A Radical Moment of Wellness: Reclaiming Balance Through Art and Community

Breakout Option 4
Day One: November 13, 2024 | 1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m., Industry

Session Description

This breakout session offers a “radical moment of wellness” for participants engaged in the challenging work of advancing inclusive excellence. Led by Professor Chris Walker, this session draws on diverse expertise from across the arts, inviting contributions from colleagues in other disciplines to center on sharing while making. This approach shifts the focus from intellectual and outcome-driven efforts to a creative, embodied, and collaborative experience. The act of creating together in a low-stakes, supportive environment can be both nourishing and empowering, offering a radical departure from the demands of challenging conversations, policy changes, and systemic advocacy. 

This session embodies the Diversity Forum theme, Threads of Belonging, by using collaborative art experiences to foster belonging, build community through shared vulnerability, and embrace wellness as an act of resistance. 

Session Objectives

Engage in artistic practices as tools to aid reflection, connection, and mindful recharge 
Experience the benefits of collaborative art making and sharing
Develop practices to support ongoing work building community and inclusivity efforts

Speakers

Chris Walker

Chris Walker is Special Advisor to the Provost on the Arts. A professor in the Dance Department, Walker served most recently as the Director of the Division of the Arts. He is the founding artistic director of the First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Program at UW–Madison and a multi-hyphenate contemporary dance and movement artist from Jamaica. Professor Walker’s creative research engages the movement technologies at the core of traditional and urban ritual practices across the African diaspora. His research intersects contemporary dance choreography for the concert stage, movement as dramaturgy for theatre, as well as devised movement collaborations with visual and performance artists for museums, alternate spaces, and video/film.