Co-Founder
Angelina
Angelina Blasich is a dynamic mental health professional, public speaker, facilitator, performance artist, and educator. She has always been a big personality, first made clear with regular table top performances of Disco Duck interpretive dance.
Angelina began acting in college and transitioned into performance poetry during a delicious period of creativity and art in the 1990s. Angelina performed regularly, became a member of the Harlem Slam Team, and hosted weekly events in Harlem and the Village. After moving to Upstate NY and having her daughter, Angelina’s artistic expression transitioned as she discovered sculptural needle felting.
Concurrent with her mental health studies, this artform led her to the development of Therapeutic Needle Felting, a practical mental health support aid, that help individuals, families, and groups to express themselves artistically and engage with challenging self-narratives.
Angelina holds an LMSW and a MA in Social Science from Binghamton University, and is currently serving as the Director of a medical program in Upstate NY. Under her innovative leadership census levels have doubled, employee engagement is at an all-time high, and consumers are expressing great satisfaction. Angelina currently sits on the NYS Adult Day Health Care Council Board as chairperson elect.
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Once starting down the ridiculous tutued road, Angelina started bringing her power tulles to work with remarkable success. Having facilitated organizational and corporate retreat work for over 25 years and encouraged by the successful engagement of staff and consumers in her own program, Angelina developed The Ridiculum Curriculum: a Guide to Purposefully Ridiculous Growth and Leadership. These offerings inspire innovation and positive risk-taking by breaking down barriers to individual and group progress. Angelina continues to perform as a performance artist, public speaker, ordained celebrant, and yearly appearing as Libertine, “The Freedom Faerie” at the NY Faerie Festival.
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In 2019 Angelina was invited to do a Purposefully Ridiculous TEDx talk titled Be Ridiculous on Purpose. (Subtitles available in English, Chinese, Korean, French, and Braziallian-Portugese). Angelina, Harp, and their crew of Ridiculators headed to Provincetown, MA where they threw a Pop-Up Parade down the middle of the street for hours.
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