SOCIAL THERAPEUTICS | HOME
The East Side Institute
welcomes you!
An international center for the study of social therapeutics and performance activism — bringing human and community development to the forefront of culture change and social transformation, and promoting alternative and radically humanizing approaches to psychology, education and community building.
MEET PERFORMANCE ACTIVISTS —
Performing the World Community
All of us—human beings and the planet we are a part of—are meandering in a mess. The mess is not new, but it is spreading and deepening. What can we do about it? We can, and are, responding by creating and organizing power—and like the mess, the Performing the World community is also spreading and deepening.
What does creating and organizing power look like? How is the mess impacting the nature and tone of our creativity? These are some of the questions we want to explore at PTW 2025.
Since 2001, Performing the World (PTW) has been a global gathering for all who are using play, performance and the arts to engage and transform the world.
Developing Leaders —
Improv and Higher Education!
Announcing the publication of Improvising With and In Higher Education: All Together Now edited by ESI Associate and alum, Luke Perone and included in the Palgrave Studies In Play, Performance, Learning, and Development book series.
A Maker-Space for Social Activists
Alum Jim Martinez offers a look at The International Class, “a global classroom” performed with an environment-building mindset. Jim is an Assoc. Professor at NY Institute of Technology, Co-Founder of Collective Infrastructures, Corp. and Co-Chair for Cultivating Ensembles. His Substack, Collective Development is must-read!
Developing Across Borders
Step onto a global social therapeutic stage and grow! Developing Across Borders welcomes participants from cultures across the world into a weekly, virtual, group-building session for all seeking to grow emotionally, socially and historically with the mess and muddles of life.
Performances of Social Therapeutics —
FEATURED CONVERSATIONS |
Cracks and Rhizomes–Can We Save Ourselves from Ourselves?
An online conversation with Bayo Akomolafe & Social Therapeutic Practitioners — Watch Conversation Here
The Tyranny of Trauma – A Meandering Search for Method
And read this fascinating conversation with Báyò Akómoláfé and Lois Holzman, hosted by Janet Wootten — which explores the “tyranny of trauma” and a practical-critical engagement of scientific psychology.
