Bio
Hannah Burt is an interdisciplinary artist with a primary focus in Theater and Dance Making. As a performer she graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BFA in Theater, moving then to touring and creating original work up and down the East coast, before returning home to her Southern lineage. Whether through dance, puppetry, or contemporary Theater, Hannah creates opportunities for young people to access their own creativity and agency.
As an active working artist, Hannah models the possibility of arts as a career to young people. Her work focuses on exploring imagination and creativity, expanding on students social and emotional learning. Hand in hand with her Theater education is her mindfulness practice. Hannah is a certified yoga teacher and children's yoga teacher. She has taught children's yoga to Chicago Public school students and views mindfulness, mental wellness, and rest as an equally important part of her artistic work.
She is a CASA advocate and works with Alternate ROOTS to foster arts justice, collaboration, and resources for artists based in the Southeast US.
Potential Residency Project
Mindfulness + Mental Health - (Grades 5-12) Hannah establishes a mindfulness routine with students including meditation, yoga, and breathing: demystifying practices that may feel irrelevant, weird or unattainable. This includes games and activities based around grade level, such as balance, deep breathing, and using animals to identify yoga shapes. Hannah creates a classroom mindfulness routine and toolkit of activities to leave post residency. Hannah's priority is that her students feel focused and calm, as she facilitates discussions around handling big feelings, stress and emotions.
Mindful Me - (K through 4) Using her Rainbow Kids Yoga training and experience with Buddha Belly Yoga, Hannah brings students into the world of Yoga. She leads balance games, storytelling, animal shape making, and fun songs to encourage young students to think about how their actions affect others, and how they can be better listeners and friends.
The Imagination Lab - (K-12) Hannah orchestrates a course to activate and inspire student creativity and imagination. She leads students through a fun variety of different games and artistic mediums to discover what form their own creativity takes. Students will get experience with painting, singing, theater games, poetry writing, dancing, and sculpting, learning how to apply creativity to their lives in and outside of school.
Dream. Achieve. Repeat. Using dream science, Hannah leads students as they learn about where dreams come from, the different types of dreams, and what they might mean. Students will uncover the link between their brain health and their dreaming, empowering them to make positive choices for their sleep and nutrition. Throughout the residency students will record and analyze their own dreams to identify moments of joy, stress, or imagination. Under Hannah's guidance, students will develop their findings into a shareable creative expression, (poem, drawing, music, etc.) contributing to a Dream Gallery. At the culmination, Hannah will encourage students to use their experience to positively dream in their waking life and imagine how exciting and possible their futures are!