Healing Story Alliance is a not-for-profit, educational, arts organization which provides online resources and concert, workshop, and community programming in support of storytelling as a healing art.
Description
Join the Healing Story Alliance for a special gathering to share and explore stories of kindness in its many faces and forms. Through folk tales and personal stories, we will dive deeply into multiple experiences of kindness. What is it? How does it impact us and our relationships to ourselves, to each other, to the world? Come and listen to “kind stories” shared by both professional tellers and community members and see what memories of kindness emerge for you.
Date: March 3, 2024
Time: 7:00pm-8:30pm EST
(Open Mic Story Share and Reflection: last half hour)
Format: The story session opens with a concert of seasoned tellers and community tellers sharing stories with themes of kindness. During the second half of the gathering, audience members are invited to share a story, moment, or reflection about kindness that emerged for them as listeners.
Purpose: We all need a little more kindness in our lives. Perhaps a story can take us there.
“WHEN YOU ARE KIND TO OTHERS, IT NOT ONLY CHANGES YOU, IT CHANGES THE WORLD.”
Harold Kushner
ABOUT the STORYTELLERS
Galen R. Brandt is a writer, cross-cultural storyteller, performer, songwriter and singer. She pioneered the exploration and use of ground-breaking, interactive digital technologies as artistic medium and alternative healing modality in live performance, arts, education and special needs, including for those with perceptual, behavioral and physical challenges. She is an award-winning composer of children’s music for Disney, Hasbro, Western Publishing, Left Coast Television and Lorimar, a new product marketing expert, a corporate speechwriter, and a cultural journalist for publications from the New Age Journal to Playgirl. She is particularly interested in exploring thresholds — stepping into the skin of another in performance, experimenting with avatar self-representations with children with autism, midwifing the mystery of death while singing at bedsides. She's now writing one-woman musicals about piglets and country singers, and is on the Advisory Board of the Healing Story Alliance and Chair of the Oars in the Water program.
Steven H. Hobbs is a storyframer who structures stories around history, law, entrepreneurship, quilting, world culture, ethics and family. He tells stories to uplift the human spirit, build community and pursue social justice. Formerly a law professor, Hobbs currently tells Untold Stories of Storied People for Storytelling Arts, Inc.
Laura Packer knows that the best way to truth is through a good story; she has coached, told, taught, ranted, raved, consulted and considered storytelling around the world. She is committed to great storytelling, and helping others find their voice, tell their stories, and find healing in community. Laura has won multiple awards including the 2018 Minnesota Story Slam Championship and the 2020 National Storytelling Network Circle of Excellence. She holds a degree in folklore and mythology and is the author of From Audience to Zeal: The ABCs of Finding, Crafting, and Telling a Great Story. For her story and more, go to www.laurapacker.com.
EMCEE
Sheila Arnold, fondly known as Ms. Sheila, has been presenting Storytelling Programs, Historic Character Presentations, Christian Monologues, Professional Development and Inspirational/Motivational Speaking for schools, festivals, churches and organizations nationally and internationally since 2003. Sheila is also an Historical Consultant for museums, historical societies and organizations. One of Sheila's greatest joys is being the co-founder and Artistic Director of Artists Standing Strong Together (ASST), which formed during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, and continues to be a source of inspiration, strength and action in the storytelling and artists world. Sheila has been honored as a 2021 MacDowell Artist Fellow, a 2020 Mt. Vernon Research Fellow and a 2019 Hewnoaks Artist Colony summer residence Noted Artist. In the past she has worked as a Drama Ministry Director; Colonial Williamsburg employee; Substitute Teacher; and Social Worker for aggressive teens with emotional problems. Sheila lives in Hampton, VA, near her son, Kristopher; her two grandsons, Brooklyn & KJ; as well as, her father and stepmother, Wallace & Vera Arnold. She communicates often with her Atlanta-based sister, Stephanie.
COMMUNITY TELLERS
Judy Mroczka, despite her name, is of Irish heritage and thinks she has storytelling in her blood. She is a retired journalist and attorney, and used storytelling techniques in closing arguments to juries when she was a public defender. In retirement, she volunteers with hospice and the Red Cross, as well as a national park where she rides the bike patrol. She is an avid traveler and just returned from Ecuador. She began taking workshops with Noa Baum 10 years ago and went to her first storytelling festival in Jonesboro Tennessee last year.
Muriel Cadet is a Haitian American woman and proud Boston resident. Having triumphed being homeless and addiction to drugs and alcohol, Murielle dedicates herself to advocacy for others who share the same experiences. As a speaker, she amplifies the voices of the voiceless, shedding light on homelessness and substance abuse. Murielle's journey is a testament to faith and resilience, as she tirelessly strives to make a meaningful impact in the diverse streets of Boston.
Date & Time
Sun, Mar 3, 2024 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM