Leading Through Change

Cultivating Resilient Cultures in Uncertain Times

November 10-11 | Toronto

November 13-14 | Montreal

A 1.5 day micro retreat to help you step into new ways of working, connecting, and creating change together.

Toronto

November 10-11, 2025

Hosted by PlaySpace

The Practice Room, 688 Richmond Street West, Suite 302 Toronto

Monday 10am–4pm & Tuesday 10am–1pm


Sliding Scale Pricing

Limited Spaces Available.

Montreal

November 13-14, 2025

Hosted by PlaySpace

Édifice Wilder - Espace danse, Studio X, 1435 Rue de Bleury, Montreal

Thursday 10am–4pm & Friday 10am–1pm


Sliding Scale Pricing

Limited Spaces Available.

About the Retreat

The most lasting change emerges through how we relate, collaborate, and create together. This 1.5-day micro retreat welcomes people across the social benefit sector — from artists and organizers to funders, facilitators, executives and staff — into a space for reflection, renewal, and shared practice.

Grounded in leading-edge research from neuroscience, embodied cognition, systems thinking, organizational behaviour, and trauma-informed practice, this retreat reflects the latest understanding of how humans learn, adapt, and lead in complexity.

Through embodied exercises, systems-sensing, and collective rituals, participants will explore trust, belonging, and collaboration, and develop practical tools to navigate transitions, and open new possibilities.

This retreat is for anyone shaping culture, community, or impact who wants to foster healthier, more generative ways of working and creating together.

Who It’s For

Artists, community leaders, nonprofit staff, funders, policymakers, educators, and anyone committed to building a more just and creative future.

You do not need to see yourself as a “leader” to take part — this retreat is designed for anyone who plays a role in shaping the culture and conditions of collective work.

What to Expect

This retreat is not another conference or skills-training. It’s an immersive, experiential space designed for renewal, reflection, and practice. You can expect:

  • Embodied Practices: Simple movement and awareness exercises that connect mind, body, and spirit — accessible to all, no prior experience needed.

  • Collective Exploration: Conversations and activities that bring diverse voices into meaningful dialogue.

  • Practical Tools: Frameworks and practices you can bring back to your teams, organizations, and communities.

  • Creative Rituals: Opportunities to engage imagination and creativity as sources of insight and connection.

  • Rest & Renewal: Time to pause, reflect, and recharge alongside others who care deeply about making the world better.

Why it Matters

Every day, people working for the public good are asked to respond to complex challenges: climate change, inequity, community fragmentation, and organizational strain. The solutions we seek are rarely found in technical fixes alone — they live in the quality of our relationships, our ability to collaborate across differences, and our capacity to imagine and enact new possibilities together.

This micro retreat offers a space to slow down, reconnect with purpose, and strengthen the relational muscles we need to build more resilient organizations, communities, and systems. By investing in how we gather, listen, and create together, we lay the groundwork for deeper trust, more effective collaboration, and lasting impact.

Meet Your Facilitators

Mairéad Filgate
PlaySpace

Shannon Litzenberger
PlaySpace

“I am continually amazed and inspired by the unexpected magic that transpires in processes of collective collaboration. When space is made for each unique voice in their diverse ways of being and knowing to be included, the joy of togetherness and the creative potential that emerge are remarkable to witness and model the kind of world I want to live in.”
— Mairéad Filgate

Mairéad Filgate (Montréal) has toured nationally and internationally as a performer, choreographer, and educator, working with many of Canada’s most celebrated dance artists. She uses her wealth of knowledge gained from over two decades of intensive artistic practice centering collaborative process and improvisation, to shape educational experiences for community members of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. She has led workshops and creative projects in diverse contexts across Canada and the United States and co-developed process-focused multi-disciplinary programming for youth, with the Toronto Public Libraries and tiger princess dance projects. Mairéad is currently working towards the publication of an oral history of Canada’s Danny Grossman Dance Company that explores the social, economic, political, and personal landscapes that influenced the company through a multitude of voices and perspectives. With Shannon Litzenberger, she is the co-founder of PlaySpace, applying creative practice toward collaborative leadership, community health, and inclusive culture-making. www.maireadfilgate.com

“Taking time to feel and sense, to expand our attention, to listen with our whole bodies, to play without agenda, to connect and to express freely allows for unforeseen possibilities to emerge. I believe this is what our world needs more of right now, in order to do the necessary work of transformation.”
— Shannon Litzenberger

Shannon Litzenberger (Toronto) is an award-winning choreographer, director, researcher, and embodiment facilitator. She creates sensory-rich, multi-disciplinary performance experiences that animate our relationship to land, community, and the forgotten wisdom of the body. Her creative practices inform her work in leadership, organizational development, public policy, and systems change. She works frequently across corporate, academic, and social benefit sectors in Canada, the US, and Europe, delivering leadership programs and workshops for organizations like RBC, National Bank, McKinsey & Company, THNK School of Creative Leadership, Laidlaw Foundation, TAC Leaders Lab, Banff Centre, Business / Arts, and the Trudeau Foundation, among many other. Shannon is the co-founder of PlaySpace with Mairéad Filgate, a faculty member in the Creative Leadership Masters Program at MCAD, a Public Imagination Fellow, and Artist-Researcher-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, where she explores the intersections of art, leadership, and democracy. www.shannonlitzenberger.com

Pricing Tiers

We offer a sliding scale to honour different financial realities. Choose what fits.

Supported Rate

$200 + HST*

*Limited spots available at the supported rate

Toronto | November 10-11

Regular Rate

$350 + HST

Resourced Rate

$500 + HST

Montreal | November 13-14

Testimonials

  • Devyani Saltzman

    “An impactful process that helps leaders be able to think clearly and make decisions from an embodied place - offering a counterpoint to the mechanized, hyper-rationalist ways the industrial model of leadership has conditioned.” -Devyani Saltzman, Barbican

  • “[It] was a revelation. Business leaders, artists, and administrators took off their badges and spent an hour surfacing mental blocks and opening up channels of relating to each other. I recommend it.” -Christopher Deacon, Canada's National Arts Centre

  • “It was a hands-on, eye-opening way to shake off old habits and explore new ways of leading—especially when things are moving fast and change is constant. Highly recommend!” -Jennifer Green, ROM

  • "Movement as a leadership practice is more than just about being creative, it's about discovering who I am and how I show up for my team." -Nidhi Khanna, Skills for Change