2023

How to let go to come together: A year long Community-Engaged Arts artist residency at RWUC – March 2022-March 2023.
We have all, every single one of us, been through an isolating event. In the last two years, divisions have deepened and we haven’t been able to connect in the ways we are used to. We have also seen our communities divided into camps given choices on government mandates, and there are many who yearn for the pre-pandemic life. So, how do we let go, to come together to build anew?

Brooke Leifso, Robertson-Wesley’s Justice Artistic Director, spent the year in a new format. Working as the church’s “artist in residence”, Brooke held interviews and small workshops during the first 6 months of the residency to explore concepts of letting go and coming together. During the second half of the residency, Brooke took the interview insights and small workshop discoveries to created a performance and website to share all we had gathered and learned together. The Spirited Arts Movement welcomed partner artists Beth Janzen and Charlie Peters to work alongside Justice Artistic Director Brooke Leifso for this programming. Beth focused on writing while Charlie focused on how the body can be a source of creativity.

Workshops with Beth

Winter Stories - January, 2023
What is your winter story? Do you slow down and rest more or are you energized by the cold temperatures and seasonal activities? How has your winter story changed over the past 2 years? In this workshop, we played with the comic strip format. No drawing skills are required. Stick figures and abstract scribbles might be all you need to tell your winter story.

Rhyme Valentine - February, 2023
This writing workshop celebrated rhyme with a playful approach. Whether in poems or songs, rhyming sounds create harmony and satisfaction. Is there someone or something in your life that needs a love song or poem? We explored creative ways to spark ideas and create writing to make your heart sing.

The Lion and the Lamb - March, 2023
Some people say if March’s weather comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb. This is just one way that animals inhabit our imaginations as powerful symbols. In this writing workshop, we took a look at our ideas about animals and play around with some poetic language and creative storytelling. We also honoured the powerful presence of animals in our daily lives.

Rainbow After Rain - April 5, 2023
The rainbow symbol is one of hope, inclusion, love, and friendship. After the storm when the sky is still full of moisture, the rainbow shines the strongest. In this workshop, we explored making rainbow poems: poems which give us hope when we need it and show us how far we’ve come.

Laughter Medicine - May 3, 2023
What kind of sense of humour do you have? Do you enjoy puns, dark humour, quirky jokes, or absurd situations? Or does physical humour make you giggle? In this writing workshop, we played with techniques to write short funny monologues and dialogues. Bringing our own unique sense of humour, we saw if we could make each other laugh.

Workshops with Charlie

Moving like the Animals - March 7, 2023
This acting workshop explored how we could use animals to inspire us in performance. Animal influences can change how we move, how we speak, how we feel. Our exploration of animals was focused on exploring our own states as we wake up out of our own hibernations. Are we like a bear? A bird? A rabbit? What can we learn from animals we are naturally like or unlike? Through moving like animals, we hoped to learn more about ourselves.

The Elements - April 4, 2023
For generations, different cultures have tried to understand the universe by breaking it down into its basic elements: often this means fire, earth, air, and water. This acting workshop explored how these elements (and others!) can help us in performance or daily life – or in other uses of our imagination.

Partner Artists Bios

Beth E. Janzen is a writer, poet, artist, and teacher. She holds an MA in English from UBC and a B.Ed. from Queen's in the innovative Artist in Community Education Program. She is a certified ESL teacher with many years of experience working with a wide range of people facilitating creative expression. Her website is www.bethejanzen.com.

Charlie Peters (ze/hir/hirs | he/him/his) is a theatre and opera director, actor, lighting designer, playwright, dramaturge, poet, and clown. Charlie holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Saskatchewan, an MFA in Theatre Practice at the University of Alberta, trained extensively at the Manitoulin Conservatory for Creation and Performance, and is currently pursuing an MA in Gender and Social Justice Studies (also at the University of Alberta). Hir artistic work has been seen on stages (and in parks, fields, school gyms, living rooms, and swimming pools) across Western Canada. www.charliepeters.ca

Workshops with Julie & Brooke

The Shapes Around Us - Oct 28, 2023
Facilitated by Julie Kaldenhoven and Brooke Leifso, What shapes, symbols and colours are you attracted to? Do they hold meaning for you? These elements are so hardwired into our psychologies and mythologies that we may overlook how deeply we are influenced by them on a personal level. Through simple visual art and writing exercises, we explored how our preferences for certain universal shapes, symbols and colours can help us understand ourselves and others on a deeper level.

Body Mapping - Nov 20, 2023
Brooke Leifso led a simple experience using basic art supplies to tell the stories of our physical bodies. We moved our bodies, drew and shared.

2022
The Spirited Arts Movement welcomed partner artists Beth Janzen and Charlie Peters to work alongside Justice Artistic Director Brooke Leifso for this year’s programming. Beth focused on writing while Charlie focused on how the body can be a source of creativity.
Theme: This year, we reflected upon the concept of “Normal” after the pandemic. In our wider media and governmental policies, we see the idea of returning to normal - but is this possible or even desired?
We hoped to create art together that reflected upon this idea - how to say goodbye, to grieve, and process together. Through the art-making events below, we wanted to say goodbye to the pre-pandemic world, to compost and transform, and to plant seeds to build a positive future together. Participants were given the option of contributing their creative work to the building of a larger, community art ritual undertaken in December; participants also had the option of keeping their creative work private.

Workshops with Beth

Word Gallery - October 5, 2022
In this workshop, we connected words and images to create a space to reflect together on where we've been and where we are, what we've lost, and the strange treasures we've found.

Postcards from Uncharted Lands - November 9, 2022
We played with the postcard format to make poems, stories, and other combinations of language to send messages about what it's like in this odd new world we find ourselves in.

Talking Hands - December 7, 2022
This workshop used simple hand gestures as our starting point to explore past and present together and to create written conversations, stories, poems, or other language pieces.

Workshops with Charlie

Looking Within - October 22, 2022
This workshop began with some games to get us moving, thinking, and feeling. After these games, we used words or short phrases of our choices (ideally ones that have personal meaning) to begin an imaginative exploration which gently invited the body to share its creative wisdom. This workshop involved gentle movement as well as a limited amount of writing and/or drawing.

Looking Around - November 26, 2022
Participants were asked to bring an object which either reminds them of a “normal” which has been left behind, or a new reality which is just emerging. After some games to get the creative juices flowing, we used these objects as the jumping off point for an imaginative exploration that had us seeing whole worlds within the objects and ourselves. We also looked to the world - natural as well as constructed - for inspiration for tough times. We moved, wrote, drew, and played our way outward.

It’s Time to Play! - May 28, 2022
A spring-time clowning and creativity workshop with guest artist Charlie Peters and Justice Artistic Director, Brooke Leifso
Open to everybody and EVERY BODY, Charlie and Brooke led an afternoon of clowning practices which invited us to play together. Creating a kid-like environment allowed us to connect to one another and to parts of ourselves we may not often meet.

2021

Circles of Support - Jan 23, Feb 20, March 20, 2021
Non-faith based support circle that used expressive art methods to process our thoughts and feelings around the current time. We started with a check in focused on how we were feeling and our thoughts, followed by a time of being creative together and then discovered what we needed to create hope to continue on to the next circle. We all lived through the same pandemic--"all the time same storm but with different boats".

2020

Seeds of Change - September - November 2020
Justice Artistic Director, Brooke Leifso, created hour long videos covering the basics of some concepts: conflict theories, ways of knowing, intersectionality/anti-oppression, bias and expectations, and call out culture. What makes change happen? What changes are happening now? What seeds are being planted for possible new futures?

Robertson-Wesley United Church presented Seeds of Change through the Spirited Arts Movement. Seeds of Change programming aimed to aid in making sense of our current world and exploring possibilities of future growth through these turbulent times. To adapt to COVID, sessions were facilitated entirely online. There were 3 types of sessions, an online interactive primer that was a lecture overview of the topic, an arts-based session using story, simple art supplies and other artistic mediums to explore the topic. Lastly, a zoom follow up conversation where we talked about the topic.

A balm to Burn Out: move it out! - January 11, 2020
Are you feeling burnt out? Do you feel drained from advocating for justice in our world? We used a variety of art forms to explore the topic of “Burn Out” and seek new possibilities for creating sustainable movements that use our resources wisely and in a manner that promotes a healthy balance in being agents of transformation in our world.

A Forum Theatre Workshop - February 22, 2020
Forum Theatre was developed by Augusto Boal in Brazil to work through the systemic struggles of the working class in Brazil. We worked towards a workshop participant Forum Theatre improvisational production, allowing each other to have the full experience of acting out a complex scenario from participants real life experiences. We then stoped/started the experience to enact out possibilities of systemic change.

A Rainbow of Desire Workshop - March 21, 2020 - Cancelled by COVID
Rainbow of Desire is a theatre technique that creates scenes from our internal struggles as we move through the complicated world. Workshop participants would have used this theatre tool to play and explore individual and communal ways forward! While Forum Theatre looks at systemic interplays that negatively affect us, Rainbow of Desire slows down specific times in our lives and has participants play out the various possible motivations for actions within ourselves and others.

2019
Roots of Allyship
Justice Artistic Director Brooke Leifso led a series of workshops that addressed our current polarized world. She aimed to create artistic contemplative opportunities that allowed community building and increased our ability to respond and act with compassion in the midst of decisive values in our lives and in the world. All workshops intended to increase our collective ability to move forward building a community of support in our passion for justice and peace.

The Why before The What: an open art studio exploration - October 26, 2019
Life can give us skills but there is no handbook for compassion, nor one that gives you confidence or a path for moving forward and acting with care for one another. Together we explored the questions: Why do we wish to create change in the world? What does change look like? In this workshop we worked together to create an artful response while building community to support and encourage each other in responding in this world.

#After Me Too Circle Talks: Continuing the conversation with all genders 2019
In the fall, in collaboration with the Alberta Council for Women's Shelters we started circles with men to talk about "Me Too", consent and being a man in todays world. We decided to continue the circle and continue the conversation in a facilitated space for all genders to process #metoo and help each other understand what had happened on a personal and structural level, what our past personal actions had been and how we can move beyond personal stories into societal action.

After #metoo – Creative Space for Change for Men
In the fall of 2017, Social Media platforms blew up with women posting one thing: #metoo. In mass numbers women were declaring that they had experienced sexual assault at some point in their life without confessing details. Since that time, many men have been outed in communities as perpetrators or are stepping up as allies but what about the confusing in between? Men are reflecting upon their own behavior and large concepts such as Rape Culture and consent.

The "After Me Too" circles was a facilitated space for men to process #metoo and help each other understand what has happened, how this changed and impacted our daily lives and actions, what our past personal actions have been and how we can move beyond personal stories into societal action.

Supported by Robertson-Wesley United Church's Spirited Arts Movement and the Alberta Council for Women Shelters Leading Change program and co-facilitated by Tuval Dinner Nafshi, the participants in the circle were invited to use art-making to create safety and unpack the complexities of gender dynamics in modern society. Participants worked together to shape the groups direction. The workshops were part of key facilitator, Brooke Leifso's master's research in Expressive Art - Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding.