Wednesday, March 1, 2023
11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. EST
Location: Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics 4th floor
This two-part workshop for all ages offers techniques for connecting and caring for children. Building a connection and understanding can be challenging across generations, especially when you are a stranger in a distressing situation or you do not share a language.
In the first part of the workshop, participants will draw on tools from clowning, puppetry, mime, and dance to provide a range of techniques to develop trust and empathy across language and age divides. Games, tricks, and activities connect us to our own child-self so that we can better work with others. By entering the world and language of play that children all speak innately, we can better understand and serve them. In the second part of the workshop, participants will recognize each body’s unique lived experience and notice the memories we hold in our bodies- physical, mental, and emotional- and explore ways to offer care and healing for ourselves and others. Drawing on the spirit of play from the first half, participants will approach violence and pain with curiosity and humor, using storytelling and artmaking to unearth joy.
This event is co-sponsored by the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues; Walsh School of Foreign Service; Center for Child and Human Development; Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service; Global Human Development Program; Global Health Institute; and Laboratory on Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. It is part of the Children in a World of Challenges Workshop series.
Emma Jaster
Emma Jaster is the associate director for the Laboratory on Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, where she specializes in physical expression and communication. Her work focuses on the cross-cultural and humanizing potential of performance. She started onstage at age 6 with her father, mime Mark Jaster, studied at the Lecoq school in Paris, and has served as an unofficial cultural ambassador in India, Poland, and Mexico. She works with children and adults of all ages in a range of locations from stages to border crossings and believes in the power of love to make change.
Ifrah Mansour
Ifrah Mansour is a Minnesota-based Somali playwright and performer, and a global fellow with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. Her one-act play, “How to Have Fun in a Civil War,” explores war from an idyllic viewpoint of a seven-year-old Somali refugee. She revisits her memories during the 1991 Somali civil war to confront violent history with humor and provide a voice for refugee stories of children. She sees art as the way we can heal the world, creating performances that build empathy and connection within Muslim and greater American communities.
Public Health Measures
In order to comply with Event and Visitor Requirements, if you are not a current Georgetown University student, faculty, or staff member, please fill out this form with your COVID-19 vaccination information and complete a symptom check the first day you visit campus. You only need to submit this form once if you are attending multiple workshop events.
