Actress, playwright, and storyteller Anu Yadav brings forth the power of storytelling to illuminate the truth that: together, through listening, we have the ability to address the pressing problems we face. With roots in the theater scene, Yadav draws on theater-based exercises to engage people into conversations that build community, connection, and trust. I spoke with Yadav over the phone for a brief conversation into her artistic philosophy and her upcoming workshop at the LAX Festival 21.
Yadav is highly invested in the idea of consciously using art to facilitate change in our society. She is at the intersection of organizing, movement building, and leadership development of the working class across all color lines. A title that sheds more clarity to her work, is cultural-worker, or a “catalyst, guide, mirror and facilitator of social change, seeking implicit and explicit solutions to collective and individual problems.” She redefines what it means to be an artist or creative.
“We are all genius, we are all artists, we are all brilliant. We get to show up and claim creativity fully as our birthright, and we don’t really live in a system that does that.”
That statement forms the underbelly of some of the projects she is undertaking now. Yadav often works with grassroots organizations and campaigns, addressing social justice issues such as poverty, housing, mental health, healthcare, indigenous rights and other interrelated struggles.
“It’s a really important means for people to connect and share their stories and struggles… not in a way that’s like a handout, but a way to identify the brilliance – collective intelligence – of working together. I feel like it is community building at its core and from there you’re able to identify that these problems were facing are not individual problems.”
In her workshop, Healing Through Story, Yadav will guide participants through theatrical practices that open a space for conversation, listening, and empathy. Using the frame of a story circle, Yadav hopes to blend the hearts and minds of participants to build an unexpected connection.
“It’s through our connection with each other, it’s through getting to show and trust our own minds that we can have the solutions to the pressing problems we face – and only by breaking up the places where we feel alone or isolated. It leads to this idea of the collective brain.”
Anu Yadav will be hosting Healing Through Story at the Live Arts Exchange (LAX) Festival presented by the Los Angeles Performance Practice on Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021. Tickets and more information are available here.
Elaine Nguyen is a recent graduate of USC with a focus in public relations and marketing. She is currently the 2021 Development Intern at Los Angeles Performance Practice.
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