Finding The Power in Your Voice Events
Dates: 09/16/2026 & 09/23/2026
Time: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Location: CC244
Zoom: Join via Zoom - Meeting ID: 974 9991 9026
The Care Center and the Diversity Department are excited to invite Ani Djirdjirian (she/they) to North Hennepin Community College for the opportunity for students and employees to engage in exploration about navigating the impacts trauma has on the body. The session explores how trauma shapes and often limits vocal expression, leading some to self-silence in softness and others to overextend their voice to be heard. Participants will learn how these patterns reflect survival responses influenced by suppressed emotions, patriarchy, culture, and community, and will gain practical somatic tools to reclaim authentic expression in speaking, singing, and setting boundaries.
A Native New Yorker and child of immigrants, Ani grew up navigating the tension between heritage and assimilation, learning early how silence can become a form of survival. That lived experience shaped a lifelong inquiry into identity, belonging, and what it means to come home to oneself.
As a classically trained singer and actor for nearly two decades, she discovered that voice, movement, and music are not only forms of artistic expression, but direct pathways into regulation, release, and truth. Over time, her work deepened beyond performance into a personal unraveling, where unprocessed grief, suppressed rage, and inherited silence began to surface in the body, relationships, and creative expression.
Today, Ani guides others through somatic, vocal, and breath-based practices that support emotional release, voice reclamation, and nervous system awareness. Her spaces are known for being grounded, intuitive, and deeply human, where science and spirituality meet, and nothing within the self is exiled.
She holds a dual Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance and Social Work from Adelphi University, a Master’s in Social Work from Fordham University, and is a Certified 200-hour Somatic Breathwork Practitioner through ReWild Breathwork (IPHM accredited). She has also completed Advanced Trauma-Informed Somatic Healing training through The Embody Lab with Dr. Scott Lyons, Dr. Arielle Schwartz, and Nkem Ndefo.
Awaken With Ani is rooted in the belief that healing is not about becoming someone new, but remembering our voice, our body, our capacity to feel, and our ability to be in relationship with life’s fullness.