Services
As equity consultants, we engage with a wide range of organizations and communities, striving to make belonging a universal norm. Organizations are living entities just like we all are - they hold stories, memories, collective joy and trauma. Sometimes, in the aftermath of an impactful experience - from completing a fellowship, living through a racially charged incident, or tensions about global conflict, groups need a structured approach to unpack the harm. The Playback experience is a powerful way for a community or collective to find the words to explain their perspective to one another, and receive coaching to find a way forward together. The Belonging Resident Company offers an empathy-driven approach to catalyze teams to step into authenticity, spirit, and vulnerability, while centering the needs of those most likely to experience exhaustion, re-traumatization, or demands on their emotional labor.
We use a form called Playback Theater, which based in a long lineage of applied theater forms that uplift community, healing, and empathy. Listening to one another’s life experiences lights up our brains with endorphins that create pleasure, build trust, and help us find the radical acceptance that is necessary for depthful transformation. We believe that playback theater can help fertilize the soil so that we can grow more equitable, inclusive organizations.
Celebrate a Milestone
From a beloved member of your team retiring to a holiday party to a networking event, finding authentic ways to lift up and celebrate contributions and successes that naturally highlight your organization, team and culture is a feel-good use of Playback Theater.
Inviting Diverse, Divergent Experiences
To make space for diversity we need to invite divergent perspectives. Whether it’s our beliefs about Gaza/ Palestine, Police/ Community-based alternatives, Equity/Equality in DEI initiatives, playback theater can help group members share their own perspectives, listen across difference, and practice bridging towards collective solutions. No one benefits when we find affinity groups that reflect our own thinking. Dismantle segregated identities and perspectives in your org through embodied story-telling and artistic perspective taking.
Repairing & Restoring After Harm
Our team includes practitioners who are grounded in the work of restorative justice and generative conflict, approaches that can be especially powerful when used in combination with playback theater. Lingering wounds from organizational conflicts, high stakes transitions, or stressful events can increase stress and damage relationships within a team. Most of us spend more time with our colleagues than our families - we need strong team relationships to stay resilient in our purpose-driven work. We are able to offer our creative approach in addition to the tools and practices of restorative and transformative process. Playback Theater can deepen these processes, helping participants share how they were impacted from specific events, and empower teams to hold space for their colleagues' humanity, rather than focusing on one’s intent, or justifications and rationalizations for the harm. As participants become more embodied, seeking restorative win-win solutions becomes more possible.
See our Next Show!
We are thrilled to invite you to a unique and transformative experience with the Belonging Residence Playback Theater Company! Our first-of-its-kind ensemble, featuring talented BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ performers, is dedicated to using art and empathy to dismantle systems of oppression.
Get ready to be moved and inspired as our actors, musicians, and expert facilitators take the stage, blending playback theater, improvisation, and DEI frameworks to foster listening, resistance, and change. Our performances are known for being healing, restorative, and activating for diverse audiences of freedom fighters like you!
Each month, we open up our rehearsal space to the community, and we'd love for you to join us with your loved ones or bring your team for a free community-healing event.
Join our People’s Playback Class
If you want to learn the skills and technique of playback, join our 6-part skill building course: People's Playback. Participants in the six-week Playback Theatre Workshop will learn the fundamentals of Playback Theater, including its history, principles, and various forms such as fluid sculptures, pairs, and tableau. They will develop intuitive and empathetic listening and responding skills, explore different Playback forms using word, sound, and gesture, and deepen their practice through intensive sessions and role-playing scenarios. Additionally, participants will train in conducting Playback sessions and fostering collective care, culminating in an open rehearsal showcase where they can present their skills and optionally audition for the Playback Company.
Alternating Wednesdays
6:30-8:30
9/4, 9/18, 10/2, 10/16, 10/30, 11/6
BIPOC/Queer Identified Folks: $250
Non-BIPOC, Non-Queer Folks: $300
Scholarships Available :-)
This Standard 90-Minute Package Includes:
Facilitated Community Building
Small group story telling
Collective story-telling amplified by playback forms
A somatic, embodied closing
This Standard Package Includes:
Skill building techniques to amplify listening and story-telling
Courageous story telling amplified by playback forms
Collective dreaming for solutions
A somatic, embodied closing
This Package Includes:
Pre-Interviews with impacted participants
A facilitated talk-back reflecting the Themes & Dreams heard in interviews
Playback forms to bring to life different perspectives, needs, and feelings in the team
Facilitated process to identify collective needs and values to practice
Theater techniques to practice new ways of being together, after harm.
Embodied closing
This Standard 60-Minute Show Includes:
Facilitated Community Building
Collective story-telling amplified by playback forms
A somatic, embodied closing
Q&A Space for anyone interested in learning more
Each 2-Hour Class Includes:
Facilitated Community Building
Physical and Vocal Warm Ups
Theoretical Frameworks to integrate Somatics, Storytelling, Bridging/Breaking, and Healing
Applied Practice
Performance Rituals