2006 Authentic Leadership Summer Program

Creative Process

When we learn deeply, our critical intelligence, our intuition, and our physical senses are all engaged and synchronized. Creative process sessions help prepare the ground for this kind of integrative learning. Exercises based on artistic disciplines — dance, theatre, jazz, calligraphy — awaken and clarify sensory, intuitive awareness. Creative process also provides a bridge between the simplicity of mindfulness and the complexity of organizational dynamics. We can begin to make this bridge by bringing wakeful awareness into physical movement, into precise moments of listening and seeing, and into nonverbal collaboration.

The Presenters

The creative process presenters all have a long history of combining performance art with meditative awareness. They are all long-time practitioners of Buddhist meditation and have taught and performed, sometimes together, in diverse settings.

Barbara Bash is a published author and performance artist who lives in the Hudson Valley of New York. She has worked for many years as a calligrapher and teacher of book arts and nature journaling. She was co-director of the book arts program at Naropa University and has collaborated over the years with musicians, storytellers, and dancers, exploring calligraphic performance art. Her study of Dharma Art with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Chinese pictograms with Ed Young contributed to her understanding of eastern principles as applied to western forms. She has written and illustrated many award-winning books on natural history for children and teaches Big Brush workshops throughout the U.S. See also www.barbarabash.com.

Steve Clorfeine has been writing, performing and directing theater pieces since 1975. He performed for many years in the companies of Barbara Dilley, Meredith Monk, Ping Chong and at Naropa University where he has been on the adjunct faculty since its inception. His own performances and workshops have toured the U.S. and Europe. Steve has long standing collaborations with Lanny Harrison, with jazz singer Jay Clayton, tap diva Brenda Bufalino, musician/composer Steve Gorn,and with all the arts team at the Shambhala Institute. Steve teaches contemplative arts workshops as well as theater, poetry and storytelling residencies in public schools in Europe and the U.S. He is the author of In The Valley of the Gods — Journals of an American Buddhist in Nepal; several poetry collections; and a sourcebook on creative process.

Jerry Granelli, jazz drummer, composer, bandleader, and teacher, began his musical career in San Francisco in the 1960s, as a member of Vince Guaraldi's group, and then later as the rhythm-section mate of Charlie Haden. Over the years he has frequently worked with Mose Allison, and has been regarded as the star pupil of legendary drum master Joe Morello. Jerry spent much of the 1970s and early '80s teaching in various innovative and prestigious music programs, such as Seattle's Cornish Institute and Boulder's Naropa University.

In the mid-1980s he returned to active recording and performing, first in a trio with Ralph Towner and Gary Peacock, and then with the group Quartet. He now leads his own quartet, Berlin-based UFB. His recordings include Another Place, A Song I Thought I Heard Buddy Sing, News from the Street, and Broken Circle. Jerry presently teaches at the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin, and also lives and performs in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Lanny Harrison, character actress, dancer, and cabaret artist, began her career in the New York Pantomime Theater in 1966. She has played character roles in Off-Broadway musicals and films, and for the past 25 years has written and performed one-woman shows, touring America and Europe. She has also performed a number of theatrical duets, with her late husband, musician Collin Walcott, with Meredith Monk, and with Steve Clorfeine.

Lanny has been a member of The House, Meredith Monk's theater company, since 1969, and has played leading roles in many of Ms. Monk's productions, including Vessel, Quarry, Education of the Girlchild, the film Book of Days and the science fiction opera Magic Frequencies. She is currently touring in Mercy, a collaboration between Ms. Monk and Ann Hamilton.

For the past five years, Lanny and Lily Pink have presented their vaudeville show The Bat Sisters at various venues in New York City and upstate New York. Lanny teaches acting for children at the West Kortright Centre and in the Arts in Education Program, and gives workshops at the New York Shambhala Center and at Naropa University.

She is also on the faculty of the Gallatin division of NYU, where she teaches a theater course integrating Eastern contemplative disciplines and Western theatrical technique. Since 1973, she has practiced Tibetan Buddhism as a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and is a meditation instructor.

Trained as a dancer, Arawana Hayashi's pioneering work as a choreographer, performer and educator is deeply sourced in improvisation, collaboration and traditional dance forms. After five years as director of an intercultural street dance company in Boston, Arawana became Co-Director of the Dance Program at Naropa University in Boulder, CO. She was involved in experimental inter-disciplinary performance work that became the foundation for the University's current degree programs in performance and somatic psychology. Arawana's study of Bugaku, Japanese Court dance, began under Suenobu Togi and led to founding the Jo Ha Kyu Performance Group in Boston. There she continued to explore the creative process. In 2000 Arawana joined the faculty of the annual Shambhala Institute for Authentic Leadership. Arawana is currently an acharya (senior teacher) in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. She teaches workshops in The Art of Making a True Move for individuals and organizations throughout the U.S. and is leading the development of Embodied Presence Practice in collaboration with Otto Scharmer and the Presencing Institute.

From previous Authentic Leadership participants

"I had not expected to learn so much."

"The golden thread that weaved the whole tapestry together."

"This track expanded the application of the other streams and was also fun."

"The experience that will change me the most."

"To me the artistic process sessions demonstrated and epitomized authentic leadership. The discipline, the accuracy, the love of the activity — so powerful."

Back to the 2006 Summer Program page.