Ilyana Kadushin

About the Artist

Ilyana Kadushin is available for both teaching artist and touring performing artist grants. As a performer, singer and voice over actor her credits include: Nickelodeon, Discovery, BBC America, Sesame Street Television, Penguin-Random House, Cartoon Network, MTV, national commercials, animation, and video games; like Lord of The Rings. She is also a singer on soundtracks for films on HBO GO and Amazon Prime. Ilyana is also an award winning audio book narrator, Narrated 100+ audiobooks including Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Twilight Saga Series and Nadia Murad’s memoir, called The Last Girl about a Yazidi human rights activist from Iraq, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 and Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations. Ilyana also co-hosts the No, I Know Podcast with her husband, James Harrell. This dynamic couple cohost & produce the No, I Know Podcast Show- a show about connections and empowerment of community.The show features interviews with entrepreneurs, creatives and leaders, music and theatrical performances mingled with husband and wife banter. Ilyana is also the executive director and founder of Stories Love Music, a non-profit that provides creative engagement programs for caregivers who work with senior citizens.

Artist's Statement

Workshops and Programs offered: Empowerment Workshop (for all ages) Through creative writing and other interactive exercises, we explore what gets in the way of our empowerment.  How your Voice Impacts your Professional Presence Workshop (Can be for all ages) An online workshop for adult professionals. In the current state of the world, all your business is being done online in virtual meetings. This presents the challenge of using our voice and our presence to communicate effectively, without being in person with those we are speaking with. This interactive workshop looks at:  How do our own views of our voice impact our voice and what it transmits?  How does that feedback we have received over the years about our voice encourage or inhibit us?  What are the gray areas and uncharted territories of our voice? Create a "Call to Action Video" Workshop (All Ages)  For younger generations and many adults, social media is a link to community, but what about the world at large? And what are they putting into the mix? Junk? Or Gold? In this workshop we make “Say it to the World” PSA Videos  using: creative writing, public speaking techniques, video and music. We all want to belong, and feel heard. So what stops us? We explore this and create  CALL TO ACTION video messages to share with our communities.   *Program For Caregivers: Stories Love Music's The Joy of Creative Engagement Program, a special program for Caregivers who care for Senior Citizens with Memory Impairment, that  I have designed under the umbrella of Stories Love Music (501c3) and its engagement type is primarily a workshop that can be delivered in person onsite or virtually. Our mission is to care for the caregiver by making creative engagement techniques available for self-care and interventions with their dementia patients. When caregivers are provided the time and space to attend to their own emotional stress and burnout that comes from caregiving, in turn the care and support they give to seniors with Alzheimer’s will improve. The population of senior citizens and those with dementia and Alzheimer’s is rising and therefore the number of caregivers needed is as well. Even before the Covid 19 pandemic, both family and professional caregivers were reporting burnout and stress. Workshops such as ours improves morale and employee retention. Who is this program for? Family Caregivers, Professional Caregivers: Recreational Directors, Senior Home Staff, Nurses, and Nurse Aides, Home Health Aides. How is this program delivered to caregivers currently? We offer In-Person and Virtual Workshops and area in the process of creating video versions for caregivers to participate on-demand at home or in the workplace. Length of Program: The program is delivered in 3 modules of ideally two to three hours each. The entire program may be adapted to serve the needs and availability of the participants and has been delivered in several formats from a one-day in- person workshop to a weekly 2 hour virtual session. The Joy of Creative Engagement Program Part One: Creative Engagement as Self-Care and Stress Management for the Caregiver Activities: Experiential work for self-care that is vital for caregivers to develop a deeper understanding of the power of music and storytelling by applying these techniques to their own health and well-being before applying to their caregiving process. Caregivers are led through creative engagement self-care activities such as music meditations and guided storytelling, that are intended to: allow emotional processing, stress release, and creative inspiration. They also reinvigorate their own unique cultural relationship and past with music. Part Two: Applying Creative Engagement to Caregiving Activities: Caregivers face many challenges during their caregiving. These challenges are identified by the participants, and have ranged from dealing with one they care for having: violent outbursts, anxiety, depression, lethargy, not engaging and not cooperating with the care trying to be given to them. Creative Engagement can be a strategic creative tool in Caregiving process. Caregivers are guided through steps of setting up creative engagement music sessions with their loved one/patient. Caregivers take knowledge from the Part One self- care experiences to begin to understand the power and transformation that music can have on those they care for, who are experiencing memory loss. This Part covers topics such as: How to select music for the person you care for, Setting the Scene for the Session, How Caregivers should Prepare themselves to be a Music Guide, How Best to Respond during Music Sessions and Verbal Prompting with the Music. Part Three: Creative Engagement as a strategic creative tool in the Caregiving process. Activities: Caregivers are given time to share the process and impact of the techniques they have learned. Discussions and Exercises center around how to apply creative engagement to the most challenging behaviors they encounter and what the outcomes were. Caregivers learn how to build on their engagement for better connection and cooperation with the individual. Differences between working in a one-on-one situation versus a group setting are also discussed. Follow-Up Modules: Stories Love Music is currently designing follow-up programming to create an ongoing connection with caregivers after they have used what they have learned for at least thirty days.