About Me
Saharra (she/her) is a Black and queer digital and performance storyteller from the greater Philadelphia area passionate about decolonial and anti-racist public health practice and research. She uses creativity and narrative to identify and address fundamental causes of health inequity.
Her artistry explores grief and wake work that allows us to reimagine Blackness as life and living memory. She works with children & adults alike in using art as a tool for reflection, transformation, & radical healing. Her critical scholarship works to understand how systems and social environments (re)produce health inequities. She uses arts-based and participatory methods to promote more caring, collaborative, and community-accountable approaches to health promotion. Saharra is a Public Health PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Board Director for the Collective for Radical Death Studies.
Wanna tell a
great story?
- Devising Theatre
- Legacy Projects
- Digital Storytelling
- Death & Grief Doula
- Arts-based Research Consulting
- Creative Project Management
I can help...
Contact me
Email: saharra.dixon@gmail.com
(or fill out the contact form)
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Past and Current Projects
"I'm Picking Me"
Digital Storytelling Project
Exploring the experiences of Black women and femmes with body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) through digital storytelling, a critical narrative intervention. Active Minds 2022 Emerging Scholars Fellowship recipient.
WYSH is designed to offer young people a transformative experience that fosters leadership, creative agency, an experience of community and belonging through the arts, and an understanding that there is a place for their stories and their unique voices. Culminates in an original piece of devised theatre.
Implement and evaluate a digital storytelling intervention in which healthy behaviors among African American caregivers are promoted through the creation and sharing of life stories. Our work will address the higher burden of family caregiving and worse physical health that African Americans face.
Past and Current Projects
The #StayHome Project
STRIVE, a Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health funded study exploring how structural issues impact adolescent sexual reproductive health (ASRH). We use Photovoice, digital storytelling and other arts-based inquiry.
A COVID-19 arts response to stay-at-home orders. We explore what it means to "stay home" during unprecedented times. A virtual play was produced and shared.
ArtsPraxis Article
On Comorbidity & BFRBs
By Tash Williams
Co-curated by Saharra Dixon
From the “I’m Picking Me” Project
Body-focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs) are a group of complex disorders characterized by excessive pulling and grooming of ones body that leads to clinically-significant distress.
We explored the experiences of Black women and gender non-conforming persons with BFRBs
You can read more about this project in the Health Education & Behavior journal:
“No One-Size-Fits-All: Critical Narrative Intervention and Archeology of Self as Anti-Racist and Anti-Colonial Practices in Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors”
My credentials
Saharra is a master community-engaged/applied theatre artist, Certified Health Education Specialist, writer/researcher, and Death/Grief Doula among other things...
New York University
MA Educational Theatre in Colleges and Communities
University of Delaware
BS Health Behavior Science
Minor, Public Health
Publications
No One-Size-Fits-All: Critical Narrative Intervention and Archeology of Self as Anti-Racist and Anti-Colonial Practices in Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors
Saharra L. Dixon & MacKenzie Isaac (2023)
Health Education & Behavior
Structural Racism and Its Influence On Sexual and Reproductive Health Inequities Among Immigrant Youth
Elizabeth Salerno Valdez, Jazmine Chan, Andrea Donis, Camille Collins-Lovell, Saharra Dixon, Elizabeth Beatriz, and Aline Gubrium (2023)
Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health
Turbulence: Arts-based participatory action research on the experience of creative arts therapists and creatives who identify as Black and people of colour
Nisha Sajnani, Britton Williams, Ming Yuan Low, Jasmine Edwards, Saharra Dixon, Adam D.-F. Stevens, Mary Morris, Si Yeung Li, Idalmis Garcia Rodriguez, Samah Ikram, Whitney Bell, Carlos Rodriguez Perez (2023)
Drama Therapy Review
PElizabeth Salerno Valdez, Luis Valdez, Eddie Gorry, Jazmine Chan, Saharra Dixon, Tiarra Fisher, Alya Simoun, Mira Weil, Camille Collins-Lovell, Justine Egan, Aline Gubrium (2023)
American Journal of Men's Health
Mind the Gaps: The Need for Inclusion of Male-Identified Voices in Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
Compulsive Hair Pulling May Be Incurable, But the Shame Around It Isn't
by Katie Banon
Symphony & Saharra honor late father, Lamont Dixon, with a poetry scholarship contest in Southwest Philadelphia
Honoring Black
History Month, 2020
For a feature, please email me at saharra.dixon@gmail.com
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Napalm Da Bomb
Arts Advocacy Award
Presented by International Ms. USA 2022, Symphony and Saharra Dixon, and the Dixon family
This scholarship award was created as a legacy project to honor and remember Lamont Dixon, a Philadelphia native. Dixon was a prolific performing artist, poet, and arts educator who dedicated his life to bettering his community through the arts.
Dixon passed away in 2021 at the age of 60 due to HIV-related complications. The award highlights the importance of the arts in fighting mental health stigma and promoting community activism and collective care.