trainings
trainings
I offer trainings and workshops in constructive conflict engagement and in the creation of participatory public events. My approach draws on my experience as both a conflict specialist and an artist. Whether in single-day or year-long trainings, I provide practical, experiential tools that help people and organizations develop a skilled approach and flexible mindset for engaging in difficult conflict situations of all kinds. Be in touch for more information and to register.
upcoming trainings:
• the practice of constructive conflict
• the practice of constructive conflict II
• a year of conflict thinking
• choreographic design in the creation of participatory events
the practice of
constructive conflict
Part I- Online
This hands-on course offers practical methods to strengthen the skills and mindset for communicating effectively and engaging productively with conflict in all areas of your life. The course takes place through 8 sessions of 2.5 hours each, with small cohorts of 8-10 people.
· Extensive practice in recognizing and working with the elements of conflict and communicating in challenging circumstances.
· Weekly readings and assignments
· Working with your own experiences as material
· A supportive and challenging community of practice
If your organization would like to set up a course, or you are an individual who would like to join an upcoming course, please be in touch. Open to all.
THE NEXT COURSE BEGINS FALL, 2024.
the practice of
constructive conflict
Part II – Online
A next-step training, deepening your practice of seeing conflict as an opportunity for constructive change. Strengthen your capacity to step into challenging conversations and conflicts with sturdy curiosity and adaptive skill. Increase your ability to listen and express yourself effectively and accurately analyze the situation in conflict in order to take constructive action. The course takes place through 6 sessions of 2.5 hours each, with small cohorts of 8-10 people. Please be in touch with questions and to register.
Prerequisite: previous conflict skill-building course with Dana.
THE NEXT COURSE BEGINS JANUARY, 2025.
A Year of Conflict Thinking
– Online
In this year-long training, you work with Dana and your cohort through dialogue, readings, and hands-on practice, focusing on your internal and external practice of conflict engagement. The course includes monthly full group and small group meetings, as well as private coaching sessions with Dana. Join this course to build community, sustained practice, and deepened skill in navigating challenging situations. Please be in touch with questions and to register.
Prerequisite: previous conflict skill-building course with Dana.
THE NEXT COURSE BEGINS JANUARY, 2025.
Choreographic Design in Participatory Events
– Online
This hands-on course integrates practices from the fields of conflict engagement and choreography in the creation of participatory events ranging from public dialogues to organizational design to social action and beyond, according to your interests. The course takes place through 12 sessions of 2.5 hours. If your organization would like to set up a course, or you are an individual who would like to join an upcoming course, please be in touch.
workshops
workshops
Conflict Engagement Skill-building– online or in person
These workshops offer a condensed deep dive into conflict engagement practices for groups and organizations. The workshop can be tailored to the specific challenges and interests of your organization or group.
Workshop duration flexible, 1-5 days.
Choreographic Design in Participatory Events– in person
A hands-on workshop integrating practices from the fields of conflict engagement and choreography in the creation of participatory events and powerful communication tools.
Workshop duration flexible, 2-5 days.
custom workshops
Contact me to develop a workshop that offers a practical, actionable plan to achieve your group’s communication goals and strengthen your collective and individual ability to use conflict as an opportunity for constructive change.
coaching
coaching
Through individual coaching, I offer focused work tailored to your specific needs and interests around conflict and communication. I act as a confidential, skilled guide to help you think through, prepare for, and engage in conflict constructively. My goal is to help people strengthen their own ability to step into challenging conflict situations constructively, reduce stress, and build and support conflict cultures where people can thrive. Be in touch to set up a single session or multiple sessions, the duration and frequency is determined by you.
Strengthen your ability to:
- recognize unhelpful habits and patterns in conflict
- identify and practice alternative approaches and actions
- communicate and listen effectively in stressful situations
- create and support open and productive learning and work environments
- navigate conflicts constructively, whether at home, work, school, or in the community
consulting
consulting
I work with groups and organizations that are interested in examining and transforming their conflict culture. My focus is on supporting the development of people’s ability to navigate challenging conversations and conflicts with curiosity and skill, and in normalizing conflict as an inevitable and potentially useful element of our lives together. In this work, I invite an examination of conflict on both interpersonal and structural levels. This work is often helpful in coordination with coaching for individuals or training for groups.
Offerings include:
• analysis of the current conflict culture and its impact
• exploration of the characteristics of the desired conflict culture
• training to strengthen the organization’s capacity to build and support a productive conflict culture
• mediation for existing conflicts
• help dealing with the fallout of past conflict and moving forward constructively
Clients include:
Business organizations
Colleges and Universities
Arts organizations
Lawyer collaboratives
City design teams
Artist collectives
Public recreation entities
Museums
Dance companies and Academies
Youth organizations
Science institutes
Libraries
Activist groups
public speaking
public speaking
Drawing on my experience as a conflict specialist and my 40 years as a performing artist, my talks offer enlivening deep dives into a range of topics around issues of communication, conflict, and our capacity for change and constructive growth. I am available for either in-person or online talks and seminars.
The talks and seminars I offer are typically highly interactive, with participants engaging in both reflection and exchange. These events often act as strong sparks for future action and can be helpful as an introduction to further work together through consultation, coaching, or training. Be in touch to discuss possibilities.
![screenshot](https://www.danacaspersen.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screenshot-2024-04-06-at-2.53.35 pm-1024x497.jpg)
Selected Talks:
TEDx Hackney. London, England
“Conflict is a Place of Opportunity”
Lincoln Center’s Global Exchange Art X Conflict, NYC, US
“What Can Choreography Reveal About Conflict?”
California State University’s Professional Development program
“Changing the Conversation: Principles of Conflict Resolution”
Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, US
“Conflict Resolution for Scientists”
The Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council, US
“Conflict and Possibility in the Practice of Collaborative Law”
The German Dance Prize Symposium. Essen, Germany
Keynote Talk: “Conflict and Physical Thinking”
Annual Conference of the Association for Conflict Resolution: “New Voices”
“Choreography and Conflict”
Duke University, Durham, US
“The Use of Choreographic Thinking in the Creation of Participatory Events”
Service Corporation International Women’s Leadership Conference
Exploring tools to engage with the challenges and opportunities offered by conflicts arising in the field of end-of-life services.
University of Bern, Switzerland
“Conflict and Action”
dialogue design
dialogue design
Action dialogues are events where participants connect and exchange on difficult topics by using simple physical actions and language to communicate about ideas, positions, and beliefs. This work draws on my expertise in conflict analysis and my 40 years of experience with choreographic design to create environments that invite a greater ease and depth in connection, reflection, and exchange.
In an action dialogue there is no audience, only participants, and no dancing, performance, or physical skill is required. Instead, participants are invited into a highly structured framework that helps people communicate in an expanded manner. Through actions such as standing, sitting, gesturing, or walking–in connection with spoken dialogue– participants reflect and connect on issues that matter to them and to their communities. Explore the event models below or be in touch to create an event to meet your specific interests.
THE DIS/ AGREEMENT PROJECT
A practice of humanization through 47 snapshots of attention
In conflict, our attention is often primarily on the gestures of attack and defense. THE DIS/AGREEMENT PROJECT invites attention to a broader spectrum of human gesture, to expand our sense of what matters in times and places of conflict.
In the project, ten artists from around the world engaged in spoken and physical conversations with people with whom they agreed and disagreed. The gestures of the artists and their conversation partners– 47 people from 11 countries – were then transcribed into written and spoken language, creating choreographic distillations of experience to be again fleshed out into action by the minds of listeners and viewers.
Explore more.
With thanks to my partners on the project: Jumana Al Refai (Kuwait), Nour Barakeh (Syria/ Austria), Isaac Blake (UK Romani Gypsy), Mayra Hernandez (USA), Ani Javian (USA) , Jacquey Nyaminde (Kenya), Valerie Oliveiro (Singapore/ USA), Jakevis Thomason (USA), Mengfan Wang (China).
THE DIS/AGREEMENT PROJECT is supported by the Goethe Institutes of Boston and Chicago, the Rutgers University Dance Department of Mason Gross School of the Arts, and the National Performance Netz- Stepping Out, funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, as part of the Neustart Kultur Initiative [aid program DIS-TANZEN/ tanz:digital/ DIS-TANZ-START] of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland.
![screenshot](https://www.danacaspersen.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screenshot-2024-04-06-at-4.43.39 pm-1024x91.jpg)
THE POLARITY PARTY
An immersive, participative event on polarization
THE POLARITY PARTY invites participants to consider the questions:
What is polarization? What does it do in us? What do we do with it?
In this event, there is no performance and no spectators, instead simple actions such as walking, sitting, and talking become tools for reflection and interaction. The hosts / creators of the project are dance artists who guide participants as they move through a series of carefully crafted, action-based situations.
Developed in a collaboration between Dana Caspersen and the MichaelDouglas Kollektiv, the project invites participants to configure and re-configure in the space as they engage in conversations exploring their experiences of polarization and belonging.
The Polarity Party offers a situation where we can focus on the mechanism of polarization itself and our role in it.
UNDER | STAND
An action dialogue on racism
In Old English, one meaning of the word “understand” is “to stand among”– to engage in an action of connection.
UNDER | STAND is a public dialogue project where participants from diverse backgrounds engage in a collective “physical interview” process where the body emerges as a ground of connection and communication.
Using simple physical actions, such as walking, tapping, and gesturing, participants create a compelling physical map of their lived experience as individuals and community members. Moving through stations of conversation–physical and spoken– participants see, hear, and offer multiple perspectives simultaneously, allowing the complexities of social experience to find an appropriately rich strength of expression.
Partners include: New York University | Smith College, Amherst | the University of Southern California, Los Angeles | Roehampton University, London | The School of Contemporary Dance and Thought, Northhampton | Uferstudios, Berlin, Germany
The project was developed and is being shaped by the time, ideas and actions of many people and communities. Special thanks to Reshma Anwar, Robin Aren, Mikaela Brandon, Delaine Dobbs, Francesca Harper, Emily Hart, Tasha Hess-Neustadt, Sam Kaltenhaler and Maya Miller for their work on the development of UNDER | STAND. Thank you to New York University’s Center for Ballet and the Arts for their generous support of the project.
THE EXCHANGE
An interactive public event exploring violence
THE EXCHANGE invites participants into the question:
How do we as individuals affect the level of violence in the world through our thinking and actions?
Developed in collaboration with the MichalDouglas Kollektiv, The Exchange offers a physical framework from which to reflect and exchange on individual and global violence mechanisms. Participants are invited to consider what they believe about the use of violence, where they learned those beliefs, and how those beliefs focus their attention and actions in conflict.
In the current national and international atmosphere of heightened division across racial, religious, and ideological lines, violent interactions increasingly become a common, if unwanted, norm and a sense of hopelessness often arises. Through the actions of listening, speaking, and walking, The Exchange offers participants a way to consider the effect that we, as individuals, have on the systems of interaction that we take part in daily, and how positive change might take place.
Click here to explore this project further.
The project is supported by Culture Department of the City of Cologne, Germany, the Land Ministery NRW, the Kunststiftung NRW, the Center for Contemporary Dance, Cologne, the University for Music and Dance, Cologne, ZAIK, the Atelierhaus Quartier am Hafen and the Orangerie – Theater am Volksgarten.
KNOTUNKNOT
An interactive dialogue on immigration
Knotunknot is an interactive public event that uses simple physical motion as an instrument of communication, allowing participants from diverse communities to exchange on questions of belonging, nation, culture, and place.
In Knotunknot, participants begin by grouping and re-grouping in response to a series of questions as they are invited to take a literal, physical stance according to their own beliefs and experiences. This common action both illuminates the intricate patterns of community and renders the apparent borders between groups more permeable.
Following this action, the participants dive into a shared conversation on their experiences and beliefs. During these discussions, a real-time spatial translation of the conversations also takes place. In a process developed by Dana and Tomaso Carnetto, Director of the Academy of Visual Arts, Frankfurt, Germany, participants unknowingly leave traces of their physical gestures on the tables where they are seated during discussions, producing a graphic translation of their dialogue in marks of ink on paper. Revealed after the dialogues, these complex images become objects of contemplation as the participants walk through them, reflecting on the nature of their connection during the event.
VIOLENCE : RECODE
A choreographic public dialogue examining systems of structural violence
VIOLENCE : RECODE was created in collaboration with communities around the world and adapts to the local questions and circumstances of structural violence.
Using images, physical action, and sound, Violence: Recode illuminates a question posed by anthropologist Paul Farmer:
“By what mechanisms do social forces ranging from poverty to racism become embodied as individual experience?”
Participants are invited to engage with a series of simple physical postures that are placed in counterpoint to a changing series of descriptive picture titles. A group of musicians surround the participants and create a rhythmic framework that contains and drives the pace of the event.
Produced in partnership with Vermont State University.
THREE COUNTER-MOVEMENTS TO VIOLENCE
A choreographic public dialogue examining the impact of violence on youth
Created in collaboration with students from high schools in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, Three Counter-Movements to Violence is a choreographic dialogue on the impact of violence on youth. The event is based on the question the youth raised:
“Is there a difference between the physical punishment of children and violence?”
The project generated a platform where participants could engage with and without words–moving through the room on a path choreographed by their own ideas and beliefs. The group created an event where each participant, regardless of their movement agility, acts as an integral part of the exchange.
Created in collaboration with students from the Lyndon Educational Alternative Resources Network (LEARN), the East Burke School, and the Saint Johnsbury Academy in Vermont, with the help of Karen Holmes, Ingrid Mahler and Colleen Twomey.
Produced in partnership with Catamount Arts Center, Umbrella, and the Community Restorative Justice Center, Inc. in St. Johnsbury. With the kind support of the Vermont Community Foundation, Ben and Jerry’s, the Catamount Arts Center, the Vermont Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.