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Deanna Anderson & Peter Giordano
Deanna Anderson is a movement therapist, dancer, and actor. She brings a depth of awareness, knowledge, and sensitivity to teaching movement and dance acquired over 30 years of study and practice. She is a Registered Movement Therapist/ Educator, holds a degree in Dance, and is a Certified Action Theater Coach. Deanna teaches Healthy Movement, Dance, Voice, Improvisational Theater, and Yoga at Stanford University and has a private practice in Movement Therapy. She facilitates therapeutic and expressive movement for women with cancer.
Peter Giordano is a musician and the founder and director of Story Teller Project, an arts and education non-profit organization beginning its 9th year. Currently he is the Creative Arts Director at the Reikes Center for Human Enhancement in Menlo Park, California. He delivers arts and education programming to Pace Center for Autism, and to alternative schools and incarcerated youth in Alameda and Monterey Counties. Peter also offers healing arts programming focused on humanizing medical treatment environments and processes, infusing the healing process with the intrinsic power of creativity, and building community.
They will present: The Language of Rhythm ~ The Rhythms of LifeTM
Deanna and Peter will collaborate with the audience to explore the rhythms in our bodies and in the our world. With our voices, hands and feet, we will experience the joyful, powerful, essential and healing qualities of rhythm. From the cycles of our breath and the waves of the sea, to the chants of cultures and communities, we will share a brief celebration of the rhythm of life.
David B. Feldman, PhD, is an assistant professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Kansas and completed a fellowship in palliative care with the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, California. His passion is to help victims of trauma and potentially life-threatening medical illness experience growth and embrace life, despite significant adversity. He has worked with patients and families coping with cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s dementia, spinal cord injury, and countless other serious medical conditions. His research and writings have addressed such topics as hope, meaning, and growth in the face of negative events. His book, The End-of-Life Handbook: A Compassionate Guide to Connecting with and Caring for a Dying Loved One, was written for families facing the serious illness of a loved one. www.endoflifehandbook.com
He will present: The Power of Hope — For millennia, hope has been considered an important psychological and spiritual asset. Dr. Feldman will discuss the meaning of hope, its relevance for the lives of cancer survivors, and how it can be nurtured.
Sue Glader is an award-winning freelance copywriter for companies such as Levi Strauss, HP, General Electric, Marriott Hotels, and The Economist. But that’s not why she’s here. A breast cancer diagnosis in 1999 with a young child at home compelled her to Live Life. This included traveling for a year with a toddler, throwing herself into her son’s educational life, and finally, while in rehab for chronic volunteerism, self-publishing Nowhere Hair, a children’s book that uses a hip and beautiful bald mama to explain cancer to little kids. www.NowhereHair.com
She will present her Healing Story: Sunshine and Rain
Suzanne Grace had a distinguished 20+ year career in the performing arts as a professional dancer, choreographer, teacher and artistic director of her own dance company, based in St. Louis, MO. Since moving to California 1997, she has devoted her talents to the healing arts of yoga, Pilates, bodywork, and creative dance flow. She was a massage therapist at the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic in Oakland and led an inspiring monthly yoga circle for cancer patients at the Yoga Studio in Marin County. Suzanne has produced six Yoga and Pilates DVD’s and travels the world sharing her passion for the healing wisdom of the body. She resides in the Sierra foothills near Auburn, CA. www.graceyoga.com
She will present: The Heart of the World — Choreographed and danced by Suzanne Grace, music by Linda Webb-Khakaba.
Sista Monica Parker is an award-winning blues and gospel singer/songwriter and musical minister. As a Soul Survivor, she captivates with her remarkable story and songs of hope, faith and love. In 2003, she survived a rare cancer, Synovial Sarcoma, under her right arm. Now, she is thriving! Her life altering experience has given new power and freedom to her lyrics. Monica offers an experience of blues and gospel as healing music. Her 9th CD, Soul, Blues and Ballads, earned her a 2010 nomination as the “Best Soul Blues Female Artist of the Year” by the National Blues Foundation (“Grammy” of the Blues world). She produced her 10th CD, Singin’ In The Spirit, and released it in April 2010. It features Linda Tillery, Bishop Yvette Flunder, Deanna Bogart and Sista Monica & her Gospel Choir. www.sistamonica.com
Monica will close the conference with her inspirational stories and her 30-voice Gospel Choir, giving people a chance to sing, using their “secret weapon of happiness.” This music is truly the language of the spirit and will send people home uplifted and experiencing the natural harmony that lies within us.
Terry Reed, RN, MS, BC-HN, is a board certified Holistic Nurse specializing in stress management and Integrative Imagery. She has been the co-founder, co-director and faculty of Beyond Ordinary Nursing and the Certificate Program in Imagery since 1996. She has had a private practice in San Mateo, CA for the past 20 years, extensively assisting cancer patients in their unique healing process using imagery and energy-based therapies. In addition, Terry has recently co-authored the book Guided Imagery and Beyond: Stories of Healing and Transformation, stemming from a deep desire to share the powerful gift of imagery with the world. www.integrativeimagery.com
She will present: Guided Imagery — The Why, the How, and the Experience
Dean Shrock, PhD, served as Director Of Mind-Body Medicine for a physicians’ management group of 40 cancer centers. There he developed and researched a wellness program, which he taught to thousands of cancer patients and their families. His book, Doctor’s Orders: Go Fishing, details this program and the insights he gained while teaching it. Dr. Shrock found that quantum physics determined that there is quantum field (electromagnetic energy) that underlies and connects all of physical reality. This all-pervasive energy is one of complete harmony. It is a force of compassion and concern for all of life. Physicists have concluded that the ultimate nature of the universe is an energy of love! This is the subject of his bestselling book, Why Love Heals. www.deanshrock.com
He will present: Why Love Heals
Dr. Shrock will tell us how to achieve this sense of self-love. After more than 30 years of study and experience, he tells us how to stimulate the natural harmony that lies within us, where well-being is the outcome.
Congresswoman Jackie Speier, (pronounced SPEAR), is a life-long resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. She represents California’s 12th District, which covers the southwest quarter of San Francisco and most of the adjacent San Mateo County. She was first elected in April, 2008, after serving 18 years in the California State Legislature. There she authored over 300 bills signed into law by Republican and Democratic governors. She is one of four authors of This Is Not the Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down, a collaborative non-fiction inspirational self-help book published in 2007. http://speier.house.gov
She will present her Healing Story: This is Not the Life I Ordered
David Spiegel, MD, is Willson Professor in the School of Medicine, Associate Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Center on Stress and Health, and Medical Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he has been a member of the academic faculty since 1975. He has published ten books, 352 scientific journal articles, and 149 book chapters. His research on cancer patients was featured in Bill Moyers’ Emmy award winning PBS series, Healing and the Mind and on The Jane Pauley Show and Good Morning America.
He will present Dealing with Feeling: The Prison of Positive Thinking
Research shows that the paths to happiness in the face of serious medical illness include:
- building new networks of social support;
- encouraging the expression of the full range of emotion related to the stress of illness;
- detoxifying fears of dying and death;
- restructuring life priorities;
- improving relationships with family and friends;
- and clarifying communication.
Maestro Urs Leonhardt Steiner &
Urs Leonhardt Steiner is internationally renowned as a conductor, composer and educator. He is the director and founder of the San Francisco Sinfonietta Orchestra and Chorus. Born in Chur, Switzerland, he is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and his work can been seen throughout the United States, Central America, and Europe. www.sfsinfonietta.org
Kate Stilley Steiner is a documentary film editor and co-founder of Citizen Film, an independent film company based in San Francisco. Her films have been featured on prominent venues throughout the United States, including the major television networks PBS, ABC, Fox TV, The Learning Channel, and both national and international film-festivals. www.citizenfilm.org
Together, the duo make up Love-Life; the acapella singing experience that invites participants to touch the inside-side of themselves; the side that can feel fully and completely alive — all in just one note.
Their presentation:
The human voice is the most personal, and natural of all the musical instruments known to man. We use it to speak, to laugh, to cry, to scream. Maestro Steiner calls the human voice “our secret weapon of happiness,” and together, he and his wife Kate Stilley Steiner will hand us the key to unlock our very own hidden ammunition; inviting us to experience pure happiness by making singing a part of our life — every day.
Jonna Tamases is an actress and 3-time cancer survivor (Hodgkin’s Disease, Large-Cell Lymphoma, Breast Cancer). She has turned her experience into a highly acclaimed one-woman show, Jonna’s Body, Please Hold. The show has gotten rave reviews and was nominated for two Ovation Awards: Best World Premiere Play and Best Lead Actress. The recently released movie version has won 6 national film festival awards, including Audience Award for Best Comedy Short (Asheville Film Fest.), Best Short Comedy and Best in Show (MAGA Film Fest.), and Best Actress (2009 Show of Your Shorts Fest.). For more information visit http://www.jonnasbody.com and www.jonnasbodymovie.com.
She will present: Jonna’s Body, Please Hold
Enter the nutty world inside Jonna’s Body, where life’s daily chaos is corralled by Pearl — Jonna’s loyal and sassy internal receptionist — as she fields calls from a parade of off-beat body parts: Baby Toe trapped in a tight pump; Sgt. Coif leading a head full of unruly troops; Uta and Ula begging to be released from their brassiere imprisonment! When two nasty killers invade, it’s a fight for Jonna’s life. This moving and hilarious one-woman play takes us on a wild ride into the realm of health, illness, joy and the beauty of life.
Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, is Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. He has authored three best-selling books, Cutting for Stone, a novel, and two non-fiction books, My Own Country and The Tennis Partner. As a resident, and later assistant professor of medicine, in Johnson City, Tennessee, he worked with terminal patients. The insights he gained from the deep relationships he formed and the suffering he saw were intensely transformative. These experiences were the foundation for his evolving role in the medical humanities. He was the founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Today, in work and writing, he emphasizes bedside medicine, valuing the personal touch and attentiveness to patients and families, a vital key in the healing process. www.abrahamverghese.com
He will present: The Patient, the iPatient and Healing versus Curing
In an era of huge advances and possibilities in medical care and treatment, paradoxically, patients are often less than satisfied by the way health care is delivered, by the brevity of the physician-patient interaction, and by the many different physicians involved and by what seems like an over-reliance on costly technology. The dichotomy between the patient and the virtual reconstruction of the patient in the computer is a telling one. There is also a telling distinction between healing and curing, a distinction often arrived at by the patient before the physician.
Jeanne Wallace, PhD, CNC, is an authority in integrative cancer care, educating cancer patients and their health-care providers about evidence-based dietary, nutritional and botanical support to complement conventional oncology care. After earning her PhD in Nutrition in 1998, Dr. Wallace pioneered a multi-modal approach using nutrition to target multiple aspects of cancer physiopathology. She specializes in primary malignant brain tumors and also has extensive experience working with other cancers. She is the author of numerous articles, has lectured widely on cancer and nutrition, and serves as a consultant to many oncologists and cancer centers across the U.S. and abroad. She is Board Certified in Holistic Nutrition, and is a member of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals and the Society of Integrative Oncology. www.nutritional-solutions.net
She will present: Expanding the Model of Cancer Treatment: How Diet and Nutrition Can Help Control Cancer
- diet strategies that strengthen the body’s resistance to cancer, complement medical care, and bolster recovery after treatment;
- specific foods that can significantly boost the body’s innate ability to resist cancer;
- which foods are most important to avoid (and explore healthy substitutes);
- how some foods (and spices) can alter gene expression, turning off cancer-promoting signals in the body.