Artist Statement
My artistry defies genre in a chaotic blend of poetry, clowning, comedy, theatricality and history. I create worlds of transformation, spaces of truth-telling necessary to reconnect one another back to our curiosity which is an integral ingredient of healing and compassion. A jester of the revolution I recognize laughter opens our bodies to receive and community is a natural balm in the soft and delicate exploration of our expansive lives – in all our pain, possibility, shame and hope.
Bio
Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez (they/she/he/we/us) is a multidisciplinary performance-based artist, organizer, trauma informed facilitator and non-profit whiz. They’ve spent a decade working throughout the Philly region with companies such as Die-Cast, the Wilma Theatre, Delaware Shakespeare, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Theatre Exile, Power Street Theatre and Simpatico Theatre. Their poetry has been published in the Philadelphia Inquirer (2023), Routledge (2024), and Toho Journal (RIP, 2020). They currently spend their day as the Operations Associate for Spiral Q who uses the power of art to connect people, neighborhoods, and movements to their collective creative force for change.
Rachel was one of 2 BIPOC students in both her graduating classes – at Rowan University where they received a Bachelor of Arts, and again at Villanova University where they received an MA in theater and a certification in Non-Profit Management
as a Presidential Fellow.
A storyteller in search of healing, Rachel’s creative and teaching work is drawn from trauma informed care, transformative healing justice, decolonization and abolition. Rachel’s work spans lineages (check out their roots page here) and their brain connects concepts across time and space – thanks to C-PTSD (check out more about complex post-traumatic stress disorder here)
Rachel’s love for story began early in life when long hours at the high school theater proved an escape from a reality of poverty, parental illness, and displacement. The communal nature of theater provided a nourishing safety net and proved how significantly we need one another to survive. Story and community continue to be integral to Rachel’s work.
Whether facilitating a collaborative art project, administratively tending to a non-profit or hustling their performance wares around town - Rachel moves with a sense of radical care for the collective eco-system surrounding any project.
Rachel wields story as a tool to make sense of the cruelty of circumstance - like our ancestors did for centuries around fires. Reflective art-making practices give space to process the way life shatters and re-molds itself around wounds. The act of performance becomes one of gift giving when theater becomes a practice ground for nurturing self and one another.
Get in touch with Rachel to build collaborative poetry, strategize creative next steps, or to facilitate your community projects!
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