Denise Ellen Casey
Denise Casey (she/her) is a playwright, storyteller, teaching artist and Voice Movement Therapy practitioner. She's taught awareness-based practices in schools K-12, universities, businesses and treatment centers; facilitating workshops, retreats and classes in mindfulness, movement, voice work, creative writing, storytelling and the creative process. Denise is most interested in the ways storytelling, expressive and performing arts are tools for transformational change, both personally and collectively. Her creative work and teaching invite audiences to step inside the stories we're afraid to tell with radical curiosity, compassion and even playfulness.
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At a young age, Denise's own experiences with mental health taught her the power and possibility of a single voice, as well as what can happen when that voice is not expressed. Denise lived and trained full-time for two years at a Buddhist monastery with weekly immersions in dance and improvisation with choreographer and storyteller, Lida Winfield. Denise went on to serve as the Director of Mindfulness in Education at the monastery. Afterward, she co-created and co-facilitated an annual 5-month mindfulness training program through the Vermont Education Health Initiative (VEHI) for public school teachers throughout Vermont. Denise continued working with youth through Young Writers Project in Vermont and co-coached the nationally recognized Burlington youth slam-poetry team Muslim Girls Making Change (MGMC).
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Denise's foundation as a storyteller is deeply rooted in her training in mindfulness and somatic therapies which include: a two-year training in Voice Movement Therapy (VMT), Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT), Classical Chinese Medicine, Amma therapeutic massage, two years of monastic training, improvisational dance, as well as myofascial and craniosacral practices. Denise sees individual clients for Voice Movement Therapy in-person and online.
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Denise is touring with her newest play, Playing the Game, an immersive story about the games we play in order to belong. Part memoir, part meditation and part make-believe, Playing the Game, asks us to imagine a dynamic world beyond what we see with our eyes.
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"Thank you to my teachers Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, Lida Winfield, Gina Breedlove and Susan Borg who've demonstrated for me again and again the courage, compassion and joy that's necessary and possible when we center liberation and love for all beings." - Denise
