Performance Meets Purpose: CHA and IMPACT Playback Collaborate

We are pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Collaboration (MOC) between ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ's IMPACT Playback Theatre Ensemble and the Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA). This partnership formalizes a shared commitment to fostering inclusive storytelling, community engagement, and arts-based dialogue across the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ campus and broader community. Through this collaboration, IMPACT and CHA aim to support the transformative power of performance and humanities scholarship in advancing equity, empathy, and creative expression.

Since 2019, IMPACT Playback, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ Playback Theatre Ensemble, has delivered dynamic performances and workshops across a wide range of campus and community events—including the CU Diversity and Inclusion Summit, Health and Wellness Summit, Just & Equitable Teaching Program, conflict management courses, and other student-centered initiatives.

Impact Playback

Since 2020, the Ensemble has also led the Outreach-funded Critical Conversations Project, using Playback Theatre techniques to foster empathy, deep listening, and connection across differences—particularly in rural Colorado communities facing rapid and destabilizing social, economic, or environmental change. This work culminated in a 2023 collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, supporting the traveling exhibition Crossroads: Change in Rural America across the state.

The Ensemble comprises CU faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduates from across disciplines. Members train weekly through rehearsals, and all performances are paid.

IMPACT Playback Theatre Ensemble is led by Dr. James F. Walker, whose work centers on undergraduate education with a focus on diversity, metacognitive learning, and inclusive pedagogical practices. His additional research interests span race and gender studies, dystopian literature and film, and the rhetoric and praxis of performance—particularly Playback Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, and other applied, interactive theatre forms that support social change.

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