The ART of Healing

Empowering Women Through Expressive Arts & A Culture of Care

ACT UP, a multi-disciplinary arts education organization dedicated to fostering joy, social justice, community dialogue, and societal healing, welcomes you to…The ART of Healing, a unique trauma-informed and trauma-responsive program designed specifically for women and gender-expansive people.

With you, we co-create brave spaces while centering those of us who have been historically marginalized. We know that by prioritizing the chronically unmet needs of those most targeted by intersecting systems of oppression, we ultimately uplift us all.

Through the ART of Healing, we practice working in community with one another to create the change and healing we wish to see in ourselves and our sister/friends…while taking action toward a more liberated and healed community.

Through the ART of Healing, we re-member ourselves whole and regain our clarity and our personal and collective power.

“The ART of Healing” is where my inner artist and my unmet needs met reluctantly on the dance floor. It’s where I did the difficult but beautiful dance of healing. It’s where I eventually felt free enough to “dance” like no one was watching.” -Program Participant

Offerings

The ART of Healing provides a transformative space for healing and growth through creative expression. With you, we co-create arts-infused and therapeutic healing processes to support women and girls, Grounded in arts-based therapies and the cultural wisdom of our ancestors, we facilitate embodied life-changing experiences that transform individual and cultural consciousness.

Offerings include interactive activities and tools like Playback Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, meditation, breathwork, sound healing, dance/movement, and other therapeutic activities from the fields of drama therapy, narrative therapy, poetry therapy, sand tray, and more.

Healing Circles

A safe and nurturing environment for women to share, connect, and heal together.

Workshops

Interactive sessions are designed to educate participants on various topics impacting women’s lives, such as racialized trauma, gender-based violence, grief, and more. Our workshops move beyond merely identifying the problems. We’ve curated tools to help you work toward the healing, growth, and empowerment you seek.

Playshops

Engaging and playful sessions that use the power of the arts to explore, share, and practice personal and collective healing.

Day Retreats

Immersive experiences offer the time needed for reflection, relaxation, and renewal. This can be an open or closed group.

Group and Individual Coaching Sessions

Personalized support to navigate your healing journey and goals.

Training for Multiplying Healing

For those who wish to create cultures of care throughout their communities.

Who is The ART of Healing for?

Our programs are ongoing and open to all women, femmes and gender-expansive people.

We also prioritize curating spaces for women, and femmes who have historically been marginalized. These programs are specially designed for:

BIPOC Women
Women who are differently abled
Womxn who do not “fit” inside the historical gender “box”
Women who have historically been marginalized and ready to engage in spaces where they are welcomed to take their rightful place…the center
Women who have experienced gender-based / interpersonal violence
Women who have experienced child abuse and maltreatment
Women who have /are experiencing grief (collective, disenfranchised, other)
Women who understand the power of healing in the community, and are willing to engage in ways that are trauma-informed and trauma-responsive.

Each circle, workshop, playshop, and retreat is curated and held with intentionality, offering a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive approach. We create spaces that honor the diverse and multiple identities of our participants, promoting inclusivity and healing. Call us to see which program offering is likely to best fit your needs.

ACT UP and the ART of Healing understand that creating safe(r)/brave spaces to explore shared experiences plays a crucial role in the healing process, especially when it comes to culturally and gender-based trauma. To determine if a specific group is the right fit for you, we recommend reviewing the program description and contacting us for more information.

Screen Shot 2020-06-02 at 11.54.45 AM.png

Why Utilize Expressive Arts Techniques?

The ART of Healing integrates various forms of creative/expressive arts because they:

Create Expansiveness

While the Art of Healing is NOT therapy, our program provides a holistic and therapeutic experience that benefits those who may not have access to or resonate with traditional psychotherapy.

Engage Our Whole Being

Healing requires connecting emotions, ideas, and actions. Through creative arts like visual arts, drama, movement, writing, and music, we engage both the right and left hemispheres of the brain for holistic healing.

Guide Us

The expressive arts guide us to our ancestral gifts and our authentic selves. When engaging in expressive arts, we are reminded of who we were before the pain, trauma, and unrealistic expectations were placed upon us and within us.

Work for us

We know that because trauma is held in our bodies, our bodies must be the place of curiosity, movement, the release of the trauma, and the practice of our embodied healing.

teach us

The creative/expressive arts provide safe opportunities for self-expression, helping participants create boundaries where none may have existed before and create containers that allow them to practice taking up space in the world.

Empower Us

Each participant has an opportunity to curate their creative process, allowing for deeper connection, empowerment, and personal meaning-making.

help us tell our story

Through the arts and mindfulness practices, our programs help participants explore and articulate their stories, gain insight, practice necessary changes, and create new empowering narratives for their lives.

We honor the uniqueness of each individual by offering a space that is trauma-informed and trauma-responsive.
We are aware of and feel honored to create spaces for those impacted by trauma. We co-create healing practices and norms that meet participants where they are, encouraging growth at a pace that feels brave/safe(r) for them. Every activity is curated to facilitate a gentle, supportive, and generative environment for healing.