Playing for Liberation: Practices to Warm Up & Root Down as We Work Toward Collective Liberation

 A morning of playful tending designed to sustain us as we move through the current moment together.

There is a vitalizing joy many of us experience in the work of liberation. It arises from both our efforts and what comes of them; and we feel it alongside our doubts, frustrations and fatigue. Play regenerates us.

We can tap into this joy and sustain ourselves through our efforts by showing up available to what emerges—in a meeting, at a protest, in a conversation, while facilitating. In all these moments, play helps us warm up. We loosen, open new channels of perception, root into our bodies, access spontaneity and hidden stores of creativity.

In this workshop, Leticia and Martha share some of our favorite interactive activities and action methods that ground and prepare us for our pursuits, and for day-to-day life. Techniques may include sociometric explorations, psychodramatic enactment, equity-infused games, or sensory-based engagements. We'll move from one to another, with just enough (but not too much) context-setting and description. Expect to play all morning and leave inspired to bring these practices into your own circles.

Anyone who is interested in deep, vibrant engagement in the work of liberation will find benefit in this workshop. All are welcome. Educators, facilitators, movement leaders, concerned citizens: all of us choosing to respond deserve aliveness in our work. 

Community pricing

• This work is best done in community; we encourage you to bring yours. The workshop fee is $200 and includes you bringing as many people as you want. Once you register, you'll receive a guest code to share with your pod. You all settle the fee among yourselves. 
• Paying registrants coming by themselves (no invitations to friends) may request a full refund (minus fees) up to 24hrs prior to the workshop. Cancellations among people in your pod (including the person who initially registered & paid) are something you'd work out between yourselves.

Workshop logistics

• The interactive nature of this workshop and the particular virtual tools we use requires each participant to be on their own laptop or desktop computer, and not be on a phone or tablet.

About the facilitators

Dr. Leticia Nieto is internationally recognized for her expertise addressing social justice concerns from a developmental ecological perspective including orienting to systemic transformation, survivance, song and poetry, relational repair, joy, radical rest, intersectional coalition, and reparative and restorative justice. Born in Puebla, Mexico, Leticia came to the US in 1978 and began working in social justice action with people who experienced incarceration, addiction, and displacement. She holds degrees in theater, human development, and clinical psychology. For 33 years, Leticia worked as a professor with Masters and Doctoral students with an intersectional model she developed to train counselors and leaders in anti-oppression theory and reflective practice incorporating gender justice, indigenous self-determination, children and elder rights, and queer justice. She now works primarily with anti-oppression trainers and leaders along with maintaining a counseling practice.

Martha Hurwitz is an equity and oppression awareness coach, consultant, and facilitator. A longtime educator, Martha applies a distinctly non-pedantic approach to the tender work of understanding how systems of oppression function societally, and live within each of us individually. Martha has pursued an interest in power, liberation, and society for decades, both formally and experientially. She has a master's in democracy and education Harvard Graduate School of Education. Over a wide-ranging career, she has co-founded a profoundly democratic non-ageist school, coached self-employed folks, directed qigong programming, and instructed mountaineering courses. She is the granddaughter of immigrants from Eastern Europe fleeing anti-Semitism who arrived in the U.S. just as Jews became seen as white. Reconciling her family’s transition away from Judaism into white-identity is a recent focus of Martha’s self-reflection and study.

Background painting by Leticia.