Todd London has been a leading figure in the U.S. nonprofit theater for more than 35 years and was the first recipient of Theater Communications Group’s Visionary Leadership Award for “an individual who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to advance the theater field as a whole…” He spent 18 seasons as Artistic Director of New York’s New Dramatists. From 2014-18 he was Executive Director of the University of Washington’s School of Drama, where he held the Floyd U. Jones Family Endowed Chair. His many books include two novels, If You See Him, Let Me Know and The World’s Room; This Is Not My Memoir (with Andre Gregory); and theater books, An Ideal Theater; Outrageous Fortune; The Importance of Staying Earnest; The Artistic Home, and Zelda Fichandler’s The Long Revolution (editor). He is founding director of The Third Bohemia retreat and director of the Legacy Playwrights Initiative. Read More Todd London
Samwel Japhet is a Tanzanian dance artist, choreographer, and social entrepreneur who found his voice through dance after a rough childhood of homelessness and abuse. He works at the intersection of dance, storytelling, and social issues, using movement as a tool for artistic expression, storytelling, and an invitation to transcendence and critical reflection on social and political realities. His choreographic approach blends dance with visual storytelling, real-life experiences, text, music, and dialogue to explore human relationships and societal dynamics. He is particularly interested in cross-cultural collaboration, building artistic relationships between Africa and the rest of the world. His work has toured festivals and theaters in the Netherlands, South Korea, Israel, South Africa, Portugal, Mozambique, Germany, Ethiopia, Italy and beyond.
He is a recipient of the 2021 Seed Award from the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development and a 2024-2026 Global Fellow with The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. He is also a Salzburg Global Fellow – Culture, Arts, and Society. A graduate of the MUDA Africa Dance School in Tanzania, he co-managed UMOJA, a multidisciplinary residency program for East African and European artists, from 2021 to 2022. In 2015, he co-founded Nantea Dance Company, a Tanzanian non-profit that produces multifaceted performances and community-based projects. Through his work, he strives to address global challenges and build a culture where art not only reflects reality but also inspires new possibilities. Read More Samwel Japhet
Tanvi Hegade is a contemporary dancer and a dance movement therapist based in Pune, India. Having spent a decade training in and performing contemporary dance and physical theatre, these experiences now serve as a foundation for her to explore the myriad possibilities of expression using the body. She finds herself in the process of incubating ideas about forming insightful and honest ways of dialogue at the intersections of language, movement and social impact. Language as a tool of erasure and enabler, the (in)visibility of non-normative bodies in performance, and the politics of gender and migration are some of the themes that are alive for her at present. The ’Dance for PD’ program, a therapeutic movement program for persons with Parkinson’s Disease, is one that she holds very close to her heart. As the Head of the Dance in Education vertical at the Avartan Dance Foundation, she is realising her mission of creating resilient communities by exploring arts as a tool for community building. She has been part of several productions performed at national and international festivals including in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Romania and Poland. Tanvi is the Secretary of West Zone of the Creative Movement Therapy Association of India. She is the Indian representative of the ITI/UNESCO International Dance Committee, and a recipient of the Compassion & Resilience Fellowship by The Red Door India, the Arts for Good Fellowship by the Singapore International Foundation, and the 2024-2026 Global Fellow with The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. Read More Tanvi Hegade
Kiyo Gutiérrez is a Mexican performance artist and historian. Her work explores the environmental, social and political issues affecting contemporary society. Through her body, she seeks to explore performance art’s potential as a tool of resistance. She is often inspired by elements of the prehispanic past, bit she also draws on other mediums such as theatre, dance and poetry. With the hope of eroding preconceived notions of nature, culture, gender, identity, sexuality and art, Kiyo strives to dissolve cultural taboos that have been constructed under a patriarchal system and generate discussions about our complex social realities. Read More Kiyo Gutiérrez
Fidaa Ataya is a storyteller. Her grandmother, forcibly expelled from her home and homeland in Al Bourj Palestine in 1948, would tell her stories. As she listened, Fidaa would fly with her imagination across borders, across the occupation, to freedom. Traditionally, women in Palestine told stories in private, not in public. But Fidaa tells stories in public, using them as a tool for survival, to pass on the anthropology of her people, to prove their existence and resistance. She holds a bachelor’s degree in education and psychology, diplomas in drama and education and playback theatre, and an MEd in Integrated Arts from Plymouth State University (NH). Fidaa has produced and performed shows in Palestine, Europe, America, and the Arab world and performed in numerous festivals across the globe. Fidaa has founded or co-founded a number of groups including the Art and Activism Residency, Hakaya Group to revive traditional Palestinian storytelling, Arabic School of Playback, Women’s Theatre at Burj Al-Barajna refugee camp, The Rain Singer Theatre at Tulkarm refugee camp, and the Palestinian American Children’s Theatre (PACT), (hARAM) heart Al Risan Art Museum. She is a Drama in Education Specialist and Faculty Member at the Arab School of Playback Theatre, a member of ITC4 in New York, as well as a puppeteer, filmmaker, and director. She has directed several short films which have been shown in Palestine, within the United States, and in Italy. Fidaa is a fellow with Georgetown University in the performing art and politics program. With Seraj Libraries, she is helping to open the National Storytelling Center in Palestine. Read More Fidda Ataya
Liza Yanovich is a theater actor and education specialist with more than 15 years of combined experience in government institutions, international organizations, philanthropy, and theater. Her vast international experience includes working with diverse stakeholders across disciplines and sectors to address the world’s most pressing and complex issues. Passionate about advancing opportunities for children and youth through education and the creative arts, she currently works as a teaching artist with Arts for Learning Maryland, Imagination Stage, Educational Theatre Company, and Inspired Child. Liza is a creative and skilled facilitator who builds organizational and individual capacity to collaborate, learn, and adapt. Liza’s belief in the power of communities to drive systems change and in engaging existing government structures and the private sector to catalyze social change is a key driver for her work with IYS. Liza loves to work with children, young adults, and educators, and she has extensive experience building relationships and navigating differences with government officials and private sector representatives globally. She thrives in culturally diverse contexts. Liza has extensive experience working resourcefully yet thoughtfully in hard-to-reach communities in West and Central Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Liza is fluent in French, Russian, and English.
Lyndi Tsering is a Tibetan-American storyteller, foreign policy researcher, and dialogue facilitator who is motivated by her interest in the future of U.S.-China relations and passion for elevating unique perspectives through both storytelling and policy. She began working with the Lab for Global Performance and Politics while a Master’s student in Asian Studies under Georgetown’s School of Foreign—first as a Student Fellow and later as a dialogue facilitator for the In Your Shoes and U.S.-China Dialogue at Georgetown cohort. Thought the past few years, Lyndi has performed with the House of Sweden, the We Hear You Project, the On Being Podcast and IYS collaboration, and the Theater of War, and has also spoken and facilitated roundtables as a former specialist at the United States Institute of Peace. Her encounters with IYS as both participant and facilitator have been transformative and built mutual understanding that transcended the tides of politics and the complexities of holding mixed identities in a globalized context. Lyndi is currently based in Washington, D.C.
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Mary Hall Surface is a Washington, DC-based playwright, theater director, teaching artist, and museum educator. She strives to uncover complexity, expand perspectives, and deepen understandings within each of us and among one another. Her Helen Hayes award-winning plays for intergenerational audiences have been produced worldwide. A deep believer in the transformative power of the arts, Mary Hall was the founding artistic director of DC’s Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival, an all-arts festival designed as a catalyst for connection across all ages and communities. She has published fifteen plays, three original cast albums, a feature article about creative community building in the Journal of Museum Education, and a chapter for an upcoming book, An Empathy-Building Toolkit for Museums. An experienced facilitator, Mary Hall has led drama-based professional development workshops for educators nationally and internationally through the Kennedy Center and at Harvard’s Project Zero Classroom. With the Smithsonian in 2020, she developed an art-inspired writing tool for well-being and resilience that was highlighted in USA Today. She leads art-inspired creative and reflective writing sessions for the National Gallery of Art, Chautauqua Institution, Washington National Cathedral, and Smithsonian Associates to create connection between looking closely at art and toward the resourcefulness of our creativity and imaginations. maryhallsurface.com.
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Sivagami “Shiva” Subbaraman is an experienced multi-modal facilitator, who draws upon varied and evolving traditions in her work. She has been trained in intergroup dialogue (University of Michigan), and ran the intergroup dialogue and facilitator training program for several years at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also trained in Theater of the Oppressed methodology, as well as In Your Shoes. Years of queer, feminist, and race-based academic work inform her approach. She has a great sense of humor, an ability to engage with joy and clarity, and is passionate about the heft and weight of storytelling and story sharing in our world and communities. You can read more about her here:
https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RhNbAAK/sivagami-subbaraman Read More Sivagami Subbaraman
Mekala Sridhar (she/her) is a DC-based theatre director, playwright, and producer. Her artmaking is grounded in creating radically inclusive, collaborative work, and building community through theatre is central to her practice.
In the past, she has worked in artistic and producorial capacities at theatres like Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, Mosaic Theatre Company, Solas Nua, Studio Theatre, and Baltimore Center Stage to name a few.
Mekala came to IYS through serving as the community organizer for Art of Care and enjoys finding ways to bring together art and activism to collectively dream of better futures. She is especially invigorated by how both theatre and IYS serve as ways for folks to come together and create community while holding space to delve deeply into the questions that are pertinent in our everyday lives, not necessarily with the goal of coming up with “an answer,” but with the idea that this kind of collaborative exploration can help deepen our understanding of ourselves and each other.
Elton Skendaj is a scholar, dialogue facilitator, and leadership coach, who serves as the Director of the Democracy and Governance M.A. Program at Georgetown University. He facilitates workshops on how dialogue can build bridges in polarized and divided societies. He is a leadership coach who helps executives grow in purpose and joy. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Global Governance, Problems of Postcommunism, and Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. Elton brings to IYS his background in facilitating dialogue circles on three continents, and an appreciation for the theatre of the oppressed. He enjoys integrating IYS call-and-response exercise in various dialogue workshops, and he notices the impact of the IYS performances on the audience. Elton believes in the power of IYS to foster empathy and better understanding among individuals and groups. Read More Elton Skendaj
Nick Scrimenti (C‘18) is the director of student programs at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, where he leads student-facing initiatives on interreligious understanding, global citizenship, and dialogue across difference. He also directs international fellowship programs connecting Georgetown and international students through sustained cross-cultural dialogue. Nick is a dialogue facilitator, spiritual director, and educator with experience in higher education, retreat work, and contemplative practice across traditions.
He has been trained in dialogic practices by Resetting the Table and the In Your Shoes™ Research and Practice Center, and has supported IYS implementation with Georgetown students and faculty. He values IYS for its deep listening pedagogy and embodied approach to cultivating empathy, and is especially interested in bringing IYS into interreligious contexts, global education, and spiritual formation.
Nick holds a B.A. in Theology from Georgetown and an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School. He is currently pursuing a certificate in spiritual direction at Loyola University Chicago.
