ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:
ARMAND VOLKAS, MFT, RDT/BCT is a psychotherapist and Registered Drama Therapist in private practice and Clinical Director of the Living Arts Counseling Center in Oakland, California where he directs a training program for students, interns and therapists who want to integrate drama therapy into their practice. Drama Therapy uses acting improvisation and Psychodrama as therapeutic tools. He is a Board Certified Trainer in this discipline with The National Association for Drama Therapy. In addition, Armand is Associate Professor in the Counseling Psychology Program at California Institute of Integral Studies and Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University. He has developed innovative programs using drama therapy and expressive arts therapies for social change, intercultural conflict resolution, reconciliation and intercultural communication.
Armand Volkas directs Healing the Wounds of History, a therapeutic approach in which theatre techniques are used to work with groups of participants from two cultures with a common legacy of violent conflict and historical trauma. Healing the Wounds of History has received international recognition for its work in bringing groups in conflict together: Germans and Jews; Palestinians and Israelis; Japanese, Chinese and Koreans; Armenians and Turks; African-Americans and European-Americans, to name a few. The son of resistance fighters and Auschwitz survivors, Armand is committed to the understanding and taming of the potential "perpetrator" in all of us.
Armand Volkas is also Artistic Director of The Living Arts Playback Theatre Ensemble. Playback Theatre transforms personal stories told by audience members into theatre pieces on the spot using movement, ritual, music and spoken improvisation. Sometimes a story becomes myth, sometimes a realistic enactment: some stories are tragic; others are funny or illuminating. The ensemble is in now in its 18th year of existence. At the heart of Armand’s work is a profound respect for the power of personal story to build bridges between people and cultures. (510) 595-5500, Ext 11.
AMAL KOUTTAB, MA, RDT is a registered drama therapist, teacher, mediator, and filmmaker. She has used drama, art and writing to facilitate therapeutic groups in mental health institutions, 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, and a master’s degree in psychology and drama therapy from New York University. For the past four years, she facilitated therapeutic workshops with Palestinians and Israelis and other groups in conflict throughout the Bay Area. She has taught graduate psychology classes in Drama Therapy for Social Change at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she developed part of the curriculum focused on internalized oppression. She recently completed work on a Documentary Film entitled, "Touched by Cancer: Humoring the Tumor," which recently screened at the annual Healing Journeys conference in San Francisco. The film was also featured in the Straight Outta Film Arts film festival in 2005. Currently she is working on a second documentary film about a Muslim Orphanage in West Jerusalem established during the 1948 war to provide shelter and education to child victims of war. She owns and operates AmalDesigns, a multimedia production company in San Francisco. Amal Kouttab is currently Director of Community Initiatives at San Francisco Women Against Rape. She is a Palestinian-American, and an adopted daughter of a Palestinian diplomat who became a refugee in the 1948 war. (415) 871-6133
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