ACT is a series of workshops connecting the community to social justice themes. Participants will engage in workshops, open mics, and audio composition/recordings. This program is not only designed to connect the community to social justice but, to keep the youth connected to each other during these uncertain times.
This two-week virtual program takes place from August 10th-August 21st for two hours a day, Monday through Friday.
To register for the ACT Institute or for general questions, please email us at csc@creativestrategiesforchange.
Interested in being a Co-Youth Facilitator for ACT? Check out our job posting!
Compensation: $30-40/hr. (based on training and experience)
CSC is seeking a young leader to support workshops for our ACT Youth Institute. We are looking for a Youth Co-Facilitator who is committed to providing artistic and educational excellence in alignment with the CSC mission, vision, and values. CSC also has occasional opportunities to participate in performances and workshops outside of regularly scheduled enrichment programs.
At CSC, we teach practical frameworks of Social Justice through Arts Engagement and Restorative practices. As a facilitating artist, you will be given the tools to teach an understanding of systems of oppression, social identities, community engagement and more to all school levels. As a facilitating artist, you will have a tremendously positive effect on your community.
Responsibilities:
The Youth Facilitating Artist will be responsible for supporting planning and teaching the ACT Youth Institute, running over the course of 2 weeks utilizing the CSC Curriculum and Model – integrating social justice frameworks and restorative practices, with arts education. Workshops follow a specific structure and allow room for creative liberty, while working with students to develop a culminating presentation or performance. Facilitating Artists are responsible for administering post student assessments, as well as completing weekly planning documents. Facilitating artists are required to complete the orientation and training
Skills and Qualifications:
· Commitment to the CSC mission, vision, and values.
· Commitment to the CSC Organizational Agreements and Restorative System in principle and practice.
· Interest in and/or experience as a teaching artist in the specified art form, with clear understanding of youth arts education, development, and engagement.
· Proactive, self-motivated, positive attitude, able to work independently and interdependently with the diverse CSC Team, students, and community.
· Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
· A passion to learn social, racial, and restorative justice.
· Critical, strategic thinking and the capacity to manage multiple priorities.
· Flexibility to adjust and creatively navigate unforeseen challenges.
· Working knowledge of Google Drive and Surveymonkey preferred.
· CSC team members are required to participate in the facilitator training once each year.
To apply for a Youth Facilitating Artist position, please send a cover letter stating your interest in working with CSC and specifying your art forms, with a resume, references, and examples of your work to bianca@creativestrategiesforchange.com. Please visit the website to learn more about the organization, and don’t hesitate to contact!
CSC strongly encourages applications from diverse, creative, leaders of color for all listed positions. Creative Strategies for Change is committed to a policy of equitable representation across the organization and will not discriminate on the basis of race, ability status, sex, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, socioeconomic status, or other social identities.
Come connect and exchange creative wellness strategies in celebration of Mental Health Month!
We will utilize music, freewriting and other tools to foster a space of rejuvenation. People participating will receive culturally responsive facilitation honing the opportunities available for centering self and others.
Explore the arts as a tool for communication and change in this interactive zoom workshop
Social Imagination describes our human capacity to connect across our differences and not only build empathy and understanding, but take action for equity and justice.
Experiment with creative activities and facilitation tools in this trauma informed workshop for facilitators, educators, artists, social workers, and anyone navigating challenging conversations and topics in the current zoomisphere.
Bring your whole self, there will be room for movement and somatics, emotions, ideas, and questions. Come together and get creative as we navigate individual and collective wellness in this time of unprecedented uncertainty.
Facilitated by Bianca Mikahn and Rachael Sharp.
Sliding Scale Tuition, Scholarships May Be Available.
Dive into key concepts, terms, and tools for combatting racism and cultivating racial equity in this interactive zoom workshop.
Racial Equity Foundations is a primer introductory workshop that starts at square one. Defining race and relevant terms, understading how structural racism functions, addressing specific issues in the time of Covid-19, and engaging tools for equity. This is a great opportunity for facilitators, educators, artists, social workers, and anyone ready to begin the journey toward racial equity in your work and your community.
Facilitated by Bianca Mikahn and Rachael Sharp.
Sliding Scale Tuition, Scholarships May Be Available.
Explore the arts as a tool for mental health in this interactive zoom workshop.
This interactive program creates a safe environment to identify mental health needs and explore issues such as identity, conflict navigation, and stress, through the use of creative art and self-expression. CYH incorporates artistic practices from journaling and lyric writing to painting and drawing.
Facilitated by Bianca Mikahn.
Sliding Scale Tuition, Scholarships May Be Available.
CSC is now facilitating our innovative programs online! Below is a list of offerings that can be adapted for young people, adults, and intergenerational formats. And don’t forget about our donation based monthly open mic, hosted by Bianca Mikahn, with amazing featured artists! This is just the beginning… stay tuned to our social media for all of the latest updates!
CSC Workshops and Circles are for youth, adult or intergenerational groups. The innovative CSC3 facilitation model integrates the arts, restorative practices, and an intersectional social justice (anti-oppression) framework.
Through large and small group activities and facilitated dialogue, participants build shared language and experiences with individualized opportunities for reflection. CSC’s diverse team brings a breadth of perspective and experience. Workshops and Circles can be tailored to meet your unique needs and budget. Let us know if you would like more information!
WORKSHOPS & RESIDENCIES
Arts for Action
Applied Theater
Digital Storytelling
Drumming and Beyond
Hip Hop
Spoken Word
Visual Arts
Beyond the Bully: Relate & Communicate
Check Your Head: Creative Tools for Mental Health
Cultural Responsiveness [in Virtual Space]
Cyber Somatics
Disrupting White Supremacy Cultural Norms
Embodying Equity
CSC Anti-Oppression Framework
Racial Equity Foundations
Understanding and Interrupting Implicit Bias
Racial Equity Systems: Analysis, Vision, & Action
Health Equity & Covid 19
Social Imagination: Art for Empathy and Action
Somatics, Equity & Inclusion [in Virtual Space]
Trauma Informed Facilitation [in Virtual Space]
INDIVIDUAL OR RECURRING CIRCLES
Collaborative Learning Circles
Empathy Circles
Racial Equity Caucus Circles
Restorative Circles
*All workshops currently occur through Zoom. Varying streaming platforms can be established in collaboration with client requests.*
CSC’s diverse team of artists and consultants bring a breadth of perspective and experience to our clients. We do our best to work with each organization’s unique needs and budgets, while maintaining equitable rates for our facilitators. Please let us know if the rates are prohibitive, we may be able to help find funding, offer an adapted program or presentation with 1 facilitator, or provide a discount.
Creative Strategies for Change Response to Coronavirus (COVID 19)
Local and national response to the Coronavirus public health crisis is changing daily. CSC has been in regular communication as a team, and with our school and community partners and clients. We are centering collective care and responsiveness. CSC is following all public health guidelines from the CDC and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), and doing our part to “flatten the curve” and slow the spread of the virus. We are also giving special attention to our community’s mental health needs at this time and encourage extending extra patience and compassion for ourselves and one another while anxiety and fear are heightened. See additional resources below.
This time is very challenging for grassroots and arts organizations like CSC. We are working on balancing our response to immediate needs and long term preparedness. With so many changes facing us every day, many in our team are directly affected. Our work typically happens live and in person, and our team of artists and facilitators are at the heart of CSC. While we are adapting to changes and implementing virtual options whenever possible, we are also raising funds to support lost wages as school closures and program cancellations become standard practice.
CSC offices are closed. All staff are working remotely until April 17. We will follow further public safety and social/physical distancing protocols as they are announced. Staff will be available during regularly scheduled hours by email and phone. Please call or email if you have questions, need support or resources.
This will be an adventure! Content will be responsive, joy will be catalyzed, DEI and mental health resources will be available. Link and details posted on facebook.
This will be a short mental health workshop instead of the full day training, which will be postponed. Content will be responsive. Time and format TBD. Updates will be posted on eventbrite.
April updates will be posted.
Resources: There are so many resources out there, we will share just a few links.
How beautiful to witness trees gracefully let go. As we watch them shed, awed by their bold bareness, we come to understand that even without leaves, a tree is still a tree. How comforting to share this truth, that we too can let go and still be. Here at CSC we’re embodying all this season has to offer, from profound wisdom, engaging and activating the poetry within through the hidden lessons turned metaphors, to the spirit of gratitude and giving. Join us December 10th for #ColoradoGivesDay at Hapa Sushi to celebrate this beautiful season and our beloved team from 4-9PM, 20% of the proceeds will go directly to CSC community and youth programs. Please RSVP so the restaurant knows we are coming! Wether or not you can join us in person, you can schedule a donation today, or maybe #GivingTuesday, Dec. 3 is the right time for you, either way your donation supports CSC’s innovative arts and social justice programs, their sustainability, and our collective liberation! The great Maya Angelou said, “I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”
Donations of any size make a difference, here are a few examples of where your dollars go:
$15: Instrument Rental for 1 Student
$25: Arts for Action Workshop Materials for 1 Student
$50: Community Event / Workshop Scholarship
$100: Youth Featured Artist Honorarium
$300: Facilitator Workshop Scholarship
$500: Community Performance & Dialogue
$1,250: Youth Creative Leadership Residency
Check us out Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date with all the latest news and events at CSC. Please keep us posted on your happenings – we are happy to spread the word.
Be part of launching an innovative, accessible mobile studio for folks of all ages and identities to come together and make music for the social justice movement: Donate to the Movement Music Campaign
Our fundraising goal of $6500 will match a grant from Denver Arts and Venues to purchase equipment and pay producers, facilitators and musicians equitable rates for their time!
Project Components:
*Professional Producer and Equipment
*School Based Studio Time at CSC Partner Schools
*Monthly Intergenerational Open Studio in Denver’s Historic Five Points Neighborhood
*Accessible, Equitable Opportunity for Emerging Artists of All Genres, All Ages, All Identities
*Culturally Responsive & Wellness Centered
*Collaboration and Civic Engagement
Check out the video to hear from the Music Movement host and producer Bianca Mikhan about the companion project: Community Cypher Open Mic.
“Gratitude is like breathing in – letting ourselves be touched by the goodness in others, and in our world. Generosity is like breathing out – sensing our mutual belonging and offering our care. When we are awake and whole, breathing in and out happens naturally.” Tara Brach
Team CSC is grateful for another meaningful year of building with passionate, creative, intelligent individuals, organizations, and communities, and the many ways you show up!
Our diverse donors raised over $6000 on Colorado Gives Day. Thank you to everyone who pitched in! In the last days of 2018 we ask for your support in matching that amount and keeping our programs accessible in 2019.
Follow the links below and find out what your dollars can do!
TUESDAYS | 10/2-11/27 | 6-8PM | 2900 Downing St. Suite 1B
Take a deep dive into creative tools for structural change in this 9 week Theatre of the Oppressed workshop series. Our collective devised work will be shared at a culminating community presentation on November 29. Applicable for individuals engaged with all types of institutions: schools, universities, businesses, organizations, families, communities, collectives…. no experience necessary, all are welcome!
Tuition: $240 Sliding Scale, Scholarship, Work Exchange Options
The first workshop on October 2 will be donation based and open to the public, all are welcome!
Thursday | October 11 | 6-8pm | 2900 Downing St. Suite 1B
Navigating conflict takes practice! These sessions are meant for us to come together in community and practice transforming conflict through restorative practices and circle facilitation. We also aim to build our collective capacity for community accountability. This work has roots in aboriginal and indigenous cultures around the world. It aims to transform relationships, increase safety, heal harm, and build capacity amongst communities. Communities practice in the ways that are specific to them, though the practices have common principles.
Open to the public, all are welcome!
Donation-based. No one will be turned away; any donations really make a difference in continuing restorative practice events and circles.
ARTS. DIALOGUE. ACTION | GUEST HOST: QUEENZ OF HIP HOP!
These monthly sessions cultivate creative spaces for cultivating community across social divides. The intergenerational events incorporate a wide range of arts (music, spoken word, dance, healing arts, visual arts, etc.) with dialogue and action related to place, history, culture, and identity. The fall series will be co-facilitated by guest host: The Queenz of Hip Hop. Light refreshments are included. Sessions are donation based and open to all, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
*Made possible in part with generous support from Moew Wolf Denver!
Cerveceria Colorado: 1635 Platte St. Denver, CO 80202
Each week Cervecería Colorado partners with a non-profit to have a celebratory happy hour with proceeds benefiting that non-profit!
All funds raised from your drink purchases on 11/1 will directly support CSC’s innovative arts and social justice programs in Denver Public Schools. Your support contributes to equitable access to the arts for young people, and equitable pay for local artists!
11/19: Place Matters Performance Event
Blair Caldwell Library 6pm
This event will take place in coordination with the Undesign the Redline exhibit. The 2018 Social Imagination production Place Matters is place-based, happening in non-traditional venues and amplifying their relationship to the shifting landscape of community, culture, and access, both in Denver, and in a more universal sense. Place Matters is an interactive performance, locating the audience in the midst of the story, as an invitation to reckon with diverse perspectives and the roles we play. The cast will explore the complexity and nuance of redlining, gentrification, and displacement through one woman’s story of her family over 3 generations.
Project Components:
“Gratitude is like breathing in – letting ourselves be touched by the goodness in others, and in our world. Generosity is like breathing out – sensing our mutual belonging and offering our care. When we are awake and whole, breathing in and out happens naturally.” Tara Brach
10/
Each week Cervecería Colorado partners with a non-profit to have a celebratory happy hour with proceeds benefiting that non-profit!
