GII Symposium 2026

Cog Creative is a programme of improv classes for those living with dementia, their supporters and health care workers.

For 30 years Improbable have been exploring where improvisation can take us, both on stage and beyond. Join us for a gentle chat about the likely and very unlikely places we’ve brought an improvisational approach, including Philip Glass operas, My Neighbour Totoro in the West End, making a show that is live directed by a learning disabled woman, hosting a conference about the future of theatre, and navigating a life threatening disease.

Artists Phelim, Lee, and Matilda will be joining us remotely, from their home in the UK. GII participants can join the conversation, in person, in LH 221! 

Zoom Webinar links will be sent out to online registrants within 24 hours, at the latest, before session starts.

Oregon Health Sciences University trains doctors and nurses in handling end-of-life conversations with patients, parents and children of adult patients. They use skilled improvisors in role-play sessions with students. This panel session will discuss the benefits and challenges, and provide a demonstration or two of the training.

An interactive, educational, and playful roundtable discussion on methods of creating opportunities and safe spaces for discourse and exploration on the complexities of female experiences.

Elegant improv, comfortable shoes.
DAME is a Portland-based collective of seasoned femme improvisers. Their fun and grounded style explores identity and questions expectations through connected, relationship-driven scene work and storytelling. Their current project, Menoprov, blends improv with health education to demystify the menopausal transition.

Practitioners from a variety of fields will discuss the research, merits, challenges, and applications of improv for personal and community healing. We will look at work in the fields of conflict resolution, counseling and therapy, palliative care, and medical leadership. We will investigate questions like: How has improvisation changed these fields to date? What does the Venn diagram between "Healing and Health" and "Improv Practice and Skills" look like? Where might there be more opportunities for improving personal and community health using impro?

Panelists: Brad Fortier (Host);  Barbara Tint, PhD; Kate Westmoreland, MD; Traci Beibel, LCSW

In this round table, we will discuss how applying Indigenous knowledge systems to improvisation benefits the ways in which we understand storytelling. We will discuss how global Indigenous knowledges are strategically silenced through settler colonization in impro theater, and how to Reindigenize (rather than “decolonize”) our art form.