Márcia Donadel
My journey as a theatre artist, educator, researcher, and translator highlights research-driven goals and the co-creation of award-winning educational programs that use art as a catalyst for inner development and social transformation. Until 2025, as Director of Education and R&D at the Brazilian start-up Platô, I co-created an immersive learning methodology that translates artistic experiences into curriculum-aligned practices across formal and non-formal education.
Today, I work independently. As an IDG Ambassador in the Khamsin Cohort, I lead the Leadership Portal, designing learning architectures, keynotes and learning journeys for organizations, schools and leaders, with creative, art-based and gamified techniques. I also research leadership and evolutionary entrepreneurship at CIADM, the Invisible College of Administraciology.
My core competencies include designing learning experiences that bridge artistic practice and educational structure; facilitating collaborative, intergenerational processes; integrating creative and embodied learning into curricula; leading program development with creative, practice-based inquiry; translating complex ideas into accessible formats and multi-modal experiences; and cultivating attentive listening, imagination, and social relevance to foster community engagement and measurable social impact.
The Journey in Action
(2025-ongoing)
Partnership with NBB
In partnership with Natálie Berka Borges and NBB Gestão Estratégica Empresarial, I design and deliver learning experiences for organizations. In 2026, I led a keynote on Nonviolent Communication for a corporate development program, and we are co-developing a course on creative leadership.
(2026-ongoing)
Sintropia
Sintropia is the movement of regeneration and reorganization of life, co-created with Denise Rocha. Unlike entropy, which disperses and disintegrates, syntropy gathers, rebuilds and revitalizes. The project brings together a gamified workshop, guided by a deck of cards that leads participants through multisensory and expressive experiences, and a digital exhibition that gathers the echoes of the process. Sintropia is a call for systemic rebalancing grounded in regeneration.
(2025-ongoing)
Leadership Portal
Through the Leadership Portal, co-founded with Michele Witt in 2025, I design learning architectures, keynotes and learning journeys for organizations, schools and leaders. Using creative, art-based and gamified techniques, I bring inner development into the way people learn and lead, cultivating leadership as a capacity that does not depend on role or title.
(2025-ongoing)
Research at CIADM
As a researcher at CIADM, the Invisible College of Administraciology, I investigate leadership and evolutionary entrepreneurship through consciousness studies applied to management. My contributions include an article on consciential openness and evolutionary leadership, published in the International Journal of Conscientiology; participation in live sessions of the Negócios Evolutivos (Evolutionary Business) program (2025 and 2026); and the mediation of a seminar on the Administraciology Research Framework at PUC (2026), where I also presented my research on assertive and nonviolent communication. At the XIV Leaderology Forum on evolutionary entrepreneurship (2026), I was part of the organizing team, presented my research on evolutionary entrepreneurship in art and culture and co-facilitated with Simone Zolet the interactive opening keynote “Ideathon: An Ideas Marathon”.
(2024-ongoing)
Reimagining Schools Collective
I co-coordinate the Reimagining Schools Collective, an international group of educators, researchers, and artists dedicated to rethinking the future of education through imagination, critical dialogue, and social transformation.
The collective is currently developing the book Co-dreaming New Futures in Education: What is...? What if...? What next...?, a polyphonic and transdisciplinary volume with contributions from multiple countries. The publication is under negotiation with international publishers and reflects the group’s commitment to reimagining schools as spaces of belonging, relational learning, and collective agency.
(2022-ongoing)
Inner Development Goals
in Practice
My approach to curriculum alignment positions art not merely as a pedagogical tool, but as a living force that allows IDG competencies to emerge organically within educational practice. The experiential, imaginative, and relational nature of artistic work inherently cultivates the dimensions of inner development – making them visible, embodied, and alive in the classroom experience. In 2026, I became an IDG Ambassador in the Khamsin Cohort, deepening my commitment to bringing inner development into education, leadership and organizational life. From January to December 2026, I was part of the IDG Transition Working Group, where I co-designed, co-hosted and led Transition Forums, co-led the Space4Gaps series with Silviu Teodoru and took part in the Prototype Coordinators Circle.
By integrating the IDGs into the design of educational experiences, I support artists, educators and institutions in recognizing these human skills as essential 21st-century capacities. Rather than “adding” new goals to an existing structure, I work with pedagogical architectures that embed inner development at the core of how we teach and learn.
In contexts like Brazil, where inner development is not yet fully embedded in formal education, my work aims to raise institutional awareness and foster expertise in bringing these values to life through artistic, collaborative, and socially meaningful practices.
(2001-ongoing)
International Presence
Academic and Professional Background
Since 2019, I have been cultivating a consistent and multifaceted international presence across artistic, educational, and research contexts. My work has been featured in collaborative presentations at leading events such as the 7th and 8th European Congresses of Qualitative Inquiry (Finland 2024 and Scotland 2025), X Childhood Studies (Finland 2024), Eco-Librium (France 2023), DRHA (UK 2022), and ITAC6 (Norway 2022).
In 2024, I was invited by ITAC to lead an artistic workshop at the IDG Summit, where ITAC served as Artistic Director. My session, Relating through Kinesthetic Response, introduced embodied artistic practices to an interdisciplinary audience, prompting reflection on the dominance of visual and verbal modes in relational experiences, and exploring the transformative potential of sensory and kinesthetic awareness.
My research and development work has unfolded both in Brazil and internationally, including my Ph.D. in Performing Arts conducted between Brazil and the United Kingdom (2019), which included a doctoral residency at Coventry University (UK), supported by the CAPES-PDSE grant. My academic journey reflects a deep commitment to the intersections of arts, embodiment, and education. I also hold a Master’s degree in Performing Arts (2012), a postgraduate specialization in Art, Body, and Education (2010), and Bachelor’s degrees in Theatre – Acting, Advertising and Media Communication, and English Language and Literature with Teacher Education.
I collaborate regularly on internationally co-authored publications, including the award-winning book Global Perspectives on Drama and Citizenship Education, which received international recognition for its contribution to education and social impact.
In 2024, I engaged in a funded research residency in Finland, serving as pedagogical coordinator and researcher. The residency was supported by the Nordisk Kulturfond and carried out in partnership with the Platô team, the CHILD Research Group at the University of Helsinki, local choreographers, The Necessary Space (Scotland), and local primary schools from Helsinki and Vantaa.
This residency strengthened cross-cultural investigations into immersive educational practices, children’s agency, and curriculum innovation. As part of this process, I co-led a pilot edition of the School of the (Im)Possible in Finnish schools and co-facilitated a workshop for undergraduate education students.
My work also involves ongoing dialogue with curriculum advisors, with examples from Scotland (2022) and Finland (2025), contributing to the development of educational models that integrate imagination, relational learning, and embodied experience as central components of systemic transformation.
Grounded in a transdisciplinary approach, my work weaves together performance, embodied research, and pedagogical design to inspire more imaginative, relational, and transformative learning environments. Over the past two decades, I have developed methods and collaborations that support educators, teaching artists, and young people in becoming active agents of change across diverse cultural and educational contexts.
(2022–2025)
Readers Factory
I co-created the Readers Factory program, a literacy-centered immersive experience that continues to expand across Brazil. Designed for early years education, the initiative integrates imagination, storytelling, and embodied connection to encourage children’s creative agency and deepen their engagement with reading. From its early development through 2025, I led the design of the program’s pedagogical architecture, creating learning pathways that align curriculum, creative learning, and inner development frameworks such as the IDGs. During this time, the program reached over 8,000 children in Santa Catarina and more than 1,000 in Ceará. I also designed the teacher training track, supported the facilitation of more than 20 teaching artists, and worked directly with 12 municipal Departments of Education — ensuring methodological coherence, contextual responsiveness, and social impact across diverse territories.
(2023-2024)
Arctic Lighthouse Educational Game
I co-led the development of Arctic Lighthouse, an augmented reality educational game designed to support environmental learning through active play, storytelling, and curriculum-aligned challenges. I contributed to the program’s pedagogical architecture, designing its curriculum structure, leading the teacher training component, and coordinating field implementation in collaboration with Colégio Marista São Roque (Cachoeira do Sul, Brazil) during the EduX Accelerator at Tecnopuc. I also conducted the social impact assessment, combining qualitative data collection with the Continuum of Impact Guide by Animating Democracy. The project was selected for the Climate Games Launchpad (Ark & Rock / Atlantic Council) and received a Unity for Humanity Grant in 2024, being recognized as one of eight global awardees. My role integrated creative learning design, embodied facilitation, and systems thinking, aligning the game experience with the IDGs and SDGs frameworks and the Brazilian national curriculum guidelines.
(2021-2024)
School of the (Im)Possible
I am a key co-creator of the award-winning educational program School of the (Im)Possible, which was originally developed during my time at Platô and funded by the ITAC Climate (2021) and the British Council (2022). Through this work, I became a member of ITAC (International Teaching Artists Collaborative) in 2021. My contributions were central to shaping the program’s pedagogical architecture, aligning its curriculum across international contexts, and developing its immersive learning approach. I also created a distinctive data collection methodology inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy, alongside a social impact assessment grounded in the Continuum of Impact Guide by Animating Democracy (Americans for the Arts). In 2023, the program received the Ashoka Green Changemakers Prize.
(2023)
TNS TV
I co-developed the core curriculum of TNSTV, an arts-based pilot program implemented in Scotland, designing learning goals inspired by the program’s narrative arc and aligning them with both the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Inner Development Goals (IDGs). My work focused on creating an educational interface with the IDG Framework — translating its human-centered capacities into meaningful learning trajectories that foster imagination, belonging, and relational awareness. I also led the social impact assessment, drawing on qualitative methods and creative documentation to observe students’ agency in contemporary world problems, engagement, and shifts in perspective. The evaluation combined principles from the Continuum of Impact Guide by Animating Democracy, emphasizing learning as an embodied and socially situated experience.
Other Professional Highlights
Visiting university professor,
teaching in undergraduate programs in Theatre, Acting, Directing, Drama and Theatre-in-Education, with emphasis on somatic approaches and contemporary aesthetics.
Translator
of academic articles and books in the fields of arts, education and consciousness studies.
Actress
with background in stage performance and collaborative creation.
Performer trainer
as voice and body coach for actors.
Researcher
in embodied and creative methodologies, focusing on the intersection between artistic practice and education.
Theatre teacher
for children and adolescents in primary and secondary education, developing creativity, confidence, and expression through the performing arts.
Teacher of English as a second language (ESL)
for both basic education and adult professional training, including business English and communication-based approaches.