Theatre of Witness Founder Teya Sepinuck to Speak at Chestnut Hill College

Feb. 24, 2011 - PRLog -- PHILADELPHIA, PA – Teya Sepinuck, founder and artistic director of Theatre of Witness will give a video presentation, “Theatre of Witness: Humanizing the Other Through Story and Testimony” at Chestnut Hill College on Tuesday, March 22, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the East Parlor, St. Joseph Hall. The event is sponsored by the College’s Institute for Forgiveness and Reconciliation.

   Teya Sepinuck founded Theatre of Witness in 1986 as a way to give a voice to people in society who struggle to be heard. Since then, she has created and produced Theatre of Witness projects with prisoners and their families, survivors and perpetrators of abuse, refugees, immigrants, elders, and those who have endured violence and war in the United States and Poland. Productions are performed in spoken word, song, music, and imagery by those who have experienced violence, survival, and healing, and are performed in prisons, theatres, schools, community centers and conferences to create a safe place for audiences to explore issues of common ground and social justice.

Recently, Sepinuck spent the last two years in Northern Ireland working on a Theatre of Witness production with those affected by the area’s violence after her work was discovered by Pauline Ross, a director at The Playhouse theatre located in Derry, Northern Ireland. Sepinuck, who has a B.A. in dance and an M.S. in community counseling, has taught dance at Swarthmore College for over fifteen years. Sepinuck founded TOVA Artistic Projects for Social Change in Philadelphia, where she has created over 40 original theatre and video works. She is also a recipient of the Philadelphia Human Rights Award for Arts and Culture from the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, the Local Hero Award from Bank of America, and the Cultural Arts Award from Women’s Way and the Mayor’s Commission on Women.

The presentation is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Catherine Nerney, SSJ, Ph.D. at 215.248.7099 or e-mail nerneyc@chc.edu.

About the Institute for Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Chestnut Hill College’s Institute for Forgiveness and Reconciliation is designed to be a learning laboratory for research and scholarship where forgiveness and reconciliation will be explored as alternatives to violence and conflict in our culture.
For more information about the Institute for Forgiveness and Reconciliation at Chestnut Hill College, please visit www.chc.edu/forgive


About Chestnut Hill College
Chestnut Hill College, a four-year coed Catholic college in the Ignatian tradition, offers a traditional liberal arts undergraduate program as well as accelerated undergraduate degrees, master’s and doctoral programs. The College has been rated by US News & World Report as among the best master’s universities in the North, as among the best Northeastern colleges by The Princeton Review, and has been classified as selective by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Since its inception, the College has offered a rigorous curriculum that provides students with a broad background in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The goal of Chestnut Hill College has been to prepare students for life’s challenges by helping them to grow intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and socially.

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Chestnut Hill College, a four-year coed Catholic college in the Ignatian tradition, offers a traditional liberal arts undergraduate program as well as accelerated undergraduate degrees, master’s and doctoral programs.