Foreign Exchanges with Dorit Cypis

Cross Cultural Differences, Inside/Out

Dorit — Wed, 01 May 2013 02:21:32 +0000

A seminar offered on recognizing cultural differences and bias in order to better communicate across difference.

May 15, 2013 from 6 to 9pm

Beverly Hills Bar Association

9420 Wilshire Boulevard, 2nd Floor, Beverly Hills, CA 90121-3169

Kulture Klub at the Capitol

Dorit — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:40:15 +0000

Decisive Moment: An Exploration of Portraiture

You are invited to view the Kulture Klub Collaborative public art exhibit:Decisive Moment: An Exploration of Portraiture, Thursday April 4th at 10:30am at the MN State Capitol. This reception will celebrate the exhibition and Governor Dayton’s support of the Homeless Youth Act (SF565, HF 698).

This collaboration of arts and advocacy allows many ways for you to be involved:

Experience the art created by KKC participants
Learn with advocates and youth about the Homeless Youth Act
Invite your legislators to join you in viewing the exhibit
Advocate – share hopes for MN youth with a postcard, a photo or a conversation.
Create a presence – there is power in simply showing up! Come and see!

Decisive Moment: An Exploration of Portraiture - Work on view was created collaboratively with artists from Kulture Klub Collaborative and local artist Adriana Rimpel. During the seven-week residency, the group developed a reflex of looking and recognizing important moments while photographing. Through a series of exercises that shifted from looking to questioning, photographing to modeling, questioning to answering, and directing to acting, artists considered the many tactics of portrait photography. In addition, they examined the various identities and personas they wear in their daily lives.

Decisive Moment will be on view at the Youth Opportunity Center gallery throughout the spring.

Website: Kulture Klub at the Capitol

MERGE! Women’s Conference

Dorit — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 04:09:14 +0000

Featuring:

Jen Bilk
Founder & CEO, Knock Knock
Gedina
Singer Song Writer
Lina Shanklin
Master Coach & Workshop Leader
Jeanne Byrd Romero
Coach / Filmmaker
Crystal Ehrlich
UX Design Guru
Angel Anderson
VP Experience Director
Roxane Lukas
Principal, The Realis Project
Karen Solomon
Co-Founder & Advisor Opportunity Green
Kate Stahnke
VP, Product at Causecast
Dorit Cypis
Founder of Foreign Exchanges, Professional Artist
Irma Sanchez
TV & Radio Host
Sarah Backhouse
Founder of Future360, Host, Producer, Journalist
Danixa Diaz
Executive Producer, Co-Founder of iartists

Hosted by:
Tatjana Luethi
Graphic Designer & Lead Skool Coach

Executive Producer:
Jose Caballer, Chief Education Officer, The Skool

L.A. WOMAN the Documentary

Dorit — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 03:35:55 +0000

A multimedia/documentary project profiling pioneering, emerging, innovative and otherwise compelling Los Angeles-based female artists, philosophers and social entrepreneurs. In their own worlds and contexts.

Directed by: Kate Crash
Produced by: EZTV & Michael Masucci
Interviewees in Alphabetical Order:
Lita Albuquerque, Zina Bethune, Jessie Bliss, Strawn Bovee, Dorit Cypis, Susanna B. Dakin, Simone Forti, Nana Ghana, Carol Gillam, Kate Johnson, Anna Homler, Dr. Linda Lack, Lina Lecaro, Dianne Magee, Donna Enad Napper, Rika Ohara, Nina Rota, S.Pearl Sharp, Barbara T. Smith, Jessica Sohn, Donna Sternberg, Tiffany Trenda, Valerie Velazquez, Jan Williamson

eztvmuseum.com
facebook.com/lawomandocumentary
youtube.com/lawomandocumentary

Temple University – Public Engagement Lab

Dorit — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:02:18 +0000

Public Engagement Lab draws on tools Foreign Exchanges has developed for college-age students and educators to build their skills of sustainability, including self-awareness, accountability, responsibility, communication, time management, inter personal skills, empathy and group cohesion.

As young adults train to enter the professional workplace they require emotional intelligence to become socially adept with values of accountability, responsibility, reciprocity and empathy. These values are as important as the intellectual skills we expect them to achieve. Today the forces of globalization, information technology, diminishing natural resources and financial crisis are adding huge stresses. New values of collaborative and collective engagement are essential to build healthy and generative futures for all and for the institutions that support us, political, economic, educational, and cultural. We are dependent on our young adults to carry us towards the future. We must provide them with the skills to do so.

In our Public Engagement workshops at the Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, we have seen remarkable success in students better able to recognize their strengths as well as their challenges to more consciously offer their capacities, ask for assistance and manage their time. Students are enabled to recognize the challenges the internship site presents to them and decipher cultural and perceptual differences. The engagement skills help them to put situations into perspective and to negotiate their needs.

Kulture Klub Collaborative

Dorit — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:43:15 +0000

I am very proud to introduce you to the latest project by Kulture Klub Collaboration,
a public program I founded in 1992. Give & Take – Kulture Klub Collaborative Youth on what they know about Making Art, Crocheting, Being a Mom, Doing Hair and other creative topics.

Kulture Klub Collaborative engages art and artistic practice to provide enriching multidisciplinary opportunities for youth experiencing homelessness and artists to grow individually and to transform community

A toolbox for more than just getting along…

Dorit — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:22:52 +0000

YES WE CAN was an inspirational slogan in 2008 when the country most needed it. Today many people have been inspired to meet the challenge of working across differences, to collaborate and to work collectively. When cultural aspiration shifts towards more openness people can get stumped with how to meet the new needs, of others and of their own. To meet the challenge people need sophisticated tools and skills to build their capacity for self-knowledge and bias awareness, to communicate with transparency, to empathize with others, to recognize the power of reciprocity and negotiation, and to transform impasse to generative relations. Many have the vision but few know how.

I see this need as a mediator and trainer daily, working with people from all professions and disciplines – talented and engaged people with a vision for social change, but with few skills of how to understand individual capacity, how to collaborate effectively across cultural and personal differences, how to be flexible and creative with uncertainty, and how to work with consensus and horizontality. Foreign Exchanges is committed to offering our toolbox of engagement skills to help people move beyond just getting along. When HOW WE CAN supports YES WE CAN change can happen.

Principals of Engagement

Dorit — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 21:53:44 +0000

	Leadership Leadership matters, because balancing the strength of having a vision with skills of eliciting expression from others brings everyone into the folds of a vision, sustaining the project for a collective and generative future.
	Trust Trust matters, because creative engagement between people cannot happen without trust, the fuel that propels engagement and change.
	Transparency Transparency matters, because when information is shared confusion between parties is less likely ensuring that informed participants stay connected.
	Active Listening Active Listening matters, because when each person is listened to and heard, diverse expression is fostered adding dimension to what the group is shaping together.
	Reflection Reflection matters, because the capacity to reflect on one’s own bias, beliefs and social behavior permits critical assessment towards flexibility and adaptability.
	Empathy Empathy matters, because when we recognize the experience of another outside of our self we also make space for difference, allowing for unforeseeable possibility.
	Reciprocity Reciprocity matters, because reciprocity, exchanging skills with others, is of mutual benefit enriching the process and expanding everyone’s capacity.

Public Programs Spring/Summer 2012

Dorit — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 06:12:55 +0000

Bridges to Unity and Re-Conciliation

Public Program – Los Angeles, co-developed a collective dedicated to building capacity within Occupy Los Angeles for peaceful engagement across differences and tensions – Bridges has offered empathic Listening Circles for emotion feedback amongst Occupy members, as well as trainings on emotional trauma support and conflict engagement for relationship transformation.

Mediators Beyond Borders International

Conference participant – Baltimore, MA – participated in evaluation of member relations, community building, organizational governance and local/international projects MBBI is a not-for-profit organization of international volunteer professional mediators dedicated to assisting local grass-root groups in global locations to develop capacity for conflict engagement and transformation.

Association for Conflict Resolution Conference

Dorit — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:33:18 +0000

Challenges for Mediation and the Occupy Movement

New Orleans, Louisiana

Friday, September 14, 2012

9:00 AM – 10:30 AM

Alan Gross, New York, New York

Bathabile Mthombeni, New York, New York

Dorit Cypis, Los Angeles, California

The Occupy movement has developed into a powerful global channel for civic dissent. Activists have embraced Occupy as a means for expressing frustration especially about increasing economic disparity. However, some movement ideals, especially horizontal democracy, create challenges for effective organization and often lead to internal conflict. Mediators have attempted to intervene to facilitate meetings, resolve conflicts, and introduce processes with only limited success. This session will explore how conflict resolvers are dealing with these challenges, how Occupy has adapted tools such as non-verbal signals and rotating facilitation that conform to its ideals, and how these techniques have applications in more standard settings.