Wednesday, October 7, 2020
10 a.m.–6 p.m.
The Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion (IDI) and the Community Commons (CoCo) invite students, faculty and staff to ENGAGE! Community Education Day 2. This year’s ENGAGE! Conference will be held virtually on Zoom. Hampshire College community members can access full schedule details and links on the intranet.
Full Schedule & Session Links
Presenters
Ignacio Rivera, founder and executive director of The HEAL Project, will present the kick-off lecture, “Decolonizing Our Relations: Healing Justice & Breaking the Cycle of Violence.” An internationally known Queer, Trans/Yamoká-hu/Two-Spirit, Black-Boricua, and Taíno speaker, educator, writer, and performer, they bring over 20 years of experience on multiple fronts, including economic justice, anti-racist and anti-violence work, as well as mujerista, LGBTQI, and sex positive movements. Rivera will discuss restorative and transformative justice practices in Black and Brown communities that stress community-based, long term practices as alternatives to state intervention. Learn more about Rivera’s writing on the subject.
[Content notes: Rivera’s writing and keynote lecture may include discussions of survivorship around sexual, racial, gender-based, and state violence, as we work together to understand and heal realities of harm and violence in our communities.]
Rivera’s keynote address will launch us into a full day of interactive community education workshops.
Janvieve Williams Comrie, executive director of AfroResistance, will facilitate the workshop, “Dominant Culture and the Individual in the Current Historical Moment.” This three-hour interactive workshop will ask: what is dominant culture and how do we each manifest it in our daily lives? What is our positioning and role in shaping dominant culture? How do we uphold, replicate, or challenge dominant culture? How do we challenge ourselves in the fight against racism?
Williams Comrie is a Black and Latina human rights strategist, trainer, and organizer with a deep commitment to assist in the building of powerful social movements for racial justice and human rights. She has worked in a variety of fields and for several human rights institutions, including the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights Regional Office Central America, where she coordinated a regional program on race and racism. Williams Comrie is internationally recognized for her work with Afrodescendent communities.
This year’s ENGAGE! Conference also features a “Socially-Engaged Theatre” track with multiple opportunities to connect with visiting community and alumni practitioners. While students interested in connecting theatre, social justice, and community healing are encouraged to attend, these workshops are open to all students, staff, and faculty.
In collaboration with the Hampshire Theatre Program, Taiga Christie will offer the workshop, “Violence Prevention and Consent in Anti-Racist Theatre.” Christie is an ensemble theater director, street medic, and health worker. She is a founding member of Faultline Ensemble, a collective of artists and care workers creating theater to foster community resilience, and currently serves as Arts and Public Health Fellow at the Yale School of Public Health. Hampshire alumni Kai Blackheart and Yijie Zhu will facilitate “Tools for Action: An Introduction to Forum Theatre”
No classes will be held that day, but it is not a day off — it is a day to ENGAGE!
CEL-1 and CEL-2 hours are available for each program or activity in which students participate.
Workshops will include (but are not limited to):
Visiting Community Scholars and Alumni Workshops:
- Janvieve Williams Comrie/AfroResistance, “Dominant Culture and the Individual in the Current Historical Moment”
- Taiga A. Christie, “Violence Prevention and Consent in Anti-Racist Theatre”
- Kai Blackheart and Yijie Zhu, “Tools for Action: An Introduction to Forum Theatre”
Hampshire Staff, Faculty, and Student-Led Workshops:
- Will Syldor-Severino, “Community Desires”
- Naya Gabriel, “Creative Resilience”
- Aaron Richardson & Will MacAdams, “Vulnerability, Showing Up Fully: A Workshop for Masculine Identified Folks”
- Teal Van Dyck & Voula O’Grady, “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real: Queer Consent, Queer Relationality”
More details and the full schedule are available now —check the Daily Digest and HampEngage.
Questions? Reach out to engage@hampshire.edu.