Foundation Team
Areté Foundation – Centre for Inclusive Art is driven by passionate people: educators, cultural animators, artists, and social activists.
Each of us brings our own story, skills, and motivation to collectively build a space where real change is possible.
Board of Areté Foundation – Centre for Inclusive Art
Dorota Batorska
Founder and President of the Board
Art therapist (graduate of the Academy of Special Education). Certified drama trainer (Drama Way Training Centre), graduate of courses in Community Theatre and Forum Theatre (Drama Way Foundation for Education and Culture). Qigong instructor (student of Liu Zhongchun, Giuseppe Paterniti, and Steve Green).
Since 2017, she has been leading art therapy workshops, personal development sessions, and well-being support for adults, youth, and children, combining various tools and techniques such as dance, movement, drama, storytelling, visual creation, and movement meditation (qigong).
She creates spaces where art, movement, and mindfulness meet work on body, mind, and emotional awareness. She is drawn to practices that combine personal development with creativity and care for well-being. She deeply believes in the transformative power of art as a space for change and expanding consciousness.
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Completed a series of training programs for educational and artistic work in dance and choreography within the Dance and Disability program (NIMiT); basic training in DMT (Dance/Movement Therapy); training on foundational issues in therapy and education for children with autism; and an international training dedicated to working with visually impaired individuals with Katy Dymoke (Touchdown Dance).
She has 18 years of experience in creating, managing, and coordinating educational, artistic, scientific, and business projects – in NGOs, the private sector, and higher education – collaborating with national and international institutions.
She co-created and participated in socially engaged dance-performance productions, including Women and Men and Poruszenie by the PERFORM Artistic Foundation, working with people with various types of disabilities. Her dance practice includes ballet, contemporary dance, contact improvisation, partnering, oriental dance, and Argentine tango.
Catherine Pawlak
Founder and Board Member
Art therapist, choreographer, performer, and dancer in the Oddaj Ciężar (OC) group by Karolina Kroczak. Teacher of partnering according to the OC Method and certified instructor for parent-child work (ContaKids). Member of the Association of Theatre Pedagogues and co-founder of the site-specific performative collective SzurSure.
Her practice integrates art, body, and mindfulness as paths to reclaiming authentic rhythm and relationships with the world. For over two decades, she has co-created social and educational projects in Poland and abroad, collaborating with the European Commission, World Bank, and development agencies in the USA, Netherlands, Germany, and Poland. She is a certified financial inclusion trainer (UNHCR) and adult education trainer (CGAP/World Bank). In 2008, she was awarded Woman of the Year by Women Advancing Microfinance for her work promoting the inclusion of women, migrants, refugees, sex workers, and other marginalized groups.
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She completed the Canadian Executive MBA (CEMBA) program and numerous international courses in choreography, physical theatre, contemporary dance, improvisation, contact improvisation, Body-Mind Centering, Feldenkrais Method, and Axis Syllabus.
She has performed in productions such as Empatia, Wyspa, Nadzieja, Lekcje Oporu (dir. Dorota Ogrodzka), Just & Jump (chor. Anna Piotrowska), and Come Together (chor. Karolina Kroczak). She works with individuals with non-normative developmental and perceptual experiences, including visually impaired and blind participants (projects inVisible by the PERFORM Foundation and Touchdown Dance with Katy Dymoke).
At Areté Foundation, she creates a space where art becomes a movement towards presence. She believes that dance can serve as a language of empathy, and that shared experiences can become a space for inclusion, transformation, and solace.
Kadidia Ba
Board Member
Specialist in managing cultural projects, artistic events, and educational program development, as well as a visual artist with ten years of creative practice. Graduate of the Faculty of Media Arts, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She leads projects and events in the fields of culture and education.
She manages the production and organization of cultural and artistic events, with experience coordinating international and local educational and cultural projects involving collaboration with artists, institutions, partners, and communities. She creates initiatives that combine creativity, accessibility, diversity, and social inclusion.
