitting many long retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA and Spirit Rock in Woodacre, CA. His principal teacher is Guy Armstrong. Barry is an affiliated teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Colorado (IMCC). He teaches mainly in Boulder and at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center.

Contact Barry @

https://www.barryhgillespie.com/buddha_dharma_talks.html

StoryStory: A book and a short movie by William Cleveland and Barry Marcus.

Find the book @ https://issuu.com/williamcleveland/docs/story_story_full_issuu_pages

Find the movie @ https://youtu.be/pwI0GGW8zTs?si=qwfYhmJRET7-FGps

Buckhorn Center: An experimental therapeutic and cultural center, north of Toronto Canada that operated in the 1980’s.

Swami Vishnu Devananda: Vishnudevananda Saraswati was an Indian yoga guru known for his teaching of asanas, a disciple of Sivananda Saraswati, and founder of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and Ashrams. He established the Sivananda Yoga Teachers' Training Course, possibly the first yoga teacher training programs in the West. Wikipedia

The Experience of Insight by Joseph Goldstein: a modern classic of unusually clear, practical instruction for the practice of Buddhist meditation: sitting and walking meditation, how one relates with the breath, feelings, thought, sense perceptions, consciousness, and everyday activities. Basic Buddhist topics such as the nature of karma, the four noble truths, the factors of enlightenment, dependent origination, and devotion are discussed.

Pali Canon: The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language.[1] It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon.[2][3] It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.[4]

Mudita: s a dharmic concept of joy, particularly an especially sympathetic or vicarious joy—the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being.[1]

metta, In metta meditation, we direct lovingkindness toward ourselves and then, in a sequence of expansion, towards somebody we love already. Somebody we are neutral towards. Somebody we have difficulty with. And ultimately toward all beings everywhere without distinction.

Theravada Buddhist: Theravāda (/ˌtɛrəˈvɑːdə/,[note 1] lit. 'School of the Elders'[1][2]) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school.[1][2] The school's adherents, termed Theravādins, have preserved their version of Gautama Buddha's teaching or Buddha Dhamma in the Pāli Canon for over two millennia.[1][2][web 1]

four Brahmavihārā’s: The brahmavihārā (sublime attitudes, lit. "abodes of brahma") (Pāli: cattāri brahmavihārā, Sinhala: චත්තාරි බ්‍රහ්මවිහාරා/සතර බ්‍රහ්ම විහරණ) are a series of four Buddhist virtues and the meditation practices made to cultivate them. They are also known as the four immeasurables (Pāli: appamaññā)[1] or four infinite minds (Chinese: 四無量心).[2] The brahmavihārā are:

1.   loving-kindness or benevolence (mettā)

2.   compassion (karuṇā)

3.   empathetic joy (muditā)

4.   equanimity (upekkhā)

Spirit Rock in California: Set among 411 acres of serene oak woodlands in the secluded hills of West Marin County, California, Spirit Rock Meditation Center is a refuge from everyday life where it's truly possible to quiet the mind, soften the heart and see life in a new way.

Mary Oliver, Wild Geese:

Sharon Salzberg's Loving Kindness.: “Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and find a greater sense of connection with others. Our fear of intimacy—both with others and with ourselves—creates feelings of pain and longing. But these feelings can also awaken in us the desire for freedom and the willingness to take up the spiritual path.”

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

How do you prepare artists to teach in the foggy upside down netherworld of prison? This episode tells how California's Arts in Corrections program answered that question with a twist. Excerpted from the recently published, The Book of Judith (New Village Press) and tells the amazing story of how poet/teacher Judith Tannenbaum's crafted the story of a fictional prison to reveal the often confounding reality of prison life.

Edited by Spoon Jackson, Mark Foss, and Sara Press

An homage to the life of poet, writer, and teaching artist Judith Tannenbaum (b. 1947 – d. 2019) and her impact on incarcerated and marginalized students. The book presents different aspects of Judith through a collection of original poetry, prose, essays, illustrations, and fiction from 33 contributors who knew her. Each piece of writing spotlights a voice that Judith’s teachings once touched, and these combined memories help form a clearer picture of her legacy.

Five pencil drawings, inspired by those serving life sentences in prison without possibility of parole, separate the book into the following sections: Unfinished Conversations, After December, Looking and Listening, and Legacy. In Unfinished Conversations, contributors share their bond with Judith Tannenbaum through prose and excerpts from letters both real and imagined. In the second section, After December, poets reflect on the life, artistry, and legacy of Judith. The third section, Looking and Listening, focuses on the truth-seeking qualities that Judith brought to her work. The fourth section, Legacy, features work from winners of an award and a fellowship bestowed in her name.

In our last conversation, (Episode 26) we shared Alice Lovelace's tumultuous history as a solo teaching artist and performer working with young writers all across the rural south. What follows is Alice's next chapter. In it she talks about building an extraordinary multi-disciplinary, cross-sector cultural institution that rises up from the funky detritus of the pandemic as a new beachhead of creative change in a small Georgia Community.

Alice Lovelace is a cultural worker, performance artist, teacher, poet, organizer, author, playwright, and arts administer. Since 1976 Atlanta has been her home of choice; a fertile ground for artistic growth and activism, and in 1978, she discovered the Neighborhood Arts Center and met Ebon Dooley (Leo Hale) and Toni Cade Bambara. Together, they organized poetry readings and classes while conducting meetings for the Southern Collective of African American Writers (SCAAW).

In 1981, Ebon and Alice founded the nonprofit: Southeast Community Cultural Center located at the former Grant Park Elementary School and in 1984 opened the former school as The Arts Exchange – a studio space for artists, a theater, recording studio, two galleries, a dance studio, and home to the Atlanta Writers Resource Center. Between 1998 and 2000 Alice became executive director of Alternate ROOTS, an artists-led southern regional organization; and along with Dr. Lisa Delpit and actress Jane Fonda, she founded and stepped into the role of executive director of the Atlanta Partnership for Arts in Learning (APAL). Currently serving as the president of the board of ArtsXchange, Alice continues to serve the public need through programs implemented at the nonprofit’s newly renovate facility in East Point, GA. 

Change the Story/ Change the World  https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/change-the-story-change-the-world/id1687938227

ArtsXchange | Community Cultural Center | East Point, Georgia

 Morehouse School of Medicine - MSM - Atlanta

Sipp Culture – Telling Our Story, Growing Our Future

Maynard Jackson, first Black Mayor of Atlanta

Neighborhood Arts Center History - Community Art in Atlanta, 1977-1987 ...

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Throughout his career, activist, organizer, educator, and author Harry Boyte. has asked a simple, but obviously challenging question: How can we make democracy an everyday practice for everyone? Given the warnings about the end of democracy, our discussion about role of culture in the labor and civil rights movements, and the inseparable nature of imagination and democracy is timely, to say the least.

Harry C. Boyte is a co-founder with Marie Ström of the Public Work Academy and Senior Scholar of Public Work Philosophy, both at Augsburg University. He also founded the international youth civic education initiative Public Achievement and the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota, now merged into the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg University. Boyte’s book, Awakening Democracy through Public Work, Vanderbilt University Press 2018, recounts lessons from more than 25 years of revitalizing the civic purposes of K-12, higher education, professions, and other settings. In the 1960s, Boyte was a Field Secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and subsequently was a community and labor organizer in the South. Boyte has authored ten other books on democracy, citizenship, and community organizing and his articles and essays have appeared in more than 150 publications including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Political Theory, Chronicle of Higher Education, Policy Review, Dissent, and the Nation. 

Part One: Free Spaces

• Public Achievement
• Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship
• Awakening Democracy Through Public Work, Harry Boyte 
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
• Judge William Hastie
• SCLC - Citizenship Schools
• Brown V. Board of Education 
• The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and The Politics of The American Way, Larry May
• Cultural Front, Michael Denning
• Nixon/Khrushchev Kitchen Debate
• Institute for Public Life and Work
• Third Way Civics: A Cultural Pluralist view of American Democracy and History Trygve Throntveit,
• Creative Community Leadership, UMass Amherst

Part Two: Citizens

• Artist Proof Studio, South Africa,
• Kim Berman
• Art and Upheaval, William Cleveland
• The Extended Mind, Annie Murphy Paul
• The Capacity to Aspire, Arjun Appadurai
• Highlander (Research and Education Center)
• Dorothy Cotton,
• Septima Clark,
• Ella Baker
• Literacy Project Documentary, You Got to Move.
• Bernice Robinson
• Scandinavian Folk Schools
• Terry Pettus

Part Three: “These don't seem like such bad kids.”

• Beyond the War Metaphor, Harry Boyte
• Building America: The Democratic Promise of Public Work,  Harry Boyte, Nancy Kari 
• Public Achievement in Fridley: Transforming Special Education

Part Four: The Dignity and Value of Work

• The Dignity of Labor, Martin Luther King
• A New Deal for the Arts Exhibition
• Roosevelt Memorial, George Segal
• Behind the Magic Curtain by T. K. Thorn

Carlton Turner understands that when you can't feed yourself the imagination is the first thing to go And if you can't "see" a different future you can't make change. Sipp Culture is about feeding both the body and the mind's eye.

Carlton Turner is an artist, agriculturalist, researcher, and co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture). Sipp Culture uses food and story to support rural community development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi where his family has been for eight generations. He currently serves on the board of First Peoples Fund, Imagining America, Project South and the National Black Food and Justice Alliance. Carlton is a member of the We Shall Overcome Fund Advisory Committee at the Highlander Center for Research and Education and is the former Executive Director of Alternate ROOTS and is a founding partner of the Intercultural Leadership Institute.

Carlton is a current Interdisciplinary Research Fellow with the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and was named to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts YBCA100. He is also a former Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow and former Cultural Policy Fellow at the Creative Placemaking Institute at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design in the Arts.

Carlton Turner is also co-founder and co-artistic director, along with his brother Maurice Turner, of the group M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction). M.U.G.A.B.E.E. is a Mississippi-based performing arts group that blends of jazz, hip-hop, spoken word poetry and soul music together with non-traditional storytelling. His current work is River Sols, a new play being developed in collaboration with Pangea World Theater that explores race, identity, class, faith, and difference across African American and South Asian communities through embodiment of a river.

He is also a member of the Rural Wealth Lab at RUPRI (Rural Policy Research Institute) and an advisor to the Kresge Foundation’s FreshLo Initiative. In 2018, Carlton was awarded the Sidney Yates Award for Advocacy in the Performing Arts by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. Carlton has also received the M. Edgar Rosenblum award for outstanding contribution to Ensemble Theater (2011) and the Otto René Castillo Awards for Political Theatre (2015).

SIPP Culture: The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production is an approach and resource for cultivating thriving communities. Based in the rural South, “Sipp Culture” is honoring the history and building the future of our own community of Utica, MS. 

Sipp Culture supports community development from the ground up through cultural production focused on self-determination and agency designed by us and for us. We believe that history, culture, and food affirm our individual and collective humanity. So, we are strengthening our local food system, advancing health equity, and supporting rural artistic voices – while activating the power of story – all to promote the legacy and vision of our hometown.

Octavia Butler: OCTAVIA E. BUTLER was a renowned African American author who received a MacArthur “Genius” Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. Born in Pasadena in 1947, she was raised by her mother and her grandmother. She was the author of several award-winning novels including PARABLE OF THE SOWER (1993), which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and PARABLE OF THE TALENTS (1995) winner of the Nebula Award for the best science fiction novel published that year. She was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future.

Maurice Turner: Maurice S. Turner, II is co-founder of Turner World Around Productions, Inc. and one-half of the group M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction), an artistic ensemble composing and performing a blend of jazz, hip-hop, spoken word poetry, and soul music on a totally conscience tip. Maurice works with people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds facilitating workshops, which range from music production to Civil Rights. When not performing with M.U.G.A.B.E.E., Maurice is a trumpeter for hire. He has shared the stage with many great musicians, which include The Wynton Marsalis Septet, Ellis Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Mulgrew Miller, Jon Faddis, Danny Barker, Wallace Roney, Stranger Malone, Donald Byrd, Keeter Betts, Elise Witt, Jimmy Heath, Ray Drummond, Chris “Daddy” Dave, Randy Brecker, and Bobby Rush to name a few. He also served as Musical Director for Uprooted: The Katrina Project, a piece focusing on the displaced citizens of New Orleans and the various struggles that were faced during the catastrophe.

Bob Moses: Robert Parris Moses (January 23, 1935 – July 25, 2021) was an American educator and civil rights activist, known for his work as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on voter education and registration in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, and his co-founding of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As part of his work with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the four major civil rights organizations (SNCC, CORE, NAACP, SCLC), he was the main organizer for the Freedom Summer Project.

In 1982 Moses received a MacArthur Fellowship and began developing the Algebra Project. The math literacy program emphasizes teaching algebra skills to minority students, based on broad-based community organizing and collaboration with parents, teachers and students, in order to improve college and job readiness.

Hollis Watkins: is an activist who was part of the Civil Rights Movement activities in the state of Mississippi during the 1960s. He became a member and organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1961, was a county organizer for 1964's "Freedom Summer", and assisted the efforts of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to unseat the regular Mississippi delegation from their chairs at the 1964 Democratic Party national convention in Atlantic City. He founded Southern Echo, a group that gives support to other grass-roots organizations in Mississippi. He also is a founder of the Mississippi Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.

Danny Glover:  is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film series. He also had leading roles in his films included The Color Purple, To Sleep with Anger, Predator 2, Angels in the Outfield, and Operation Dumbo Drop.. He is also an active supporter of various political causes.In 2022, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences would bestow the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Glover for his "decades-long advocacy for justice and human rights [which] reflects his dedication to recognizing our shared humanity on and off the screen".[2][3][4]

C.C .Bryant:  Elected president of the Pike County branch of the NAACP in 1954, Curtis Conway Bryant (1917-2001) played a major role in early civil rights activism of southwest Mississippi. He campaigned to expand membership in the NAACP, led large voter registration drives, and endured jail and bombings of his family home and barber shop, both of which served as local centers for movement activities. Bryant described McComb's violent summer of 1964 as "hell on earth."

John O'Neal: Actor, director, performer, writer, community and civil rights activist, and pioneer of African American theater John M. O'Neal, Jr. co-founded the Free Southern Theater in 1963 as the cultural and educational arm of the southern Civil Rights Movement. His work as playwright and social activist demonstrates how his philosophy of art and politics are complementary, not opposing terms. O'Neal's artistic style and vision has afforded him the opportunity to perform widely for audiences throughout North America and Europe.

M.K. Wegman with 40+ years of experience in presenting and producing for non-profit visual and performing arts organizations is the recently retired President and CEO of the National Performance Network/Visual Artists Network, which supports national and international touring and commissioning. As an independent consultant, she works with artist-focused organizations in the performing and visual arts. She is one of the founders of the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center and is an emeritus board member, a past Board Chair of Alternate ROOTS, was founding president of the National Association of Artists’ Organizations (NAAO).

Kathy Randels: Kathy Randels has been generating performance art at the intersection of gender rebellion and community activism since her graduation from Northwestern in 1991. For roughly 20 years now, Randels has led ArtSpot Productions, an interdisciplinary performance ensemble in New Orleans A sense of spirit-guided indignation has led Randels to create and perform avant-garde, site-specific theater in the streets of New Orleans, her flooded-and-gutted childhood home, the levees of St. Bernard Parish (an industrial suburb being gulped up by the Gulf's rising tides), and in the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in the hamlet of St. Gabriel (The LCIW Drama Club for inmates, The Graduates for those released).

Jose Torres Tama: José Torres-Tama is a published poet and playwright, journalist and photographer, renegade scholar and arts educator, visual and performance artist, cultural activist and Artistic Director of ArteFuturo Productions in New Orleans. He explores the effects of mass media on race relations, the underbelly of the “North American Dream” mythology, and the anti-immigrant hysteria currently gripping the United States of Amnesia, which seduces you to embrace forgetting that the origin story of this so-called beacon of democracy is soaked in white supremacists’ beliefs. 

Students at the Center: SAC) is an independent program that since 1996 has worked within public schools in New Orleans. co-directed by educators Jim Randels and Kalamu ya Salaam The students of SAC participate through English and elective writing and social studies classes in their schools. We teach both regular and advanced core curriculum classes that are open to all students. In addition to the daily classes, since Hurricane Katrina, SAC graduates have worked as key staff members, serving as resource teachers in public school classrooms, organizers for youth involvement, and producers of youth media.

Carol Bebelle: Is a poet and cofounder of Ashé Cultural Arts Center. She has championed arts, culture, and community in New Orleans for over four decades. With determination and entrepreneurship, alongside the late visual artist and Ashé cofounder Douglas Redd, Bebelle ignited the revitalization of Central City’s Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. Ashé is a Yoruba word meaning “the power to make things happen and produce change.” 

Ashe Cultural Arts Center: Our charge as issued by Mama Carol, is to “to fly in leaps and gusts of provocation, instigation, inspiration and aspiration...to call for and exhibit the higher standards of justice, integrity, and kindness for all...to be brilliant concoctors of opportunity, creators of vision, navigators of bs, advocates of culture, and defenders of children...to make real the majesty of dreams, to make plain the magic of being, to manifest the difference between perceiving and seeing!” Ashé Cultural Art Center’s innovative programming is designed to utilize culture in fostering human development and civic engagement. We maintain 10,000 square feet of gallery space and 20,000 square feet of performance space to create and preserve opportunities for the curation, exhibition, and commission of fine, folk, and fine-folk art.

Alice Lovelace is a cultural worker, performance artist, teacher, poet, organizer, author, playwright, and arts administer. Since 1976 Atlanta has been her home of choice; a fertile ground for artistic growth and activism, and in 1978, she discovered the Neighborhood Arts Center and met Ebon Dooley (Leo Hale) and Toni Cade Bambara. Together, they organized poetry readings and classes while conducting meetings for the Southern Collective of African American Writers (SCAAW). Alice shared her stories and wisdom in Episode 23 of Change the Story / Change the World.

Nayo Watkins:  Nayo Barbara Malcolm Watkins (1939-2008) was a poet, essayist, playwright, arts consultant, and cultural organizer in North Carolina, where she lived, and throughout the South. For over 40 years she worked with nonprofit organizations with a focus on arts as tools in community empowerment and social transformation.

Kathy deNobriga: A founding member of Alternate ROOTS, a service organization for community-based artists in the South, deNobriga served as ROOTS' executive director and planning/development director for ten years. A current board member of Alternate ROOTS, deNobriga is a certified mediator in the State of Georgia, and after three terms as Council member deNobriga served as Mayor for the City of Pine Lake from 2012 to 2015.

Bob Leonard: Bob Leonard is a theatremaker, writer, and teacher at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. He directs the MFA program in Directing and Public Dialogue. His work includes ensemble developed new plays and events as an expression of the public voice; and interactive theater techniques in partnership with local initiatives on race to generate, express, and animate public dialogue and civic imagination. He is the founding artistic director of The Road Company, an ensemble based in Johnson City, Tennessee -1975 to 1998. He co-founded the Community Arts Network (CAN) and is a founding board member of Alternate ROOTS and the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET). He is project director of the VTArtWorks Initiative to construct an on-line resource for and with the field of grassroots and community-based art making aimed at advancing social and economic justice. 

Over the past four decades, this episode's guest, Cynthia Winton-Henry, and the worldwide community, she and her collaborator, Phil Porter, have helped to grow, have sparked a reconvening of the pre-historic circle of dance and song, and story that animated and nurtured the nascent human community.

For more inspiring change maker stories also check out the Change the Story Collection

Cynthia Winton-Henry, M.Div, co-founded InterPlay (www.interplay.org) with Phil Porter in 1989. They mentor teachers around the world in best practices to build community and unlock the wisdom of the body using movement, story, stillness, and voice. Cynthia hosts weekly Online Dance Chapels at the Hidden Monastery at www.cynthiawinton-henry.com and teaches the initiations needed by gifted and sensitive bodies using her Self-Care Playbook in the Art of Ensoulment. She’s taught at Holy Names University’s Sophia Center and the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, and at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, where she received the Distinguished Alumni Award. Her books include Move: What the Body Wants by Woodlake Press, Chasing the Dance of Life published by Apocryphile Press and Dance: A Sacred Art by Skylight Press, and wrote the concluding essay "Grace Operatives: How Body Wisdom Changed the World" in Phenomonlogies of Grace edited by Marcus Bussey and Camilla Mozzini.

Interplay: InterPlay is an active, creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body

Phil Porter: Phil is one of the founders of InterPlay. He is a teacher, performer, writer, and organizer. With Cynthia Winton-Henry he is the co-founder of WING IT! Performance Ensemble, and has written several books, some in collaboration with Cynthia, including Having It All: Body, Mind, Heart & Spirit Together Again at Last and The Slightly Mad Rantings of a Body Intellectual Part One. Phil is particularly interested in the use of InterPlay in organizational life and believes that InterPlay can be a powerful tool to create communities of diversity and peace.

African Art in Motion: The exhibition was based on a concept of Robert Farris Thompson, associate professor of art history at Yale University, that African art can only be understood through a grasp of African dance and ritual and in the special language of body motion: implied, arrested, or expressed. T

Ruth St. Dennis: was an American pioneer of modern dance, introducing eastern ideas into the art and paving the way for other women in dance. She was inspired by the Delsarte advocate Genevieve Stebbins. St. Denis was the co-founder in 1915 of the American Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts. She taught notable performers including Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey. In 1938, she founded the pioneering dance program at Adelphi University. She published several articles on spiritual dance and the mysticism of the body.

Doug Adams: (1945 April 12 - 2007 July 24) was professor of Christianity and the Arts at Pacific School of Religion for 31 years and member of the core Graduate Theological Union faculty. Adams was an international scholar in religion and the arts, worship, dance and humor. He authored hundreds of articles and a dozen books, inspired and mentored thousands of students, and lectured and conducted workshops throughout the US.

God Sex and Power A 1992 completely improvised performance directed by Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry, cofounders of InterPlay, with Beth Hoch Scott Galuteria, Amar Khalsa, David McCauley, and Debra Weir. This performance, part of San Francisco's Edge Festival, happened in the Mission District.

Masankho Banda is an accomplished dancer, drummer and choreographer from Malawi. Using performing arts, Masankho motivates and inspires people of all ages to work together for peace, social justice and cultural understanding. He has personal experience of living under a totalitarian government where his father was imprisoned in 1980 for his efforts to maintain democracy and economic stability in Malawi.  

Coke Tani is a movement and literary artist, spiritual companion, and teacher/facilitator. In addition to having co-led the Secrets of InterPlay & Life Practice Program, Coke served as InterPlay's first Liaison to Leaders of Color, where she introduced the expansion of InterPlay forms for embodied anti-racism education, and co-created InterPlay's first BIPOC Daylong Retreat. She holds an MSW, MFA and MDiv.

Kira Allen: This Certified InterPlay leader is an author, collage artist, activist, advocate, and facilitator who specializes in working with Black, Indigenous, People of Color and Queer communities. She holds an M.A. in Transformative Arts from John F. Kennedy University, and a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from Mills College. Bearing witness to her own traumas and triumphs through a wide variety of modalities inspires her work with participants of all ages in: classrooms, homeless shelters, churches, non-profits and intimate circles inside people’s homes. 

Soyinka Rahim (GSP) is a grassroots spiritual practitioner who is the founder and artistic director of BIBOLOVE.US which stands for "breathe in breathe out love." She was also the founder of OurThing Performing arts company, where she created the modern-day folk dance play An Altar Piece to Alter Peace, a multimedia, intergenerational performance piece for peace. 

Bibolove.US practice is to “breathe in, breathe out love.us” using meditation, affirmation, visualization and movement we allow our bodies to overflow with peace, love, joy, health, happiness, grace, and ease, knowing Love has the power to conjure up our light, aligning our seven chakras, connecting hearts and souls in all our relations.

Kelsey Blackwell Decolonizing the Body: Healing, Body-Centered Practices for Women of Color to Reclaim Confidence, Dignity, and Self-Worth: Kelsey Blackwell Decolonizing the Body: Healing, Body-Centered Practices for Women of Color to Reclaim Confidence, Dignity, and Self-Worth.

Mairi Campbell: Mairi Campbell is a Scottish folk singer and musician. Campbell's songs and music have a rooted and powerful quality that range from the everyday to the universal, both in sound and subject matter. Campbell has been much praised for her singing voice and musical skills

The Lea Rig: A much loved song by the Scotish poet Robert Burns, that has manifested as many versions and interpretations.

Hazel Lobo: Hazel is an artist, activist whose passion is to create safe and nourishing spaces. PLAY continues to be an integral part in her work on gender, sexuality and restorative justice. Playing with communities at the margins in India have continued to give her the courage to show up and lead play in different spaces and context with the common desire to belong to community.

Prashant Olalekar together with the InterPlay India team played a pioneering role in actively promoting InterPlay in India and building bridges through Global Peace Exchanges. He is a Jesuit, peace activist, spiritual director, and educator.

Secrets of Interplay: The Secrets of InterPlay for Helping Professionals is a time for self-care, self-reflection and skill-building. As Audre Lorde reminds us - “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Lately, we have heard from many artists and arts organizations who are joining the creative change movement. In response, we are revisiting Alice's story of creativity, chutzpah, and courage as a peaceful disrupter making serious change across the deep south under the most challenging conditions.

For more inspiring change maker stories also check out the Change the Story Collection:

What is "This Poem" really about?

This poem is a cultural hybrid

Travelin' everywhere

Belongin' nowhere

Irresponsible, Irreverent

And totally irrelevant

What do you mean by Peaceful Disrupter?

I am never happy with the status quo. So, I'm always looking for ways to disrupt the status quo and to move it in a more progressive [way] or [by] empowering those who I see are being left behind.

And that has to happen a lot, they have to be those who make other people uncomfortable, so that in their discomfort they actually deeply contemplate change. Because when we are comfortable, we don't contemplate change.

... I'm a peaceful disruptor. I don't get loud. I don't, I definitely look for opportunities to shift power and to shift the conversation...

What does "asking permission" mean in a classroom?

When I walk into a classroom, the first thing I say to my class is I asked permission to be there. And often the teachers don't understand that, but I will say to the students, “this is your community, and I am an interloper, and other adults have made a decision that I should be here, but the rightful decision-makers are you because you were the one who had the power to make this a success or to make it a failure”. So, I always ask their permission.

How can you fight the power of the false narrative?

I've never forgot the lesson of. Standing up to bullies, not getting into the stories people are telling about you, ...the moment that you try to speak to that story, all it's going to do is keep that story spinning. So, I would never address it.

Variations on a theme 1 » The Rush (w/ drum) - Variations 1 (c) by PodcastAC

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*******

Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Spending time with the Breaking Ice theater based diversity, equity, and inclusion program gave rise to a question: How might new insights about how the brain works might help us better understand the how and why of our continuing struggle with difference? Here is what ensued. 

LISTEN TO Breaking Ice Chapter 1

LISTEN TO Breaking Ice Chapter 2

Change the Story / All Episodes 

Change the Story Collections - Our full catalogue of Episodes in 12 Collections: Justice Arts, Art & Healing, Cultural Organizing, Arts Ed./Children & Youth, Community Arts Training, Music for Change, Theater for Change, Change Making Media, Creative Climate Action, Art of the Rural

Breaking Ice is the award-winning program of Pillsbury House Theatre that for over 20 years has been “breaking the ice” for courageous and productive dialogue around issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. A diverse company of professional actors portrays real-life situations that are customized to meet the goals, needs and culture of each unique organization we serve.

Pillsbury House and Theater is a groundbreaking “new model for human service work that recognizes the power of the arts and culture to stimulate community participation, investment and ownership.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: was a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity.[1][2] He was the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He was also the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.[3]

Question 2: How does our environment influence what we think and believe? 

1.Lobel, T. (2014) Sensations: The New Science of Physical Intelligence, Simon & Schuster.

2 Eagleman, David. The Brain: The Story of You. Pg., 105, Vintage Books, 2017

Question 4: Why are stories important? 

3.Hamlin, JK, Wynn, K & Bloom, P (2007) “Social evaluation by preverbal infants.” Nature, 450(7169), 557-59.

Question 5: What is empathy and what does it have to do with artmaking?

4 Eagleman, David. The Brain: The Story of You. Pg., 143, Vintage Books, 2017

5 Ibid.

Question 11: If human cooperation and connection are so important, why do we struggle so with difference? 

6. How do children develop a sense of self? - The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/how-do-children- develop-a-sense-of-self-5611

7. Toddler | Preschool & Daycare | The Montessori Centre St Lucia. http://www.themontessoricentre.com/toddlers/

8. Eagleman, David. The Brain: The Story of You. Pg., 143, Vintage Books, 2017

Question 13: Why is play so important to human development? 

9 Asma, Steven The History of Imagination, pg., 84, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2017

10 Asma, Stephen, The Evolution of Imagination, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2017

Question 15: How Can human creativity help us out of this mess?

11 Boyd, Brian, On the Origin of Stories, Harvard University Press, Boston, 2010

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Fear of judgement, the courage of sharing pain, or guilt, or confusion, owning that not knowing is not an excuse for hurting, that humility is hard, that learning hard things is harder, and accepting responsibility is a daily struggle. This is the rocky relational landscape being explored by five BreakIng Ice performers on a bare stage at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. louis, Missouri in the winter of 2019.

LISTEN TO Breaking Ice Chapter 1

Change the Story / All Episodes

Change the Story Collections - Our full catalogue of Episodes in 12 Collections: Justice Arts, Art & Healing, Cultural Organizing, Arts Ed./Children & Youth, Community Arts Training, Music for Change, Theater for Change, Change Making Media, Creative Climate Action, Art of the Rural

Noël Raymond holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Minnesota and a BFA from Ithaca College in New York. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the Multicultural Development Center and the Burning House Group Theatre Company which she co-founded in 1993. She is also a company member of Carlyle Brown and Company. She has taught acting classes and theatre movement in multiple settings to children, college students and adults with developmental disabilities. Noël is an Equity actor who has performed with Pillsbury House Theatre, the Burning House Group, the Guthrie Theater, Penumbra Theatre, Bryant Lake Bowl, and Minnesota Festival Theatres in Minnesota as well as the Hangar Theatre in New York. Noël’s directing credits include Underneath the Lintel, An Almost Holy Picture, Far Away, Angels in America: Parts I and II, and [sic] at Pillsbury House Theatre, From Shadows to Light at Theatre Mu, The BI Show with MaMa mOsAiC, and multiple staged readings and workshops through the Playwrights’ Center, among others. Noël has served on numerous panels including TCG/American Theatre, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Playwright’s Center and United Arts, to name a few.

Kurt Kwan has been creating performances and facilitating dialogues around issues of Diversity and Inclusion with the Breaking Ice company since 2001. He also manages the Late Nite and Naked Stages programs. As an actor he has performed with Ten Thousand Things, The Walker, Childrens Theatre Company, Mu Performing Arts, New York Asian American Writers, The History Theatre, and Theatre La Homme Dieu.

DEI programs: Diversity, equity, and inclusion (usually abbreviated DEI) refers to organizational frameworks which seek to promote "the fair treatment and full participation of all people", particularly groups "who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination" on the basis of identity or disability.[1]

Barnes Jewish Hospital is the largest hospital in the U.S. state of Missouri. Located in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis, it is the adult teaching hospital for the Washington University School of Medicine and a major component of the Washington University Medical Center. In 2022, Barnes-Jewish was named one of the top twenty hospitals in the United States by U.S. News & World Report in its annual ranking.[1][2]

Pillsbury House and Theater.  is a groundbreaking “new model for human service work that recognizes the power of the arts and culture to stimulate community participation, investment and ownership.” This is the first of two PH+T chapters. 

Here are links to Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 of our episodes on Pillsbury’s history a and a Bonus Episode: Lorraine Hansberry at Pillsbury House - Theatre - Gifted & Black 

Pillsbury United Communities Beginning in 1879 with Minneapolis’s first settlement house, Pillsbury United Communities co-creates enduring change toward a just society. Built with and for historically marginalized and underinvested groups across our community, our united system of programs, neighborhood centers, and social enterprises connects more than 55,000 individuals and their families each year. We are guided by a vision of thriving communities where every person has personal, social, and economic power.

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.