Open Process Series: Manufactured Manipulation

Intersection for the Arts presents Open Process Series: Manufactured Manipulation Tueseday, March 16, 2010 7pm FREE

Amal Kouttab, Director of Community Initiatives at San Francisco Women Against Rape, will facilitate an interactive presentation in which participants learn to critically examine how the media promotes a “rape culture” and how this impacts our relationships with each other and with ourselves. The presentation will frame issues of sexual violence within the larger context of systems and institutions, while exploring how various forms of oppression intersect to create and sustain a cultural climate that normalizes sexual violence. This presentation is ideal for educators and anyone looking for tools to engage in creative dialogue about these issues. San Francisco Women Against Rape provides resources, support, advocacy and education to strengthen the work of all individuals, and communities in San Francisco that are responding to, healing from, and struggling to end sexual violence. At SFWAR, they believe that no single individual, organization, foundation, or business alone can stop the epidemic of sexual assault, but by responding as a whole community, we each bring our piece of the solution. SFWAR provides a 24-hour free and confidential rape crisis hotline at 415-647-7273. SFWAR invites you to join them for their 5th Annual Walk Against Rape on April 24th culminating with a festival in Dolores Park. For more information or to register for the Walk Against Rape please visit their website at www.sfwar.org. Amal Kouttab is a registered drama therapist, teacher, mediator, and filmmaker. She has used drama, art and writing to facilitate therapeutic groups in mental health settings, nursing homes, hospitals and drug rehabilitation centers in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. She obtained a bachelor's degree in the performing arts and women's studies from the University of Virginia in 1997, and a master's degree in psychology and drama therapy from New York University in 2001. For the past four years, she has facilitated therapeutic workshops with Palestinians and Israelis and other groups in conflict in the Middle East and the Bay Area. She has taught graduate psychology classes entitled Drama Therapy for Social Change at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she developed part of the curriculum focused on internalized oppression. She co-founded the Araceli Theater Project based at San Francisco General Hospital, which rehearses and performs original educational theater pieces for people with cancer.