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Passing Project encourages cultural reorientation from fear to acceptance of challenging transitions during one’s life through creative expression.

Passing Project offers in-person and online studios, school and college residencies, curated secular memorials, performances, and private sessions in healing through grief.

UPCOMING EVENTS
Passing Project Immersive at Sable
August 3-5
Led by Tracy Penfield & Tess Holbrook
Passing Project will come to Sable this summer for a performance and community engagement immersive. The 3 days of creative process will culminate in a public showing at Sable's Food + Art Friday gathering.
The Sable Project is located in Stockbridge, VT.
Sign up for the immersive here: SIGN UP FORM

About

Tamara Hurwitz and Tracy Penfield are mature dance artists and choreographers who began exploring this idea in 2012. Passing, the performance piece had its premiere on April 28, 2018 at Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph, Vermont, which commissioned the piece. It is intended that the Passing Project will live and tour throughout New England and to other national venues. Passing Project has evolved to offer experiences that gives its attendees tools and language to support them in difficult times of transitions.

STAFF

Tess Holbrook has always looked to art as a tool for healing and has worked in the healing arts field for many years. There have been many passings in her life. Each time, she has found comfort and hope in art. Tess studied Cinema Arts & Science in college and has spent many years honing her filmmaking skills to capture movement, stillness, and the suspension in between. Tess was drawn to Passing Project's mission for it brings together those two powerful passions: movement and healing.
In Tess' personal life, she has accepted transitions and loss as another chapter in life. It has allowed her to enjoy and cherish the present moment. Accepting difficult transitions has allowed the visual media artist to hold space in her heart and to not carry the grief.

Her goal at Passing Project is to create a cultural empathic shift. To help people tell their passing stories. Tess aides those to accept the difficulties of passings and to find peace in the present moment.

Tracy Penfield has always been interested in the end of life, rather than death itself. She is interested in how we help, witness, and support others in passing before the inevitable. In modern culture, we unfortunately avoid passing until we are confronted by it. And even then, it is often denied, let alone celebrated.

It is Tracy's intention that Passing Project will shift cultural orientation away from fear of death to acceptance and in many cases, even celebratory approach of the moment.

Tracy's broader interest for Passing Project is what passing looks like every day. What we leave and depart and pass over and under and by. Tracy's interest is in the passing essence of life and how we may become more mindful, imaginative and compassionate in the sharing of time, space, and place.

Services

The Passing Project offers Workshops, Trainings, Residencies, and Curated Memorial Ceremonies. Each service addresses the theme of passing: passing on, passing away, passing over. Every living being will pass on at some point. Conversations about dying with dignity, dying with support, and passing with grace are growing around the world. Still, there is much fear and denial about the topic. The Passing Project intends to assuage fear and inspire acceptance.

We now offer online, or in-person artist-designed Memorial Ceremonies uniquely curated to honor the person who has passed and to fulfill the desires of their loved ones. As multidisciplinary artists, we bring many options to personalized Memorial Ceremonies. We can create a ceremony with music, both instrumental and singing, poetry and dance. We’ll work with you to find the artistic expressions that create a space of compassion and peace for you and your loved ones.

The Passing Project has a roster of artists that can perform at the ceremony. Or, we will work with your family and friends who would like to share their own work. To start, please schedule a consultation where we will go over dates for the ceremony, whether it will be in-person or online, and artistic styles.

Prices:
$600 for virtual or in-person
$250 per Passing Project artist
$250 for the creation of a slide show (virtual only)

We distinguish the difference between a workshop and training as this: A workshop is offered for a personal experience of exploration, learning and discovery. It might be open to the public or a specific group or even one-on-one. A training is offered to a group who will use the shared tools with their clients, patients or groups. It also involves exploration, learning and discovery, along with discussion of how to be trauma- responsive and how to utilize this material.

Passing Stories Online Workshops will last 1.5-2 hours, to be determined ahead.
Fees for workshops are covered by the sponsoring organization or by donations of participants.
Passing Stories Online Training will last a minimum of 2 hours, to be determined ahead.
Fees for training are covered by the sponsoring group or agency and are agreed upon with the Passing Project upon booking.
Email: [email protected] to set up a workshop or training today!

Studio

The studio is a space to try and fail. A space for creativity and healing. The Passing Project studio has produced short films, collaborative works with other artists, and offers monthly online sessions.

UPCOMING ONLINE STUDIOS

We are taking a break for the summer. But we are offering an immersive at Sable from August 3rd-5th. Click HERE to learn more. Thank you all who attend our online studios this past winter! We had a wonderful time healing, connecting, and sharing with this close community. We plan to hold another series next winter. If you would like to lead an online studio, or have an idea for a studio you would like to attend, please email us at [email protected].