Bringing your artistic practice into your facilitation can make challenging discussions more engaging. Art inspires people to act, so let’s use it! You can integrate song, drawing, and dance into your agendas.

I was taught to have songs as additions to agendas, instead of letting the music be another wisdom the group welcomes. I didn’t realize that music could be a part of my everyday life and then flow into my teaching.

Do you ever work with music on in the background? That’s integrating music into your everyday life. People over the world share songs daily. And yet in facilitation we often stop the music and default to talking.

Recently, I was feeling free and singing as I walked down the street. As I saw an older person ahead, I quieted my voice until my ears perked up. The older person was singing too!

Song and other art forms don’t have to be banished to the borderlands of our facilitation. Your artistic practice is an integral way of making change.

In my communities, colonialism, racism, and middle-class training led to song, art, and dance being cut out of daily life. As we facilitate people who are changing these systems, let's also bring these different ways of knowing back.

How might you let your art form inform your next facilitation project? Do you want to have a group draw? I’ve pulled out crayons with executives, and after initial resistance they were talking, humming, and drawing like a group of children. Taking the risk to bring in your art may be the hardest part.