Catalyze Change
PENUMBRA EQUITY PROGRAMS
About Penumbra
Honoring the emotional, physical, and spiritual power of Black cultural expression to advance racial healing.
The Penumbra Center for Racial Healing is a dynamic performing arts, wellness retreat, and learning center. We nurture ethical expressions of the human spirit to inspire creativity, enact justice, and build more compassionate communities.
Our Equity Training Work
Penumbra has been on the leading edge of innovative and transformative solutions for equity work for over twenty years. We offer a holistic, integrated approach to racial healing that supports discovery, belonging, and reciprocity, while offering practical tools to support organizational and communal wellbeing.
What Makes Our Work Different?
Penumbra’s equity work springs from theatre practices that traverse the psychology of human behavior.
Our trauma-informed trainers are constantly learning so that we can stay at the forefront of equity efforts. We use our expertise in theatre to create spaces where nuance and complexity can emerge, while still holding our collective focus on healing. Penumbra’s embodied process sparks empathy through the power of personal testimony and story facilitated by seasoned artists. Our unique cultural grounding as a Black institution means that we center race as our primary lens, bringing deep historical and contemporary analysis to our equity work. Our signature curriculum helps clients explore the social, psychological, and physical consequences of various forms of racism, while custom wellness modalities help learners feel resilient at their growth-edge.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
The entire discussion gave me so much to think about. It was personal and moving and encouraged selfexamination in a productive way.”
Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash
Why Train with Us?
Penumbra means partial shadow. It is a phenomenon that happens when an astrological body casts a shadow during a partial eclipse.
Our name urges us to explore both the shadow and the light. Penumbra has the experience and expertise to facilitate courageous conversations while also offering clients hopeful, practical, and tactical solutions.
Penumbra Center for Racial Healing • EQUITY PROGRAMS
Map Your Healing Journey
Racial Healing
Penumbra is the only organization licensed to train clients in The 4A’s Equity Framework™ developed by Penumbra’s president, Sarah Bellamy, to make the work of racial healing clear, practical, and possible.
Our team of artists, equity leaders, and wellness experts guide participants through racial healing work in an integrated, holistic way that will benefit not just our clients’ lives, but the lives of those around them, too. This workshop covers:
The 4A’s Equity Framework™, a process to build confidence, competence, and dexterity in racial equity and racial healing work
• A primer on how racial trauma affects the body, mind, and spirit, as well as methods to restore and repair
Trauma informed practices that can empower individuals and organizations to begin or advance their racial healing
The Psychology of Race
Race is complicated.
While race is a social construct without biological meaning, racism has made the experience of race very real. This training invites participants to explore the complexity of race and how humans have found both profound belonging and encountered extreme terror due to how race is made real in society. This workshop covers:
• Connection through racial identity
• Racism, trauma, and effects on mental and physical well-being
• Trauma informed practices that can increase psychological safety
Powerful storytelling and expert facilitation
Belonging
Belonging is a fundamental human need and lifelong work.
As social creatures, human beings are biologically driven to create groups held together through attachment and identity. While this creates a sense of security for some, others may experience ostracization, prejudice, even exile. This training invites participants to contemplate how we can learn to belong to ourselves first, creating spaciousness and energy to help others belong, too. This workshop covers:
• The biological importance of belonging; primal and contemporary practices of reciprocity
• Connection through identity; empathy, and the construction of in-groups and out-groups
• Trauma informed practices that can increase belonging
Powerful storytelling and expert facilitation
Allyship
Penumbra’s practice of allyship is rooted in compassion.
True compassion urges us toward action when others are suffering. It is an orientation, a frame of mind that influences behaviors, rather than a series of finite actions. This training focuses on strategies to support besieged communities and vulnerable individuals by deepening our historical analysis and leveraging our privilege to interrupt oppression. Everyone can be an ally for someone else. This workshop covers:
• Identity and social location work
Understanding privilege and strategies to leverage it for social impact
Trauma informed practices that can increase resiliency and regulation
• Powerful storytelling and expert facilitation
Each Module Includes:
• Compassionate, inclusive facilitation
• Wellness modalities designed to increase regulation and resiliency
Artistic offerings and practices that open creative channels
• Tools and techniques that are adaptable to a wide variety of equity concerns
Penumbra Center for Racial Healing • EQUITY PROGRAMS
Clients
Every year Penumbra trains a diverse array of organizations from nonprofits to corporations, from K-12 schools to faith communities. Clients include:
Nonprofits
Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity
HealthPartners
New Jersey Child Support
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid
National Juvenile Defender Center
Indiana Repertory Theatre
Build Initiative
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
Schools and Universities
University of Minnesota School of Medicine
Saint Paul Public Schools
St. Olaf College
Carleton College
University of Wisconsin –Stout
Indiana University –Bloomington
St. Paul Academy and Summit School
Perpich Center for Arts
Education
Business and Corporations 3M
Best Buy
Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Minnesota Association of Realtors
Minnesota Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company
Target Brandlab
Meet Minneapolis Convention & Visitors Association
Government
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development
Carver County
Minnesota Department of Human Services
Minnesota Department of Health
Minnesota Department of Commerce
Hennepin County
MN Prairie County Alliance
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Our work with Penumbra has made a substantial impact on the diversity and inclusion initiatives at our school, moving us further along the continuum of understanding and respect among the many different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of everyone in our community.”
Book Your Training
For more information, or to book an equity training workshop, visit us online at penumbratheatre.org/equity or contact us at:
Phone: 651.224.3180
Email: equity@penumbratheatre.org
Web: penumbratheatre.org/equity
