What We Offer

Everyone has a Passing Story

There is a community engagement storytelling and movement workshop/lab component of the Passing Project, wherein anyone may come and share a passing story or move, or just come to witness. It is open to people of all ages and abilities.

Along with the Workshops, Trainings, and Residencies listed below The Passing Project also offers a performance and community engagement workshop that 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, passing with grace are growing around the world. Still, there is much fear and denial about the topic. The Passing Project intention is to assuage fear and inspire acceptance.

Workshops

Passing Stories Workshops can take place in a variety of venues: Art centers, dance studios, churches, hospitals, respite houses, classrooms, town halls, private homes, retreat centers, and so forth.

A workshop generally lasts a minimum of 2 hours, and can be expanded to fill a half-day or a full-day.

The content is presented with the participants in mind, as to their ages, trauma history as applicable, etc. While the language may vary, our time is spent exploring what is to be discovered in these three questions:

What has been passed on to you?
What do you want to pass on and to whom?
What are your passing stories?

Participants are always given the option to move, write or draw their responses to these and other questions that arise. There are individual and partner warm-ups, including breathing, gentle movement and guided imagery. Each workshop is tailored to suit the group, for example a dance company would have much more expressive motion and more rigorous physical warm-ups. A writing group would be more narrative-focused. We still will mix in other modalities, to allow people access to different places in their marvelous brains.

Safety and confidentiality are of utmost importance to us. As the saying goes, “What is said here, stays here; what is learned here, leaves here.”

Fees will be negotiated according to duration of workshop, location, travel, etc.

"Tracy was so great at helping us to go deeper, wider, higher, through all our senses - keeping it all well balanced. And I loved the simple quiet tapping on the drum, vibrating through us and the whole space. And I loved the stories we shared - humans are such amazing creatures, each with their own heaven and hell and every stage in between."
~workshop participant

Set up an online workshop!
Due to the current circumstance of Coronavirus distancing, the Passing Project will offer online workshops and trainings, designed for the Zoom meeting platform.

We distinguish the difference between a workshop and a 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 donation of participants.
Email: infopassingproject@gmail.com to set up a workshop or training today!

The Passing Stories community engagement workshop 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, passing with grace are growing around the world. Still, there is much fear and denial about the topic.

Our Passing Project intention is to assuage fear and inspire acceptance. Passing Project Artistic Director Tracy Penfield will guide participants on a field trip to themselves, by asking questions that might be answered in writing, drawing, speaking or moving. Even online, these modalities are available to everyone, and each person may choose how they explore the questions and whether they share their answers with the other participants. In a trauma-sensitive world, everyone has agency to have choice and make decisions.

Tracy will share some Passing Stories that have come to her since beginning the project in 2012. It is important to remember that these “stories” might not have words. They may be drawings, dance, music, accompanied by words or not. Poems and songs and verbal stories are also options.

Trainings

Passing Stories Professional Development Trainings

One’s work life will inevitably be impacted by bereavement and grief over the course of one’s career, both directly and indirectly. We experience these elements of life directly when a loved one dies or disappears for other reasons and we vicariously encounter them when a co-worker or student or client experiences a loss. The cause might be a death or it might be a divorce, a job termination, a fire that destroys one’s home or other tragic incident that results in a sense of loss.

In this training, we will investigate how to be sensitive and compassionate with ourselves, and others who are grieving. We will try on the hats of one who has experienced a passing and one who is supporting others who have.

This training will benefit:

Teachers at all age levels, pre-K through college
Social workers
Medical personnel
Social service workers
Anyone who has relations with other people in their work

The example used in the workshops section of this site is that of an elementary school where an unusually high number of parents died within a few months. The staff was unsure how to support the students, who were rocked with grief.

In the training we will learn:

The effects of trauma on a being and how to be trauma-responsive with individuals and with groups.
We will explore mindfulness and other techniques to keep us focused in the present
Self-care when grieving and while supporting others who are grieving
Emotional de-escalation techniques for self and others

All of this is accomplished through the lens of creative expression, which integrates the mind and allows for grieving to be a natural healing process. We cannot ignore grief or it will become a burden or even a lasting series of unhealthy symptoms. To face it can be a life-affirming experience.

Fees will be negotiated according to duration, location, travel, etc.

Set up a training online!
Due to the current circumstance of Coronavirus distancing, the Passing Project will offer online workshops and trainings, designed for the Zoom meeting platform.

We distinguish the difference between a workshop and a 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 Trainings will last a minimum of 2 hours, to be determined ahead.
Fees for trainings are covered by the sponsoring group or agency and are agreed upon with the Passing Project upon booking.
Email: infopassingproject@gmail.com to set up a workshop or training today!

In a training, we pause at various points along the way to analyze how to present the materials to certain groups or how to respond to certain situations. We discus what it means to be trauma-sensitive and trauma-responsive, which can be tricky online. Depending on the number of participants, we might use the breakout groups option on Zoom to allow us time with just another one or two people, to share ideas and stories with them, to give and receive feedback. It is not about critique, as in an art class, rather an unconditional listening and appreciation of every person’s story.

Residencies

A residency is an extended period of time--from 3 days to two weeks--spent at a school or college or other institution and is designed to meet the needs of the sponsoring community.

Passing Project artists would offer daily workshops, trainings and other planned activities with the resident community.

Passing Project Artistic Director Tracy Penfield could come by herself to a college campus to work intensively with a Dance company(or class), Theater group (or class), Visual Art class or Creative Writing class to explore the themes of Passing and create a performance/exhibit/reading to be shared at the end of the residency. The same prompts given to the company of Passing would be given to participants and each exploration will produce unique stories based upon who is part of the creative act and how they choose to share their Passing Stories.

It is possible that the Passing company could come to a campus and offer a variety of dance, vocal, improv and Passing Stories workshops, to culminate in a performance of Passing at the end of the residency.

We might spend a week in a public school doing Passing Stories workshops with students, staff trainings and work toward a school-wide sharing that takes place on the final day. This material is adapted to suit all age ranges, from elementary through high school and on through adulthood.

These models echo what Tracy has been doing for decades as an Artist-in-Residence in Dance and Fiber Arts for hundreds of residencies, working with people of all ages. Since 2000, she has brought the trauma-informed curriculum of SafeArt to many schools, exploring trauma prevention and healing via creative expression in a variety of modalities (drama, movement, music, writing, visual art, etc.). The Passing Project curriculum is modeled from the SafeArt template. (visit www.safeart.org)

Fees will be negotiated based upon duration, travel, number of artists involved, etc.