Angela Kariotis is a sought-after thought leader on a variety of urgent themes. Here you’ll find recent community engagement projects, scholarship, and creative presentations.

I am proud to be a featured artist/educator/practitioner in The Wounded Healers Series, a healing-centered education project, produced by the Acosta Institute. The Wounded Healers Portrait Series & Podcast– is an emergent multimedia storytelling project that brings us inside the lives of nine educators, community leaders and practitioners who are transforming how they relate to their own wounds, and in doing so finding new pathways to create spaces for themselves and their communities to thrive, flourish and heal. The term Wounded Healer has its roots in psychology and Greek mythology and suggests that it is through our own wounds that we grow in our capacity to heal and nurture others. Important Links Acosta Institute Podcast, Sign Up, View Portraits. October 2022.

Walking the Beat is an arts and justice program. The program is supported by a $380K grant from the NJ Attorney General's Office as a Community Based Violence Intervention Program. This year the project is centering violence as a public health crisis, not just a criminal justice issue. We are creating virtual reality modules, theater and performance, and a community-based oral history project. All of our work centers Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands: Radicalized Trauma and the Pathway to Meaning Our Heart and Body. May 2022-December 2022.

I collaborated with students across the Seton Hall University campus, faculty, staff and the University Library Archives to create an oral history project documenting the community COVID 19 experience. Together Again was crafted as a trauma-informed community engagement digital project. I developed the framework, questions, and recruited students to participate. Here read about the program development in a journal published by the Association of College and Research Libraries. Listen to stories in the eRepository. Consider how you might invite listening circles into your own community. March 2020.

“Survival of the Illest” written and directed by Angela Kariotis. Produced by World Theater Labs, Marshall Jones III and Ricardo Khan of Crossroads Theater. Starring Claudia Alick, Sandra Toll, Dino Foxx, Theo Perkins, beatbox by D-Cross. This is crisis communication at the onset of the pandemic pivot. May 2020. (Zoom)

As a featured guest on communication expert Ayesha Gallion’s podcast, “I Am Speaking Now,” we talk about the complexities of "staying in one's lane." Gallion asks, when is the right time to dare yourself to enter spaces and conversations to which you were not invited? Why should you be content with the perimeters that surround you? We talk about everything from that Lil' Mama faux pas and fiasco to how to firmly let someone know that they are out of bounds as well as how WE should navigate spaces of tradition and unspoken protocol. May 2020.

Guest editors Mari Ramler and Dan Frank curate a special issue. A piece I authored, “Hip Hop Education Built Me for These Times,” is featured in the Multimodality section. This article features trauma-informed education practices in the onset of the pandemic pivot in my higher ed classroom. July 2020.

Poetic People Power’s, Can You Hear Me Now? This spoken word show celebrates the 100th anniversary of the women's right to vote. Here are excerpts from the 50-minute show. Cast poets are Tara Bracco, Shetal Shah, Shanelle Gabriel, Angela Kariotis, Karla Jackson-Brewer, and Suzen Baraka. August 2020. (Zoom)

“Connected Conversations: Evolution vs Revolution”, the role of the artist in social change. Participants are: Barbara Heisler (CEO Glass Roots), Anthony Smith (Music and Event Producer), Bobby Brown (Attorney and former Professional Football player), and Angela Kariotis (Seton Hall Professor and performance artist/leader). Produced by Steve Schnall for South NEXT. October 2020. (Zoom)

“Judith Buckman may not call herself a poet, but she is poetic AND prophetic” says artist Angela Kariotis. Kariotis, a commissioned playwright for this project, crafted this particular oral history response as a spoken word poem and a nod to protest poetry, to poets as public figures, and as a dedication to the role poets play in instigating social change. Oral history interview conducted by Shree Mehrotra. coLAB Arts in collaboration with National Organization for Women NJ Chapter. A New Jersey Historical Commission project, November 2020.

Teaching artist Angela Kariotis leads CoLAB Arts students through a digital poetry workshop. CoLAB Arts is an art education and advocacy organization whose work is rooted in social justice and serving its surrounding communities.

Watch this outstanding panel discussion offering practical tools in "Communication Strategies for Post-Election Conflict". JUMP TO 32:20 to hear functional tools for virtual classrooms integrating social emotional learning and trauma informed pedagogy in crisis communication. How do we come to terms with each other in difficult conversations? I take the term “civility” to task. November 2020.

I have a chapter published in “Musing the Margins,” an anthology edited by Audrey T. Carroll and released by Human/Kind Press November 2020. Who determines the rules of craft? How are these rules exclusionary and reflective of a dominant lens? 'Musing the Margins' examines the influence of culture and identity on the craft of fiction. These essays delve into race, ethnicity, class, queerness, neurodivergence, disability, and chronic illness. The anthology challenges fiction writers to read and teach beyond familiar views, approaches, and voices. What questions should writers be asking themselves? How do writers acknowledge their privilege in their work? How can writers do their due diligence in order to create the least possible harm with their art? How do marginalized identity and craft interact, complicate one another, and create new possibilities for the future of fiction? “In Putting the Story on the Body, Angela Kariotis describes the ways in which she uses Playback Theatre and improvisation to nurture her students' storytelling capabilities.” For the eBook or hardcopy, visit here.

Communication Professor Angela Kariotis Kotsonis challenged students and the community to think about ethnic stereotypes and representation in the mainstream media. Hosted by the Unanue Latino Institute. November 2020.

I directed a memory project with constituents across the Seton Hall University campus. This recitation is in commemoration of Monsignor Thomas Fahy’s presidential inaugural address from 1970, as relevant today as it was then. The point is to create a memory imprint and stand firm in a social justice lineage. The text has since been integrated as an essential text in the required university course Journey of Transformations. For context, read my guest blog post for University Libraries on the historical urgency. December 2020.

Trained as a Narrative 4 facilitator, I lead two Narrative 4 Story Exchanges for faculty and students from Seton Hall University representing colleges across campus. This was an empathy building experience. Our stories centered identity. The Story Exchange scaffolded a two day anti-racist pedagogy workshop for the faculty participants. A reflective praxis encourages educators to constantly self-critique and question ways of teaching. Rather than being powerful gatekeepers to learning, critical pedagogy views classroom teachers as facilitators: authentic partners in a collaborative learning environment. Faculty wrote personal mission statements and considered a multicultural framework for learning. Grant funded by the Lilly Foundation/January 2021.

Justice Arts Coalition is a national network and resource for those creating art in and around the criminal legal system. In June 2021, they hosted their annual national convening. Art for a New Future brings together artists impacted by criminal legal systems, teaching artists, arts advocates, activists, and allies to build community around our shared commitment to reimagining justice through the arts. Through interactive and embodied art experiences, skill-sharing, and conversation, participants will learn, create, and connect to harness the liberatory power of art. My presentation title was, Using a Design Thinking Framework to Ideate Alternatives to Policing. Read a conference spotlight on Walking the Beat and my discussion on art and abolition here.

I first presented at the American Alliance for Theatre & Education in 2019 as part of the New Guard Panel. In 2021, I was invited to return and this time presented for the playwright cohort, Art is Essential: writing as an emergency first responder. I shared the panel stage with my Walking the Beat creative cohorts— director of performances: Theo Perkins, drama therapist: Adam Stevens, and student participant: Ariana Montoya. We described our creative process, the curriculum, and our community partnerships within the cities we serve.

My performance poem, introDICTION, is a finalist in the 2021 Miller Audio Prize. The poetry contest is produced by The Missouri Review. Take a listen here or click the SoundCloud link below. And if you heed the hosts of the Miller Aud-Cast, you’ll listen several times!

ArtNOW artist-in-residence, Monmouth University. Practicing for the Future: Performance Technologies for Healing Centered Education. March 2022.

I am proud to have learned from and built with Dr. Angel Acosta in a cohort dedicated to Healing Centered Education and a shift toward a restorative paradigm. Join sessions and learn more The Acosta Institute. July to October 2022.