Reading the Body: Dialogues on Creativity and Healing

What is the connection between art and healing? Do the arts affect caregivers in the same way they affect patients? Does creativity play a role in healing? Does illness play a role in creativity? 

Join us on September 18th at 6 pm for a fascinating conversation on how the creative arts are part of healing. We will screen the award-winning short film, Reading the Body: Poetry and Dance on Recovery. This will be followed by a panel to participate with the audience in a lively discussion about arts, healthcare, creativity, recovery, and the possibilities of healing.

A collaboration of Bellevue Literary Review and The Paige Fraser Foundation. 

About the Speakers

Paige Fraser

Paige Fraser appears nightly in The Lion King on Broadway, where she is the Dance Captain and “swing” for all dance roles. She made her musical theatre debut in “West Side Story” at Chicago’s Lyric Opera and has toured extensively with The Lion King. Paige is the Chief Artistic Officer and Program Director of Dance for The Paige Fraser Foundation and is currently getting her masters in Art Management. She received her BFA in dance from Ailey/Fordham University and has been a member of Ailey II and Visceral Dance Chicago, as well as an ongoing guest artist with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. Paige is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award and was named a Dance Magazine “Top 25 to Watch.” 

Lucy Hutner, MD

Lucy Hutner, MD, was a professional dancer before attending medical school and training in psychiatry. She specializes in the field of reproductive psychiatry, where she is recognized as a national leader. She was the Associate Director of the Women and Reproductive Mental Health program at Columbia and was one of the associate residency training directors at NYU, where she is on the voluntary faculty. Dr. Hutner is also an analytic candidate at Columbia. She is regularly cited in the national media, including the media NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Vogue, Slate, Nike, InStyle, Parents and others.

Milica Zgaljic-Ramirez

Milica Zgaljic-Ramirez is a licensed creative arts therapist, licensed mental health counselor and the Director of Creative Arts Therapy at Bellevue Hospital. For more than 30 years at the city’s flagship safety net hospital, Milica has championed initiatives to de-stigmatize mental illness and expanded access to therapeutic arts through staff wellness programming and educational events across the public health system.

Jeremy Nobel

Jeremy Nobel is the founder and president of The Foundation for Arts and Healing. He is also on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His new book, Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection, will be published on October 4th.

Moderator

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD is primary care doctor at Bellevue Hospital and a clinical professor of medicine at NYU. She is a founder and editor-in-chief of the award-winning Bellevue Literary Review. During her medical training she studied dance at the Martha Graham school and is a forever struggling student of the cello. She’s written extensively on music and medicine and publishes,  in the New Yorker and the New York Times. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Humanism in Medicine Medal from the Gold Foundation, and an honorary doctorate of letters, Ofri is the author of six books, most recently “When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error.”