Workshops

accompanying Dues

THE WORKSHOPS PROVIDE GREATER UNDERSTANDING, KNOWLEDGE, ACTION, DEEPER DISCUSSIONS AND REFLECTIONS.

 

 

Workshops accompanying Dues

Workshop 1: Writing Love Letters
Explore the power of love with our first workshop, inspired by bell hooks’ ‘love ethics.’ Bell hooks highlights six key ingredients of love: care, commitment, trust, knowledge, respect, and responsibility, and connects these to working towards inclusion. After experiencing the Dues performance and hearing Crystal Hassell’s love letter, you’ll get the chance to write your own love letter in a supportive and creative environment.

Workshop 2: From Love Letter to Action
Ready to take your love letter to the next level? In this interactive workshop, we’ll help you turn your words into action. Discover how small and big acts can make a difference and start implementing change in your daily life.om je liefdesbrief naar een hoger niveau te tillen?

Workshop 3: Actions and ambitions
In our final interactive workshop, we’ll reflect on the actions you’ve taken and evaluate their impact. We’ll also focus on setting goals for the future. Join us to keep the momentum going and stay inspired!

PRACTICAL INFORMATION:

Each workshop lasts two hours and the workshops are spread over different days.

The entire program lasts six hours in total.

The workshops take place after the lecture performance in a spacious room equipped with a beamer.

The three workshops form a complete series, but you can also choose to acquire only the first workshop.

What other people say about Dues:  

Dues is a vulnerable, raw, confrontational, but also loving theatre experience that does not let you go. With raw honesty, she shares her daily experiences of racism, which causes deep reflection in me as a viewer. Crystal asks striking questions about privilege and inclusion that force you to move beyond comfortable conversations and critically examine your own role in this dialogue. Dues provokes thought and remains resonant for a long time.

 

In the workshop series that followed the lecture performance, Crystal Hassell offered our students and staff a unique opportunity to engage with the impressions of the theatre performance. She invited participants to write a personal love letter-a powerful way to explore their feelings and thoughts around inclusion and privilege. These interactive sessions, spread over three meetings, led the group from writing a love letter to turning words into concrete actions. The concluding reflection session provided space to share insights and anchor the impact of the performance more deeply. These workshops were felt to be extremely valuable and gave us the opportunity to further spread the message of Dues within our community.” 

Lia Kleuskens

Policy officer Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Radboud University

“Halfway through the performance, Crystal asks the almost entirely white audience: “Do you think this isn’t scary for me?” and you realize once again that you have taken yourself as the starting point. Crystal presses where it hurts, generously shares her knowledge, and openly shows how society is not inclusive and how that personally affects her. Guaranteed food for thought.

Marcel Bolech

Social worker, Stichting GOUD

“I have great admiration for this art form, the lecture performance by Crystal Hassell. It was personal, humorous, and sometimes a bit uncomfortable for me as a ‘highly educated young white woman’. Just the right amount of friction to go home with constructive food for thought.”

Vita Verwaaijen

Project Coordinator in the Climate Sector

“I was rendered speechless, is I think, the best description of what Crystal Hassell’s lecture performance Dues did to me. The succession of detailed situations that a person of color (in the cultural sector) is confronted with daily washed over me. Vivid and to-the-point.”

Pauline van Tuyll

Filmmaker

“With Dues Crystal Hassell creates a compelling follow-up to Only Well Meaning People. Harsh experiences are interspersed with a loving outreach to the other, theory and anecdotes alternate. Crystal presents herself vulnerably and courageously in this new lecture performance. She makes the audience reflect on their own work practices and, most importantly, on their individual roles and responsibilities within them. Highly recommended!” 

Noortje Kessels

Programmer at Wintertuin and chaplain in training

“For me (woman of color), Dues was all about recognition. It is so special and powerful how Crystal can articulate these sensitive experiences and combine them with scientific backgrounds. This helps me to better express the things I experience and go through. I am very happy and grateful to have met Crystal!” 

Angie Leysner

Volunteer

“Just like Only Well Meaning People, Dues  is a beautiful, candid, personal, serious but also funny and balanced monologue. I wish I had brought my notebook to write down the three or four pieces of wisdom that punctuated the performance, so I could reread them often. Now, the only thing to do is to see Dues again. And I know a few unconsciously privileged people I’d like to take with me.” 

Joël Labadie

Copywriter/editor

Dues is a powerful lecture performance about the price people of color pay in their interactions with white people. Seemingly calm, Crystal shares accessible and, at first glance, everyday personal experiences. As a white listener, you quickly realize that the experiences Crystal describes are not about you. At least, not experiencing them – but perhaps contributing to them. This makes the performance confronting and uncomfortable, and so incredibly important to see. Dues prompts reflection on how we, as white people, interact with others, what we (think we) achieve with this, and the actual effects of our behavior on the recipients on the other side.” 

Vera & Machteld Nuiver

Project Leader for Inclusion and Trainer in White Privilege

“In a sharp, personal, and loving manner, Crystal dissects the contemporary diversity and racism debate in Dues: from microaggressions to hypocritical allies – no topic is left unexamined. When you leave the room, you can’t help but take action and actively engage with this issue: silence and looking away are no longer options.” 

Linda Kokke

Employee Fundraising & Innovation, D.N.O.

“In Dues Crystal takes the audience through her experiences with everyday racism. The tone is both critical and vulnerable. The lecture performance is confronting but not paralyzing. On the contrary, the numerous examples in Dues encourage you to do better next time.” 

Felice Tauer

Art Therapist

“The wonderful DEI lecture performance by Crystal Hassell is realistic, abrasive, and confronting. With humor, she takes you through the various facets of Inclusion and Diversity that you encounter in the workplace but also in the private sphere. Highly recommended to see because you leave with food for thought.” 

Marichelle Romney

Program Advisor for Vitality, Inclusion & Diversity, Municipality of Amsterdam

“Raw and direct, Dues continues where Only Well Meaning People left off. Crystal took me through a series of situations again, the most painful aspect of which might be that they are drawn from her life. Recognizable for some, confronting for others. And with an outstretched hand to everyone: this is not okay, and you can do something about it. An impressive performance that touched and deeply moved me.”

Gert Bosgra

Educational Designer, Studio 20

“Crystal’s lecture performance Dues is a compelling, thought-provoking, and disarming reflection and analysis of various forms of privileges; crude and subtle, structural and everyday.

Using her own experiences as a starting point and her academic background, she takes you to the invisible power and influence of privileges and the urgent need for change in equality and inclusion. She presents herself vulnerably and uses humor, but at the same time, she remains strong and determined, challenging you firmly to reflect on your own behavior, thought patterns, and privileges.

Much respect for her passion and work.”

Nikos Batsois

English Teacher

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