Our educational program sets us apart from other festivals. Featured Speakers:
We were thrilled to welcome Temple Grandin as our 2011 Guest Speaker. Dr. Grandin is a dynamic author and educator whose life with autism inspired the Emmy-awarding movie that bears her name. Dr. Grandin spoke to a sellout crowd about overcoming life challenges as an autstic woman, her work to promote the humane treatment of animals, and how we can support our children’s educational needs.
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Congressman Jared Polis was our featured speaker at our closing night gala.
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Other 2011 Educational Offerings were:
Advanced Directives for End of Life Wishes
Presenter: Reva Tift M.A.
Sunday Sept 4, 10:00am – Dagabi Cucina
Dying is a mysterious process. If we would like to be open and available to this experience, it is very helpful to have already dealt with the many medical, legal, relational, and environmental issues that will be affecting us. Preparing ones Advance Health Care Directives now can be a gift both to ourselves and to those who will be caring for us. We will discuss our wishes for end of life care, translating these into legal documents, and communicating these to family and our support network.
Reva Tift M.A. is the owner of Advance Health Care Directives Guidance which offers a comprehensive process with which to document preferences for end of life care. She works with Natural Transitions in Boulder, offering consultation for end of life planning and at-death assistance. She is a trained Home Funeral Guide. Reva has worked with mid-life and aging issues thru teaching and consultations since 1979.
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The Dance of Life: Honoring Life’s Cycles and Passages
Presenter: Melissa Michaels, Ed.D.
Saturday Sept 3, 12:00pm – Kelly Barn
In this experiential workshop, we will remember the gifts inherent in each of life’s stages, harvesting our own medicine from life’s journey thus far. Our time together will also allow us to discover lost pieces of ourselves residing in incomplete developmental phases. We will celebrate the richness of our intergenerational community. Please join us…youths 14 years and older, elders of all ages, and everyone in between.
Melissa Michaels, Ed.D., is the Founder and Director of Surfing The Creative® International Youth Rites of Passage Programs, Wild Life Productions, and Golden Bridge, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving and empowering the lives of young people through dance-based rites of passage programming. She creates movement-based cross-cultural educational opportunities focusing on the potential that is available at major life thresholds. Building community through dance from conception through old age has been at the root of her work for decades.
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Death and Improv – Meditation and Letting Go in Performance
Presenter: Hollie Laudal
Sunday Sept 4, 1:00pm – Kelly Barn
This meditation focused on letting go of our clinging to personal identity and the body. This simple mindfulness meditation that used the breath as a focus and explored some improvisational acting that arises out of this space of surrender and “unidentity.”
Hollie Laudal performs and teaches improv acting in the Boulder/Denver area. She has studied improv for over seven years. She has also been a student of Tibetan Buddhism for nine years. She received a Masters in Divinity degree at Naropa University and works as a hospice chaplain in Denver.
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Filmmaker Panel: Cultivating Compassion – Documentaries as a vehicle for social change?
Saturday, Sept 3, 2:00pm – Nomad Theatre
Panel members: Will Arntz (What the BLEEP Do We Know? & Ghetto Physics), Leslie Bradshaw (The Greater Good), Lisa Cerasoli (50 DAYS with Alzheimer’s), Jessica Sison (My Mother Said), Marc Smolowitz (The Power of Two)
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Harvest Celebration Dance
Presenter: Tendai Muparutsa
Friday Sept 2, 7:00pm – Kelly Barn
Tendai Muparutsa is a widely traveled performer, music educator, ethnomusicologist, and bandleader. He has performed in southern Africa and North America, and with some of the leading groups in Zimbabwe as a session percussionist. Tendai plays traditional instruments from Zimbabwe such as mbira dzavadzimu and nyunga nyunga, marimba, ngoma, and hosho; he is a choral musician, guitarist, singer, and dancer. He is currently a PhD student in ethnomusicology at the University of Alberta, Canada.
His workshop will focus on dinhe dance. This is a harvest celebration dance from northwestern Zimbabwe. It will include drumming and singing. It is open to all levels of experience.
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LADmatters Art Boxes
Presenter: Laura Scott, MA
Saturday Sept 3, 2:00pm – Kelly Barn
Come create a Life and Death Matters Art Box as a way to process and personalize your experience of LADmatters. In this interactive workshop, participants will use a varied selection of art materials to make 3D collage boxes. You’ll be guided to non-verbally express memories of the life of someone who has died or is dying and/or thoughts and feelings about your own life and death. Participants are welcome to bring pictures and other small items to include in their box. Crafting these boxes can be fun, playful and profound while considering the importance of who and what is important in your life. No art experience is needed. $5 materials fee (included in ticket price).
Laura Scott, MA is an art therapist with 12 years experience supporting people coping with life-challenging illness and with grief. She has a master’s degree in Art Therapy and Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in Boulder and is trained in and practices the use of guided visualization and hypnotherapy. Laura currently facilitates cancer support groups, offers a private art therapy practice in Littleton, Colorado and conducts workshops using art for coping with medical illness and with grief.
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Laughter Yoga
Presenter: Ellen Brown
Friday Sept 2, 9:30am – Kelly Barn
Saturday Sept 3, 8:45am – Kelly Barn
Laughter Yoga combines laughter exercises and yogic breathing to give you the health benefits of hearty laughter. Laughter exercises almost always lead to real laughter, especially when practiced in a group. I have been facilitating groups since 2005, LY is worldwide and practiced in many countries around the globe. Laughing for no reason seems a little outside the box….but it is such a positive experience and so refreshing to let down the stresses of life…You will be sure to experience the simple joy of cleansing your heart, lungs, and soul!
Ellen Brown has been teaching laughter yoga since 2005. She trained with Dr. Madan Katria, founder of the Laughter Yoga movement and now teaches others how to teach Laughter Yoga.
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Sacred Music
Presenter: Barb Edwards
Saturday Sept 3, 4:00pm – Kelly Barn
Join your voice in song with singer/storyteller Barb Edwards as she weaves an enchanting experience. Barb blends sacred music, story and process to explore the mystical beauty and sacredness of living our limited time here on earth with awareness and heart.
Barb has journeyed an eclectic path, from therapist, executive consultant and coach, to facilitator and healer, and has been singing throughout it all. Her voice touches deep and sweet places inside us that allows one to feel the full meaning of the music, transforming and healing as her voice softens the harder places within.
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Sound Therapy
Presenter: Susan Hess, MA, LPC, MT-BC, FAMI
Friday Sept 2, 4:30pm – Kelly Barn
Process life and death matters using sound therapy through the Five Elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space. Experience the five qualities of energy that can help us understand the interconnectedness of life and the mystery of death. We will be playing simple instruments together, but no musical experience is necessary. Come and release your anxiety, fear and sorrow, and connect with your joy through the healing vibrations of sound.
Susan Hess is a licensed professional counselor (LPC), board-certified music therapist (MT-BC) and a Fellow of the Association for Music and Imagery (FAMI), with a Master’s Degree in Music Therapy and Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in Boulder. She has presented nationally and internationally on the subject of music for health and wellness, and has certification as a Grief Recovery Specialist. Susan brings experience as a longtime meditator and meditation instructor to her work, and was trained as a “Mindfulness Mentor” at Naropa to guide students in their meditation practices. She has worked in the cancer community in Denver since 1998, and is a co-founder of the Colorado Ovarian Cancer Alliance. She also owns Musixspa LLC, offering public presentations on holistic music for wellness. Susan offers private sessions & group classes by appointment.
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Supporting the Adolescent’s Journey
Presenter: Laura Weaver
Friday Sept 2, 2:30pm – Kelly Barn
This experiential session explored ways educators, parents and community members can nourish the inner lives of young people and support them to meaningfully and safely navigate the potent and vulnerable transition years. By “inner life” we refer to that essential aspect of human nature that yearns for deep connection, grapples with questions about meaning and purpose and seeks genuine forms of authentic self-expression. Through a variety of interactive, creative and reflective practices, participants explored how constructive “rites of passage” can assist young people to discover and engage their own internal resources, gifts, passions, strengths and connection to community.
Laura Weaver is the Director of Writing and Programs for the PassageWorks Institute, a non-profit providing educators with innovative practices and principles that integrate social, emotional and academic learning and support the inner lives of young people. First founded by Rachael Kessler and colleagues in 2001, PassageWorks offers courses, professional development and transitions curricula for each of the six passages of childhood. As a facilitator, writer, guide, educator, and parent, Laura is passionate about empowering youth and supporting the creation of healthy, thriving learning communities for people of all ages.
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Where Has Your Grief Gone?
Presenter: Carole Lindroos, MA LPC
Friday Sept 2, 3:30pm – LAD Educational Center
Life is constantly changing and grief is ever present. How do we connect with ourselves and others through our losses and create deeper connections rather than distance? Join us to acknowledge and listen with our minds and hearts. This is both a didactic and experiential presentation.
Carole Lindroos, MA LPC has been a licensed professional counselor since 1994, and is in private practice in Boulder. She has been a hospice chaplain, served as program director of a nonprofit supporting those diagnosed with cancer and their families and offers workshops and seminars on grief and end of life issues. She is an engaging and skillful presenter. Her website is www.clindroos.com.
