Team Member Engagement at Inova Schar Cancer Institute
Team member and patient engagements via the Artist in Residence Program (Sept. 2022–Mar. 2023)
Team Member
Affirmation Trading Cards 100+ handmade trading cards, handmade by artists, were distributed to units across four service lines. They were customized, gifted, and shared among team members to support a compassionate and person-centered workplace.
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Creative Caregivers
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In partnership with Tara Rynders, RN and The Clinic. This four-month pilot of monthly arts- and play-based workshops were designed and run for five regional Oncology Nursing Society chapters across the United States. The documentary about the process was premiered and presented by Alison Waldman and Tara Rynders, RN at the 2022 ONS Congress in Anaheim, CA.
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Day of Dance in Healthcare
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Alison Waldman directs and choreographs the annual the Day of Dance at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital (MGUH). This signature program is a day of integrated, site-specific performance throughout the hospital by professional performers and is the first of this kind of integrated dance programming in a hospital setting. There has been a Day of Dance at MGUH in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Learn about the impact and stories of the Day of Dance in Alison's 2020 TEDx talk, Why should we be dancing with our doctors?, and read the media's coverage of this event here.
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#VoicesOfCare
What do caregivers need right now? How can they be supported in talking openly about shame, hierarchy in the healthcare system, and joy? What stories do they have to tell? How can we help them ask for what they need to stay resilient in high-demand jobs? The #VoicesOfCare media series asked caregivers to share their advice, stories, hardships, and joys. Their voices help us redefine what resiliency means: Holding space for, respecting, and caring for our caregivers and each other.
Movement for MS
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Movement for MS is a dance and creative movement class for people in all stages of MS and their loved ones. This award-winning program was started under the leadership of Alison Waldman and Keira Hart-Mendoza in 2017. It furthered as a research pilot in partnership with The Scottish Ballet, University of Florida Shands Arts in Medicine Program, The Georgetown Medical Center Department of Neurology, and the Georgetown AHP.
The class is continues as an in-person and now virtual weekly class, taught by Deborah Riley, CMA with co-instruction by Alison Waldman. |
Watch the ABC7 Feature on Movement for MS (July 2020)
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Read more about project lead Erika Mitchell, RN's award for the Movement for MS program.
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Hospital Staff Wellness
Innovation of Ready-to-Move program at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital
The Ready-to-Move Program provides stretch breaks and yoga classes for staff at MGUH and the AHP’s most popular program. In addition to regularly scheduled onsite offerings nurses, medical technicians, assistants and others, movement artists-in-residence often lead special event stretch breaks for different members of the MGUH team. Alison has lead the stretch break programming in its popularity and training incoming Movement Artists-in-Residence on safe and effective 5-minute breaks that attract people of all ages and mobilities including caregivers and patients.
Available Wellness
Extra Gentle & Accessible Yoga Offerings
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Alison has developed and led extra gentle classes and workshops customized to welcome people with various mobilities including those with neurological disease, with chronic pain, in injury recovery, post-surgery, and total newcomers. Ongoing and recent public programs include a virtual Extra Gentle Mat and Chair Yoga class for 100+ people weekly around the globe , holiday and Shabbat classes in partnership with Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a faculty position at the Jewish Mindfulness Center of Washington, and weekly studio classes.
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Dance & Theatre Performance
ARTISTIC DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY
CONTRADICTION DANCE THEATRE • 2011-17
Company Member, Rehearsal Director
NOW; Code Switch; Objects of Hope: The America Project; Walk a Mile; #DanceAboutDC; Boundaries; Objects of Hope; The Gift; FASHIONVICTIM; The Present;
POP-UP AND OTHER PERFORMANCE • 2011-2017
Flashmob America; Taliesin (Humble Fire music video, 2017); National Dance Day (Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2016); Kitchen Sink Fest (Dance Place, 2016); State: Trait – Community Mental Health Conversations Through Dance (Hillcrest Children and Family Center, 2016); Jane Franklin Dance – Blue Moon/Red River (Capital Fringe Fest 2014); Uprooted Dance– First Fridays Dupont (2013); Cast of Thousands (2012); National Building Museum Honor Award Gala (2011); Enter: Ophelia, Distracted (2011) with Taffety Punk & Contradiction Dance
ARTISTIC DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY
- Direction & Choreography, The Day of Dance in Healthcare (MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, 2017, 2018, 2019)
- Co-director & Performer, Seeking, Bonding, Breaking: The Science of Love (Source Festival, 2015)
- Choreographer, The Oldest Profession (Rainbow Theatre Project, 2015)
- Choreographer & Performer, Lay(hers) (Contradiction Dance, 2013)
- Concept & Performer, Play (Lamont Street Collective, 2013; Contradiction Dance, 2015)
- Artist & Choreographer in Residence & collaboration with Caroline Spence (Chatham Hall School, 2011)
- Choreographer, Norton: The Astonishingly True Story of America’s Forgotten Emperor (Denison University, 2010)
CONTRADICTION DANCE THEATRE • 2011-17
Company Member, Rehearsal Director
NOW; Code Switch; Objects of Hope: The America Project; Walk a Mile; #DanceAboutDC; Boundaries; Objects of Hope; The Gift; FASHIONVICTIM; The Present;
POP-UP AND OTHER PERFORMANCE • 2011-2017
Flashmob America; Taliesin (Humble Fire music video, 2017); National Dance Day (Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2016); Kitchen Sink Fest (Dance Place, 2016); State: Trait – Community Mental Health Conversations Through Dance (Hillcrest Children and Family Center, 2016); Jane Franklin Dance – Blue Moon/Red River (Capital Fringe Fest 2014); Uprooted Dance– First Fridays Dupont (2013); Cast of Thousands (2012); National Building Museum Honor Award Gala (2011); Enter: Ophelia, Distracted (2011) with Taffety Punk & Contradiction Dance
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