Shannon Litzenberger is an award-winning choreographer, director, embodiment facilitator, and thought leader working at the intersection of art, leadership, and systems change. For more than twenty-five years, she has been a catalyst in Canada’s cultural sector, creating multi-disciplinary, sensory-rich performances and designing leadership development experiences for organizations such as RBC, National Bank, McKinsey & Company, THNK School of Creative Leadership, Toronto Arts Council Leaders Lab, Banff Centre, Opera.ca, the Trudeau Foundation, the Institute for Research on Public Policy, Calgary Arts Development, and the Canadian Arts Summit, among others.
Currently a faculty member in the Creative Leadership Masters Program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Shannon also serves as a Public Imagination Network Fellow and Artist-Researcher-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities. Her work explores embodiment as a foundation for relational leadership, guiding individuals and groups to cultivate presence, attunement, and the ability to foster right relationship in complex environments.
Alongside her creative and facilitation practice, Shannon has contributed extensively to cultural policy development in Canada. She has led sector-wide consultations, authored influential policy papers, and advised governments and cultural organizations on strategies that strengthen the role of the arts in public life. She is a member of the inaugural Advisory Council for OCADU’s Cultural Policy Hub.
Grounded in a deep commitment to the arts as a force for shaping cultural imagination and civic possibility, Shannon has been an invited speaker at a multitude of universities, events and conferences across Canada and internationally, and has published more than 100 articles on creative process, cultural leadership and arts policy. Shannon is the recipient of the Jack McAllister Award for accomplishment in dance, the recipient of a 2019 Chalmers Arts Fellowship, a Johanna Metcalf Prize and Gina Wilkinson Prize nominee, and a twice-shortlisted finalist for the prestigious KM Hunter Award.
Remaking Worlds and Ourselves: Aesthetic Strategies for a Culture of Democracy
2024
Ragsdale, D. & Litzenberger, S. (2024). Remaking worlds and ourselves: Aesthetic strategies for a culture of democracy. In T. Borrup and A. Zitcer, Eds. Democracy as Creative Practice: Weaving a Culture of Civic Life. Routledge.
The introduction explores how aesthetic practices and artistic experiences can cultivate essential capacities for pluralistic democracy by serving as "rehearsal for pluralism" - intentional worldmaking through collective practice.
Core Concepts:
The Challenge of Pluralism
Addresses "pernicious polarization" in democracies and the difficulty of collaboration across differences. Draws on William Connolly's work to identify virtues needed for pluralism: agonistic respect, critical responsiveness, tolerance of ambiguity, and receptive listening.
Rebalancing Ways of Knowing
The document argues that modern/colonial society has overemphasized: Left-brain thinking (analytical, controlling) over right-brain (relational, holistic); Rational inquiry over embodied, perspectival, and participatory knowledge; Propositional/procedural knowing over perspectival/participatory knowing
The authors cite research showing that embodied self-awareness develops resilience, empathy, and conflict management skills essential for democracy.
Three Chapter Previews
Andrea Assaf - Uses community-based arts practices (Story Circles, Collective Poetry, movement-based theater) to democratize creative processes
Heather McLean - Employs comedic webinars and satire to advance Indigenous perspectives on housing and climate crises
Rui Gonçalves Cepeda - Creates participatory artworks in public spaces that allow citizens to physically engage with controversial issues
Conclusion
The authors position artistic worldmaking and ensemble-building as practices of relationality that help communities develop the collaborative capacities needed for functioning democracies.
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Conscient Podcast e160 - Shannon Litzenberger - a culture of collective thriving
2025
We are in a very unstable environment right now. We don't have to be change makers. Change is happening. It is happening quickly and the pace of change is accelerating. So this ‘plan and execute’ way of engaging with the world is less and less relevant. Building this capacity to play and improvise and allow for emergent possibilities to arise is a kind of new leadership capacity that makes more sense in the context of the world as it is in this moment.
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