The #NADTA2020 Conference Team is excited to announce our October Keynote Series! We have invited three highly respected experts in the areas of Technology/Gaming/Geek Culture, Creative Arts Therapy with Drumming, and Playback Theatre to look into the future possibilities for drama therapy in collaboration with other disciplines. Each Keynote Speaker will also be facilitating a workshop session during the November conference so that you can learn, engage, and experience their work first-hand.

The Keynote Series is included in the price of the conference. So make sure you sign up now to be a part this engaging October kickoff to the #NADTA2020 Conference!

Josué Cardona I Geek Therapy 
October 3, 2020, 11am PST / 1pm CST / 2pm EST

“Welcome to the Future”
The world has changed, quickly and in unexpected ways. 2020 looks more dystopian than many of our science fiction stories led us to believe, so our work is more important than ever. Thankfully, our field has an abundance of colleagues we can learn from, and tools that can help us adapt to those changes in new and meaningful ways. Josué Cardona kicks off this year’s conference by welcoming drama therapists to the future, looking at futuristic stories and technology that can help us understand and embrace this new reality.


Hannah Fox, M.A., APTT, RYT I Applied Performance Trainer & Educator
Co-Presenter:
Mizuho Kanazawa, LCAT, MA-BCT/RDT, CCLS I Playback Theatre Practitioner

TOMORROW! October 10, 2020, 11am PST / 1pm CST / 2pm EST

  

“Embodiment, Frame, and Meaningful Connection through Personal Story in a Virtual World”
Suddenly, last spring, the world was thrown into a historic and unprecedented health crisis. With no warning, therapists, performers, educators, and group facilitators had to vacate their classrooms, offices, studios, and theatre spaces and login to a strange new virtual world. In this talk, Playback Theatre trainer and practitioner, Hannah Fox, will recount her journey moving her work online—first rejecting and resisting the trend to adapt the applied and embodied arts to a virtual platform, but eventually not only embracing this new forum, but actually feeling inspired and energized by meeting and creating in this new way in cyberspace.


Ping Ho, MA, MPH I UCLArts and Healing
October 17, 2020, 11am PST / 1pm CST / 2pm EST

“Beating the Odds: "Aha!" Moments from the Evolution of an Evidence-Based Program”
What works? What does the public want? How do you explain the value of what you do? What is the role of data in getting buy-in? How do we achieve sustainability, and why is it important for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)? In her keynote address, UCLArts & Healing Founder and Director, Ping Ho, will share insights based on her experience developing the successful, evidence-based program, Beat the Odds: Social and Emotional Skill Building Delivered in a Framework of Drumming. She will make the case for the power of collaboration, needs assessment, and evaluation in developing quality programming that opens doors for everyone. She will also address the current, unique window of opportunity to lay the groundwork for DEI, explain why she thinks the arts will be the next major healing practice to be adopted by the public, and suggest the unique role of creative arts therapists in the process. The audience will also have the opportunity to engage in experiential music making