DDNRC 2023 CONFERENCE

    Choosing Dialogue: Mapping the Course Through Difficult Conversations

June 12-14, 2023 - San José State University

Looking Back at #DDNRC2023

Welcome to DDNRC 2023

Welcome to the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center's (DDNRC) 2023 Conference! In an effort to pool resources and grow our community of dialogue practitioners, we are collaborating with the organizers of the Northeastern Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) Conferences.  More about this collaboration can be found here

We are committed to sharing knowledge, skills, stories, and practices that illustrate how dialogue can be a catalyst for envisioning new possibilities for collaboration and solidarity across differences.  We value dialogue that is open, sustained, and structured within and across identity groups to critically engage participants toward greater understanding.  

This year’s conference theme is Choosing Dialogue: Mapping the Course Through Difficult Conversations. Learn more about our theme here!

Opening Speaker  Kristina Wong

Kristina Wong is a Doris Duke Artist Award winner and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama. She’s a performance artist, comedian, writer and elected representative who has been presented internationally across North America, the UK, Hong Kong and Africa. She’s been a guest on late night shows on NBC, Comedy Central and FX. 

She starred in her own pilot presentation with Lionsgate for truTV. Her commentaries have appeared on American Public Media’s Marketplace, PBS, VICE, Jezebel, Playgirl Magazine, Huffington Post and CNN. She’s been awarded artist residencies from MacDowell, San Diego Airport and Ojai Playwrights Festival. She is concurrently the Artist-in-Residence at ASU Gammage and the Kennedy Center Social Practice Resident until 2026. 

Her work has been awarded with support from Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, Center for Cultural Innovation, National Performance Network, a COLA Master Artist Fellowship from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, nine Los Angeles Artist-in-Residence awards, Center Theatre Group’s Sherwood Award, the Art Matters Foundation, and the Joan D. Firestone Commissioning Fund from En Garde Arts. Her recent “Kristina Wong for Public Office” is simultaneously a real life stint as the elected Sub-district 5 representative of Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council and rally campaign show. That show was filmed for Center Theater Group’s Digital Stage where she’s also a Creative Collective member. She's created and directed original theater works with residents of LA's Skid Row, the Bus Riders Union, undocumented immigrants, and most recently the formerly incarcerated Asian Pacific Islanders members of API Rise.  

Kristina founded Auntie Sewing Squad, a national mutual aid network of volunteers that sewed cloth masks for vulnerable communities during the Covid pandemic. Their book “The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care and Racial Justice is published by the University of California Press. Her role in the Auntie Sewing Squad is the subject of her currently touring “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord”— a “New York Times Critics Pick” that premiered off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop. The show won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for “Outstanding Solo Performance”.