What happens when an article of clothing becomes a living archive?

For an entire year, Yao Kahlil Newkirk wore a hoodie sewn into his hair as part of Separation Anxiety, a durational performance honoring Trayvon Martin and victims of lynching, past and present.

Through storytelling, performance, and guided reflection, this keynote explores how racial history, grief, identity, and cultural memory are carried in everyday life. Yao brings audiences into the questions that shaped the performance: What do we carry? How do we bear witness? What knowledge can emerge when we pay attention to lived experience?

The presentation introduces The EMBODY Praxis™ and invites participants to consider the relationship between memory, responsibility, and human connection.

Participants will explore:
• How clothing and everyday objects can carry personal and cultural meaning.
• The relationship between lived experience, historical memory, and knowledge.
• How storytelling and attentive witnessing can deepen understanding of another person’s experience.

Best suited for:
Universities | Arts and Cultural Institutions | Black History Programs | Belonging Initiatives | Student Leadership Events | Community Organizations

Duration: 45–60 minutes, with an optional 15-minute Q&A.
Companion workshop available.

Recovering one man’s story opens a wider conversation about whose contributions we remember.

Drawing on archival research and family history, Yao Kahlil Newkirk traces the life of his ancestor Peyton Harris—a formerly enslaved man who became a businessman, landowner, civic leader, and advocate in nineteenth-century Buffalo.

Through historical storytelling, Yao examines how entrepreneurship, community building, and advocacy shaped Harris’s legacy. The presentation also reveals the work of historical recovery: following overlooked records, asking new questions, and connecting individual lives to larger histories.

Audiences are invited to consider how recovering these stories can expand our understanding of leadership, citizenship, and the communities we inherit.

Participants will explore:
• How individual actions can contribute to lasting community change.
• What family history and archival research can reveal about overlooked leadership.
• Why preserving local and Black histories matters to our understanding of the present.

Best suited for:
Museums | Libraries | Historical Societies | Universities | Cultural Institutions | Public Humanities Programs | Civic Organizations

Duration: 45–60 minutes, with an optional 15-minute Q&A.
Companion workshop available.

What changes when we recognize lived experience as part of the learning process?

Drawing on The EMBODY Praxis™, Yao Kahlil Newkirk invites educators, leaders, and facilitators to examine how attention, feeling, movement, memory, and personal experience shape learning.

Through storytelling, performance, practical examples, and guided reflection, participants consider how to create opportunities for people to engage, contribute, and make meaning. The presentation connects embodied learning to everyday decisions about facilitation, participation, and whose knowledge is recognized.

Participants will explore:
• How lived experience influences attention, interpretation, and participation.
• Ways to incorporate storytelling, reflection, and accessible creative activities into learning.
• How attentive facilitation can make room for different perspectives and ways of contributing.

Best suited for:
K–12 Educators | University Faculty | Student Affairs Professionals | Teaching and Learning Conferences | Arts Educators | Workplace Learning Teams

Duration: 45–60 minutes, with an optional 15-minute Q&A.
Companion workshop available.

How do we recognize progress when life refuses to follow the timeline we planned?

Drawing on his journey toward completing a Ph.D., Yao Kahlil Newkirk reflects on pursuing meaningful work while navigating housing instability, unemployment, family responsibilities, homeschooling, and discovering ADHD in adulthood.

Through candid storytelling, reflection, faith, and practical insight, this keynote explores the pressure to achieve while carrying responsibilities others may never see. Yao invites audiences to examine inherited definitions of success, acknowledge their circumstances, and identify a purposeful next step.

Participants will explore:
• How expectations and comparison influence the way we judge our progress.
• The relationship between neurodiversity, competing responsibilities, and conventional timelines.
• Ways to recognize overlooked progress, seek support, and make intentional choices about what comes next.

Best suited for:
College Students | First-generation and Adult Learners | Student Success Programs | Neurodiversity Initiatives | Faculty and Staff Development | Faith-based Educational Settings

Duration: 45–60 minutes, with an optional 15-minute Q&A.
Companion workshop available.