Reimagine Failure: Breathe, Belong, Believe | Laura Biagi | TEDxDePaulUniversity

After traveling the world, studying yoga and diving into academia to find more meaning in life, Laura Biagi found fulfillment by searching within herself. She takes us on her path to discovery and gives tools we can use in our own times of distress in her talk: “Reimagine Failure: Breathe, Belong, Believe.” Biagi is a multicultural consultant, speaker and performer. She earned her master’s degree and doctorate from the Department of Performance Studies at New York University and conducted her dissertation on Southern Italian healing rituals. Biagi has lectured and consulted with prestigious educational institutions in the United States, including: New York University, Vassar College, DePaul University, School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Howard University, and Xavier University of Louisiana. She also has she designed and taught courses on “storytelling as a healing art” at Cook County Jail in Chicago, in collaboration with DePaul University and the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program. Her hybrid solo performances â€" part storytelling, sound healing, and meditation â€" have been showcased around the world in festivals and conferences including Collaboration’s Peacebook Festival at the Goodman Theatre and Chicago Ideas Week. Biagi is a performance artist, educator and yoga teacher working in the fields of performance and theatre studies, contemplative pedagogy, and inclusive leadership. Biagi is a visiting multicultural faculty member at The Theatre School at DePaul where she teaches theories of directing, yoga of the voice, movement as a healing art, and a course on storytelling at Cook County Jail. Biagi also develops student plays that focus on identity, diversity and belonging, including: “Be/Longing” in 2016 and “Bee’s Knees” in 2017. Her solo piece, “The High Priestess,” was showcased as part of Collaboration’s 2017 Peacebook Festival at the Goodman Theatre and at Chicago Ideas Week in the summer and fall of 2017. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx