In this talk and interactive workshop, Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, also known as Dr. Giggles among her laughter yoga students, will share her experiences as an artist-scholar and educator who teaches performative healing modalities as tools for resilience.

She will also discuss her personal experiences with grief and trauma, and the ways that laughter yoga has supported her while working as an educator, which is a profession that is highly conducive to burnout. Drawing on concepts and methods from the classes she has designed, she will lead participants in interactive and community building activities that incorporate other healing and creative practices like qigong and theater games.

The integration of the arts, wellbeing, and an awareness of diversity and inclusion, is at the center of her work in higher education. She looks forward to expanding this work out into the world, such as with the participants at the Canadian Laughter Adventures conference. She has been teaching laughter yoga and other performative healing modalities at Stanford since 2017. Her goal as an educator is to help people reconnect to their bodies and to their capacity for joy, even during life’s most challenging moments.