Bio
Lindsay Hopkins is a performer, facilitator and healing practitioner. She is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on improvisational dance, physical theatre and curating events with opportunities for active participation in somatic practices and community building. She draws on her experiences and training with: improvisational dance and movement, nonviolent communication, social mapping, Theater of the Oppressed, and Playback Theatre to bring embodiment, creativity, intuition and sensory awareness into her workshops, events and performance works. She is trained in energy healing, breathwork, bodywork and Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy approaches. She has a private healing practice, Sutra Body + Soul, working with individuals and groups in coming home to their body and activating creative capacity through healing.
Lindsay has worked as a Teaching Artist in Chicago with Silk Road Rising, Victory Gardens, Center for Community Arts Partnerships (Columbia College), the Howard Area Community Center, Youth Organizations Umbrella Inc. and the Shanti Foundation for Peace. She’s facilitated workshops with Smith College, North Park University, AADK (Spain), Le Plongeoir (France), Casa de Paz (Oakland, CA), and the Weave Artists Residency (Belgium). Most recently she attended the SASSO Artist Residency in Switzereland with performances in Lucerne, Zurich and Locarno. She’s also created works at Chicago Moving Company, Links Hall, Chicago Opera Vanguard, RhinoFest, About Face Theatre and Dream Theatre. As a developer of Interdisciplinary events she’s worked with At The Table Collective (founder), Dramatis Personae (Artistic Director), Chicago Home Theatre Festival and Chicago Dream House.
**See her CV included below.
Contact her for workshops and events at: hopkins.e.lindsay@gmail.com
Artist Statement
Lindsay's art practice incorporates socially engaged art and movement-based performance practices as platforms for interdisciplinary research. Through her work she explores possibilities for alchemy, the process of shifting energy and changing states. She's interested in the exchange between the inner and the outer, in order to bring unconscious material, that may be imbedded and hidden, to the surface.
Her socially engaged practice invites participation through performance and installation as a means by which to interrogate the fluid relationships between the macro and the micro—on collective, cultural, personal, and embodied levels. By applying a background of healing and social justice and arts education, Hopkins creates a critical framework for new performance forms. Through techniques of play, ritual and skill sharing, Hopkins constructs social spaces through which investigations of the immaterial can occur and transmute into form, movement, and action.
EDUCATION
MA Interdisciplinary Arts, Columbia College Chicago, 2012
BA Theatre, Loyola University Chicago, 2005
GRANTS + ARTIST RESIDENCIES
2023 SASSO Residency, Ticino Switzerland
2019 STAIR Residency, Chicago Moving Company, Chicago, IL
2016 Territory of Living, Aktuelle Architektur Der Kultur, Blanca Murcia, Spain
2015 Social Hypnosis, Performance + Research Lab, Le Plongeoir, Lyon, France
2014 DCASE Individual Artist Grant, in Collaboration with Artist Karen Yates, Chicago, IL
2013 Propeller Grant in Collaboration with Artist Karen Yates, Chicago, IL
2013 Weave Residency + Exhibition // An Arts Platform, Brussels, BE
2013 DCASE Individual Artist Grant (residence at Howard Area Community Center), Chicago, IL
2012 Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, Chicago, IL
PROJECTS
2023 Frequency with the Excursionists, Switzerland Tour
2022 Conversations, Retractions, Revelations, Reconciliations, Facility Theatre, Chicago, IL
2021 Mycelium Portal, an online container for workshops + conversation with curator Mary Coyne
2019 Every Initiation Needs a Container, work-in-progress showing as part of STAIR, Chicago Moving Co
2018 Soul Storage: a participatory photo exhibition, co-produced by Chicago Moving Company
2016-17 Radical Bodies // Sound, Scores + Somatics, co-Facilitator, Links Hall, Chicago, IL
2016 Territory of Living, Aktuelle Architektur Der Kultur, Blanca Murcia, Spain
2016 Lessons in Human Development, ensemble under direction of Precious Jennings, Chicago, IL
2016 At The Table: A Mycelial Game, Roman Susan Art Gallery, Chicago, IL
2015 At The Table: A Mycelial Game, co-produced by Links Hall, Chicago, IL
2015 Body Interventions, solo piece at the O+ Festival Pilsen, Chicago, IL
2015 Exodus 2019, Director of solo piece by Davina' Stewart, Rhino Festival, Chicago, IL
2014 Chicago Dream House, Community Programmer/Social Practice Artist, Chicago, IL
2013 Food and the Soul, Director, Jackalope Theatre + Chicago Home Theatre Festival
2013 Character Flaws: Solo Performance Art Festival, Performer + Curator, Chicago, IL
2013 At The Table: a participatory dinner and performance w/ Chicago Home Theatre Festival
2013 American Bacchae, Choreographer, RhinoFest, Chicago, IL
2012 Power Dynamics: A collection of stories, Director, Dramatis Personae*, Chicago, IL
2012 Artist Gumbo Curator, Dramatis Personae*, Chicago, IL
2011 The Suitcase Opera premiere, Asst. Dir. for Karen Yates, Chicago Opera Vanguard
2010-11 Playback Theatre Ensemble, performances at National Association of Drama Therapy & The Vet Arts Project
2006 Loving Repeating, world premiere musical directed by Frank Galati, Asst. Choreographer, MCA Chicago
FACILITATION + WORKSHOPS
The Sacred Art of Play in Performance, for the Cast of La Ruta at the Smith College Department of Theatre, March 2023
(Re)Claiming Grief: An Embodied Journey Back to the Earth, for the Department of Environmental Science and Policy Smith College, March 2023
The Art of Facilitation, Trauma awareness training for Teaching Artists with Silk Road Rising, September 2022
The Sacred Art of Play, hosted by Chicago Moving Company, June 2022
Mycelium Portal, Conversations + Workshops with Performing Artists, January 2020-July 2021
West Ridge Story Festival with Silk Road Rising, Chicago USA, September 2019 - December 2019
Mini Somatic Discovery Camp, hosted by Chicago Moving Company, July 2019
Radical Bodies // Sound, Scores + Somatics at Links Hall, Chicago USA, November 2016 - October 2017
Improvisation and the Energy Body at Ponderosa, Germany, August 2016
Exercises for the Activist hosted by Tools for Solidarity, Belfast UK, April 2015
Social Hypnosis, Co-Facilitator at Le Plongeior, Lyon, France, April 2015
Visiting Artist and Guest Lecturer at North Park University, Chicago USA, January- April 2015
Playlab Performance Exploration at Links Hall, Chicago, IL, December 2014 - December 2015
Theatre of the Oppressed + Playback Theatre Workshop, Canticle Farm + Casa De Paz, Oakland, CA, August 2014 + January 2013
Howard Area Community Center Staff Development Workshop, Chicago USA, November 2013
Theatre of the Oppressed + Playback Theatre Workshop at the Weave Residency, Brussels, Belgium, October 2013
TEACHING ARTIST
Silk Road Rising, Chicago, IL
September 2014 - September 2023, EPIC Playwriting course Teaching Artist
* Chicago Reader Media Feature Here
Victory Gardens Theatre, Chicago, IL
Sept 2018 - April 2019, Teaching Artist
Center for Community Arts Partnerships, Sullivan HS Art Program, Columbia College Chicago
Aug 2013 - May 2014, Teaching Artist for Theatre Program
Sept 2012 - Aug 2013, Program Coordinator and Louder Than a Bomb Team, Spoken Word Co-Coach
Howard Area Community Center, Youth Programs, Chicago, IL
June 2013 - Aug 2014, Independent/Contracted Teaching Artist for Theatre Program
Sept 2009- Oct 2012, Program Coordinator + Curriculum Creator for Teen Reach Program
Insight Arts, Chicago, IL
Dec 2010-May 2011, Freelance Teaching Artist for Theatre program
TVI Studios, Chicago, IL
Oct 2006-June 2008, Acting Coach
Shanti Foundation for Peace, Evanston, IL
Sept 2006-June 2007, Artist in Residence
Youth Organization Umbrella, Evanston, IL
Sept 2003-Aug 2006, Teaching Artist + Mentor/Tutor
TRAINING
Improvisational Movement and Dance with artists: Ayako Kato, Nana Shineflug, KJ Homes, Nancy Stark Smith, Keith Hennessey, Abby Crain, 2011- Present
Moon Fool (UK based), ACT Physical Theatre Training, Chicago, IL, 2014
Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Training, Ginger Nepomuceno & Rumble Arts, 2011-2013
Puppetry + Playback Theatre, Liz Muckley and Chicago Creative Arts Therapy Network,
2009-2011
Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certificate, September 2021 – February 202
Breathwork Facilitator Training Levels II + III, April 2020
Breathwork Facilitator Training Level I, April 2019
Usui Reiki Master Training, August 2016
Usui Reiki Levels I + II, October 2015
Thai Bodywork Practitioner 200 hr, March 2014 – June 2015
Arts Education Curriculum Institute, Ingenuity, November-December 2014
Rev Up: Social Justice and Youth Activism, 32 hr training, Chicago Freedom School, April 2012
Advancing Youth Development Certification, 28 hr Training Program, March-April 2010
Contact me for arts education + facilitation opportunities at: hopkins.e.lindsay@gmail.com