IACAET Arts & Health Series

Global Webinar

Perspectives of Arts in Health as a Discipline – Dialogue with World Leaders: History, Frontier, and Future

Date: Saturday, November 1, 2025

Time: 9AM EST (New York), 2PM CET (Amsterdam), 9PM China

Online (Zoom)

To easily convert the time to your local time zone, please use this World Time Buddy tool.

**This event will be recorded. Registrants will receive the recording link via email after the live session.**

Overview

This global webinar, part of the IACAET Arts & Health Series, brings together leading voices from around the world to reflect on Arts in Health as a rapidly growing and evolving field. We will explore its history, current frontiers, and emerging futures examining how this discipline has developed across different regions, cultures, and contexts.

The session will feature presentations from internationally recognized leaders, followed by an interactive panel discussion and open dialogue among professionals from diverse disciplines, including healthcare, therapy, education, community development, and the arts. Participants will have the opportunity to engage directly with panelists and fellow attendees in this unique cross-sector, cross-cultural exchange.

Objectives

• To trace the historical development of Arts in Health as a discipline across regions and cultures.
• To examine the current state and frontier of practice, policy, and research in the field.
• To explore emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities for the next decade.
• To foster cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural dialogue among global leaders and practitioners.

Agenda

• Opening & Welcome – Tony Zhou, Vivien Speiser
• Individual Presentations – Short insights from each invited leader (10 minutes each).
• Panel Discussion – Moderated conversation among all speakers, highlighting commonalities, differences, and synergies across regions.
• Open Dialogue – Audience questions and reflections.
• Closing Remarks – Summary of key takeaways and next steps for the IACAET Arts & Health Series.

Invited Speakers

• Jill Sonke – University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine (USA)
• Susan Magsamen – International Arts + Mind Lab, Johns Hopkins University (USA)
• Vivien Speiser – Lesley University (USA)
• David Leventhal – Dance for PD® (USA)
• Nsamu Moonga – Arts and Development Practitioner (Zambia)
• Naj Wikoff – Arts and Health Advocate, Consultant (USA)
• Tony Zhou – Inspirees Institute / IACAET (Netherlands/China)

Target Audience

This webinar is designed for professionals, educators, practitioners, and researchers working at the intersection of arts, health, and well-being — including creative arts therapists, medical professionals, community arts workers, policy makers, and students interested in the field.

Registration

https://inspirees.glueup.com/event/perspectives-of-arts-in-health-as-a-discipline-158403/

About the Series

The IACAET Arts & Health Global Series offers a platform for dialogue among global leaders in the arts, health, and education fields. Each webinar fosters cross-cultural exchange, bridges research and practice, and explores the integration of arts into health and well-being worldwide.

Speakers’ bio and short intro of each presentation

Vivien Speiser

Vivien Speiser is the Co-Director and Professor Emerita of the Institute for Arts and Health in The Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University. She is also a Distinguished Research Associate in the Drama for Life Program at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is a licensed mental health counselor, a dance therapist and an expressive arts therapist and educator. Her work has allowed her unparalleled access to working with groups across the United States, Israel and internationally. Prof Speiser is a recipient of 3 Fulbright Senior Scholar awards as well as several lifetime achievement awards from international professional associations.

Jill Sonke

 Jill Sonke, PhD, is currently serving as a US Cultural Policy Fellow with Stanford University. She is also Co-director of the EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab at UF in partnership with University College London, and Director of Research Initiatives and a Research Professor in the UF Center for Arts in Medicine. 

Dr. Sonke served during the pandemic as a senior advisor to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Vaccine Confidence and Demand Team on the COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence Task Force, and served from 2021-2025 as Director of National Research and Impact for the One Nation/One Project initiative. She currently serves on the steering committee and as an Affiliated Researcher in the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, established by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Steinhardt School at New York University, Community Jameel, and CULTURUNNERS, and as an editorial board member for Health Promotion Practice journal.

With 30+ years of leadership in the field of arts in health and a PhD in arts in public health from Ulster University in Northern Ireland, Jill is active in research and policy advocacy nationally and internationally. She is a dancer, amateur musician, and a methods researcher with over 100 publications. She is the recipient of a New Forms Florida Fellowship Award, a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship Award, a NISOD Excellence in Teaching Award, a UF Internationalizing the Curriculum Award, a UF Most Outstanding Service Learning Faculty Award, a UF Public Health Champions award, a UF Cross-Campus Faculty Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and over 350 grants for her programs and research.

Susan Magsamen

Susan Magsamen is the founder and executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab), Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her work explores how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the brain, body, and behavior, and how these insights can inform health, wellbeing, and learning programs in medicine, public health, and education.

A successful entrepreneur, she founded award-winning arts education companies—Curiosity Kits and Curiosityville, which have earned over 600 innovation and impact awards. She is also the author of seven books on the arts for children, families, and educators.

Magsamen developed Impact Thinking, a translational research model that applies scientific methods to arts and aesthetics to scale, disseminate, and evaluate real-world applications. She co-directs the NeuroArts Blueprint project, a joint initiative with the Aspen Institute to establish neuroarts as a field integrating arts and aesthetics into medicine and public health.

Susan Magsamen will discuss the emerging framework for the field of neuroarts and explore its implications for shaping a robust research agenda and foundational infrastructure, both academic and community-based, to guide practice, influence policy, and advance sustainability across systems and sectors

Naj Wikoff, Past Vice President, NOAH

Founder and President of the Creative Healing Connections, President Emeritus of the Society for Arts in Healthcare. Past Vice President, NOAH (National Organization of Arts in Health, USA), two-time Fulbright Senior Scholar, past president of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, former director of the Healing Arts program of the C. Everett Koop Institute at the Dartmouth Medical School, and director of Arts and Productions at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Naj is a founding member of the National Initiative for the Arts in Health in the Military and Lesley University’s Institute for Arts and Health. Twenty years ago, he established Creative Healing Connections, which uses the arts and nature to support the healing of women living with cancer, military spouses, and active duty and veteran service women living with PTSD and Military Sexual Trauma. Naj regularly consults on arts and health, healing spaces, and arts and trauma issues to health and arts institutions, and has worked with victims of terror and war in Palestine and Israel. In addition, for the past six years as arts coordinator for Connecting Youth and Community, Naj has been using the arts to reduce the use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs by teens.

Nsamu Moonga, PhD, MMT

Nsamu Moonga is a Zambian arts therapist, researcher, and educator whose work connects Indigenous African healing traditions with modern therapeutic practices. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Pretoria, holding degrees in music therapy and psychological counselling from the University of Pretoria and the University of South Africa. Nsamu is a founding member of the Naha Centre for the Arts, a Lusaka-based organisation offering culturally responsive arts-based interventions. His recent publication in the South African Journal of Arts Therapies examines psycho-spiritual cultural dispositions and their therapeutic potential. He is a key contributor to developing a new creative art in health, therapy and education training programme at Open Window University, and his research at the Cancer Diseases Hospital in Lusaka explores the use of Indigenous Musical Arts in psycho-oncology. His practice is rooted in holistic, anti-oppressive approaches and aims to promote epistemic freedom through clinical, academic, and community-based initiatives.

In this global dialogue on the evolving discipline of Arts in Health, I will share insights from my recent publication in the South African Journal of Arts Therapies, titled “Integrating Arts Therapies in Zambia: A Reflection on Psycho-Spiritual Cultural Dispositions and their Potential for Healing.” Drawing from ethnographic research on masabe among the BaTonga, I will explore how Indigenous healing practices inform culturally grounded therapeutic frameworks. My presentation will connect these findings to the development of a new arts therapy training programme at Open Window University in Lusaka, designed to cultivate practitioners rooted in relational, ecological, and culturally responsive approaches. I will also reflect on our emerging work with the Naha Centre for the Arts, a community-based initiative fostering expressive arts for healing, and my ongoing research at the Cancer Diseases Hospital in Lusaka, where Indigenous Musical Arts are being explored as psycho-oncological interventions.

David Leventhal, Program Director, Dance for PD, Mark Morris Dance Group

David Leventhal is a dancer, teaching artist, and nonprofit leader whose career highlights the transformative power of dance across communities. As founding teacher and Program Director of the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dance for PD® program, he has helped build a global network of classes now active in more than 500 communities across 30 countries. He trains teaching artists worldwide, leads classes for people with Parkinson’s, and co-produced five acclaimed, accessible At Home instructional video volumes. Widely recognized in the field of Dance for Health, he has received the Alan Bonander Humanitarian Award, the Martha Hill Mid-Career Artist Award, the IADMS Pioneer Dance Educator Award, and the 2016 WPC Award for Distinguished Contribution. He contributes actively to research, teaching, and thought leadership, serves on multiple nonprofit boards, and was a featured performer with the Mark Morris Dance Group for nearly 15 years, earning a 2010 Bessie Award. 

At its core, Arts in Health must remain profoundly artistic—because it is the artistic approach that makes experiences meaningful for the communities who engage in them. In this presentation, David will explore how collaboration across disciplines allows experts in medicine, public health, community engagement, and the arts to converge around shared ideas, forge a common vocabulary, and spark innovation. Equally vital is the ability to diverge—returning to the depth of one’s own field—to bring rigor and insight back into collective work. This dynamic ebb and flow between transdisciplinary exchange and deep disciplinary focus ultimately ensures that the communities we serve receive experiences that are not only effective, but also truly artistic, resonant, and transformative.