Keynote
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Krystal Demaine, PhD, REAT, MT-BC, RYT We are pleased to announce Dr. Krystal Demaine, PhD, REAT, MT-BC, RYT as our 2026 Keynote Speaker!  Demaine is an educator, clinician, and expressive therapies leader specializing in music therapy and intermodal expressive arts practice. She is a Board-Certified Music Therapist, Registered Expressive Arts Therapist, Registered Yoga Teacher, and Certified Trauma and Resilience Specialist, with over two decades of work integrating neuroscience, embodiment, and creative expression in healing and learning spaces. Her advanced training includes integrative medicine, nutrition for mental health, HeartMath-based trauma approaches, neurologic music therapy, herbalism certification, and performance wellness, reflecting a deep commitment to embodied, evidence-informed health and wellness practice.
Demaine serves in regional and international leadership roles with organizations advancing creative arts in therapy and education, while active in shaping the evolving landscape of expressive therapies scholarship and practice. She is the author of Expressive Therapeutic Writing (2024) and The Roots and Rhythm of the Heart (2022), with forthcoming Routledge publications (2027–2028) exploring creative expression and integrative expressive arts. With a focus on expressive therapies, Demaine will share what is at the heart of her work - a devotion to what becomes possible when people are given rhythm, language, breath, and image to return to themselves—through creativity, connection, and the healing arts. PRE-CONFERENCE All-Day Workshop: Thursday, November 5, 2026 "The Creative Impulse: Curiosity, Play, and the Expressive Arts" What happens when we slow down, tune in, listen, breathe, play, and become curious? This full-day experiential workshop invites participants to explore the expressive arts through movement, sound, music, image, writing, story, play, and witnessing. Grounded in the history and theory of expressive arts therapy and informed by creativity, contemplative practice, and integrative health, participants will explore how the arts flow across modalities through playful experimentation, embodied practice, reflection, and shared experience. Together, we will amplify the creative impulse as a source of curiosity, connection, and wonder. Creative expression is an essential human practice through which we imagine, communicate, make meaning, and create connection. This keynote explores creativity as a fundamental human capacity that extends beyond artistic production and therapeutic intervention into education, healing, wellness, innovation, and everyday life. Through stories, reflection, and creative engagement, participants will consider how we can amplify the expressive arts as pathways to belonging, resilience, imagination, and transformation. Together, we will explore what it means to amplify creative expression as a vital part of being human. Keynote Speech: Friday, November 6, 2026 "Creative Expression and the Art of Being Human" Creative expression is an essential human practice through which we imagine, communicate, make meaning, and create connection. This keynote explores creativity as a fundamental human capacity that extends beyond artistic production and therapeutic intervention into education, healing, wellness, innovation, and everyday life. Through stories, reflection, and creative engagement, participants will consider how we can amplify the expressive arts as pathways to belonging, resilience, imagination, and transformation. Together, we will explore what it means to amplify creative expression as a vital part of being human. Keynote Workshop: Friday, November 6, 2026 "Following the Creative Impulse: Finding Your Creative Compass" How do we recognize the creative impulses that move within us and what happens when we learn to listen to them? This experiential workshop invites participants to explore the core elements of expressive arts through curiosity, play, imagination, and creative expression as guides for living and working. Through movement, sound, music, image, writing, play, and witnessing, participants will follow their own creative impulses across modalities, exploring what draws them, what inspires them, and what wants to emerge. Together, we will consider how the expressive arts can become a creative compass for navigating change, relationships, learning, work, and everyday life.
|
