Month of Rest 2025
Meet the Participants
Azaadi Khan (they/she/he) is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) based in Brooklyn, New York, motivated by the idea that the changes we make within ourselves and our most intimate relationships can have a lasting impact on the world and that systemic problems require systemic solutions.
Azaadi is a queer, trans-nonbinary immigrant and practicing Muslim who brings their expertise on working with survivors of gender-based and racialized violence, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ folks, South Asians, Muslims, and the kink/BDSM community. They specialize in providing trauma-informed care for mental health services through individual and group therapy and consulting. Azaadi received their Masters of Science in Social Work with a focus on Integrated Clinical Practice and Program Management from Columbia University, and has worked with a variety of social service organizations around the world including Janaagraha Bangalore, MOD Institute Berlin, New Sanctuary Coalition in NYC, the Ali Forney Center, Sakhi for South Asian Women, Hidayah in the UK and US, and The LGBTQ+ Center in NYC. Learn more at www.azaadikhan.com
Noelle Ghoussaini (she/her) creates performance, ritual and sacred gathering with and for community. Each embodied experience aims to nurture freedom in the very fabric of our being; cultivating connection with our inherent belonging to the world around and within us.
Noelle’s work lives at public parks, in theatres, schools, detention centers and at community gatherings, from Turtle Island / US to Palestine. Grounded in the mysticism, histories, land and migrations of her ancestral lineages in Lebanon and beyond, her visions thread together artistic and sacred spaces of homecoming. She is dedicated to collective liberation & decolonial creative practice - nurturing the radical creative intuition that lives within each of us! www.noelleghoussaini.com
Diana Oh (aka Zaza) (they/them) is a Singer-Songwriter, Musician, Actor, Writer, DJ, and Multihyphenate Creator of live performance, installation, concert, documentary film, party and new mediums. Oh is the Creator of {my lingerie play}, The Infinite Love Party, The Gift Project, CLAIRVOYANCE, The Dope North Star Workshop, and ART CHXRCH: a binaural beat brain massage dance party you can crawl to. Oh is somatically trained, trauma-informed, and soul liberation is at the very core of their calling. www.dianaoh.org
This May is PlayCo’s Month of Rest, a month-long celebration of anti-programming, events that prioritize relaxation, nourishment, regrowth, and self-care as a salve to reduce burnout in and beyond the theater community. Join us in-person for a day garden-tending at a NYC park, and partake in an artistic ritual honoring caretakers, or virtually for a workshop on somatics and healing amid political strife, and jam along to a musical binaural brain massage. Scroll down to learn more and RSVP!
May 8th, Park Spruce Up
11-2PM ET at MLK Jr. Playground in Brooklyn
Come together for a cozy day of gardening and restoration at MLK Jr. Playground in Brooklyn. We'll be helping get the park in shape through various horticultural activities such as weeding, mulching, and tidying up the garden beds!
May 15th, Somatics for Liberation, Grounding & Community Resilience
8-9PM ET on Zoom
Join us for a grounding and restorative, virtual Somatics Workshop designed to help you reconnect with your body, release tension, and nourish your fried nervous system through gentle movement and mindfulness. Many somatic practices are rooted in centuries-old traditions from around the world. This workshop will honor those lineages while exploring their influence on contemporary somatics.
In the face of ongoing political violence, systemic injustice, and the everyday toll of capitalism and oppression, tending to the body is not just personal—it’s deeply political. This workshop offers a space to help cultivate collective care and radical presence. Together, we’ll explore how somatic practice can be a tool for liberation, grounding, and community resilience.
May 22nd, Rituals of Care: Connecting with the Earth, Connecting with Ourselves
6 - 8 PM ET at Target Margin Theater
In these times of upheaval & threshold, of immense grief & rage, of revolution and birthing new worlds - may we continue to come together in ritual & creative care.
Through sacred & joyful play, creative expression & meditation, we will gather to collectively rest with our inherent belonging to the earth and to each other. With all caregivers in mind: from parents to earth tenders, from friends to healers - this space will allow us to root in our embodied wisdom, to reflect upon and envision what radical care is for our bodies and beings at this moment in our personal lives, lineages & history.
May 29th, Brain Massage Music
7 - 8 PM ET on Zoom
Diana Oh aka Zaza gives their Brain Massage Music online to liberate you back into your bodies again, to release and to let some necessary joyful lifeforce flood back in. Please join from wherever you are, with whatever it is you're holding, as Oh sonically guides you through body-ody-ody care. Spiral Up y'all.