Level Forward’s Storytelling for Social Good Workshop
Free Talks
| 60 MINUTESExpressions of Black Freedom
Level Forward's Storytelling for Social Good workshop is a guided storytelling experience for the future of narrative change, crafted to empower folks from all industries to see themselves as storytellers, and ready you to harness the power of storytelling for social good.
In this interactive workshop co-created & facilitated by Andrea Ambam (Level Forward) and Dria Brown (Broadway Advocacy Coalition), participants will embark on a high-energy guided journey filled with prompts and provocations that provide practical skills for the storytellers wondering what they can do to use their tools and expertise for maximum social good. Using Tribeca 2024 selections as creative activation, participants will learn and then apply the unique SFSG framework to generate new stories and hone existing ones with the power for impact. Ultimately, Storytelling for Social Good asks us all to consider: What is my responsibility as a culture-maker with the power to shape and tell stories? How can my messaging reshape the status quo? And most importantly, how many untold, liberatory stories emerge when we all commit to storytelling for social good?
Moderator: Andrea Ambam
Panelists
Kelly Yu
Kelly Yu is a Swedish-born, New Orleans raised, Chinese-American writer and director. Her work is driven by a deep fascination with finding humanity in the absurd, often through an "east-meets-west" lens. Her first short film PLUM TOWN screened at film festivals around the world, garnering multiple jury awards and awarding her the NFFTY New Talent Award for 'Best Director Under 25.' Her most recent short film ENDLING was executive produced by Emmy award winning actress Lena Waithe under the Indeed Rising Voices fellowship and is set to premiere at Tribeca June 2024. Kelly holds a B.F.A from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and is based in LA currently developing ENDLING into a feature film.
Dria Brown
Dria Brown is an art Doula (creative producer, facilitator, artist) from South Carolina, living and working in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Dria’s multi-hyphenate practices center the lush and freedom-filled possibilities that exist in a world where all Black people, and specifically Black women and femmes are centered and cared for. Dria is currently the Co-Director of Programming at the Tony award-winning arts advocacy non-profit, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, a Theater of Change Facilitator at Columbia Law School, the Senior Creative Producer of Britton & The Sting - a funk liberation band based in NYC and a Creative Producer on a new Terence Nance project premiering at The Whitney Museum in the fall. Dria finds sanctuary in culinary food rituals that nourish her loved ones and lives with her co-dependent dog daughter Mooriah Carey in Crown Heights.
Andrea Ambam
Andrea Ambam is an award-winning storyteller, truthteller, and worldbender whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically-engaged writer, performance artist, and producer, Andrea seeks to reflect the times and generate new timelines via critical commentary, unruly imagination, and multi-modal creations that interrogate how we get free. Currently, Andrea is developing new theatrical work and serving as the Director of Programming at Level Forward - a public-benefit entertainment studio – where she produces and hosts the Anthem Award-winning audience engagement platform More To Talk About. She has developed her multi-hyphenated artistic practice through fellowships and residencies with New York Theatre Workshop, PEN America, Hi-Arts, Anna Deavere Smith, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, The Playwrights Realm, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Signature Theatre, and EmergeNYC; and collaboration with JACK, The Billie Holiday Theatre, Classical Theatre of Harlem, NYU Verbatim Performance Lab, Girls Write Now, NYU Prison Education Program, Harlem9, and others. Andrea has been pulsating at the intersection of art, current events, and social impact for over a decade, beginning as a competitive public speaker where she was awarded 10 national championships including "Top Speaker in the Nation'' three times, and went on to debate conservative pundits on live TV. Her plays include: Twelve Angry Black Women (Fault Line Theatre’s Irons in The Fire Finalist), Fragile State (Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist, Rattlestick Van Lier Fellowship Semifinalist), R(estoration) I(n) P(rogress) (NYU Educational Theatre/Provincetown Playhouse 2023), Rehearsing Justice: A One-Woman Show (Brooklyn Arts Exchange 2022), and Angelina Weld Grimke (Classical Theatre of Harlem/Playbill, Broadway Podcast Network). Andrea holds a Master’s degree in Art & Public Policy from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Presented in Partnership with:
Co-hosted by:
