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<br /> the open mic, so participants can practice telling their stories with a microphone.
<br /> Following the open mic session, audience and story tellers engage in further
<br /> conversation about their life stories.
<br /> Each residency will take place over the course of one-to-two weeks in September-
<br /> October. We have not set the dates and times, yet; the Orange County Department on
<br /> Aging will work out the dates during their planning process for fall events, which occurs
<br /> after this grant application deadline.
<br /> Community Impact
<br /> We expect to bring in between 40 and 50 seniors and others to each performance, and
<br /> to involve 20 audience members in the two sets of workshops. The total number of
<br /> people engaged should add up to 80-100.
<br /> The events will be advertised in the fall edition of Senior Times, a publication of the
<br /> Orange County Department on Aging, with flyers and emails, and on some web-based
<br /> media (Facebook, Twitter, EverWondr, appropriate websites, etc.).
<br /> In the performance, Mime Explains String Theory, the mime explores the cycle of life
<br /> and death, uncovering links between past, present, and future. The mime descends to
<br /> earth, goes through thirteen stages of woman, and ascends to rejoin her loved ones.
<br /> During middle age, she has an epiphany in which she sees strings connecting
<br /> everyone to everyone else, and realizes that there is a spirit that holds us all together,
<br /> which is love. The show is humorous, whimsical, imaginative, touching, and uplifting.
<br /> The epiphany in the show provides a springboard for the workshops about epiphanies
<br /> that follow.
<br /> The ensuing workshop conversations, writing, and story-telling to a larger audience will
<br /> serve to: affirm individual life experiences, allow for deep listening and true story telling,
<br /> foster dialogue across differences, build and strengthen friendships, and open up
<br /> conversation about important moments in life, when we finally understand something
<br /> that has been hidden from our consciousness.
<br /> The Seymour and Passmore Centers offer a variety of popular classes and interest
<br /> groups in arts, crafts, music, dance, writing, and drama. Many Orange County Seniors
<br /> have demonstrated an interest in arts participation by showing up for the arts classes
<br /> and events. The story-circle process, followed by writing and sharing stories together,
<br /> offers a deep, shared, personal, arts process that explores and affirms the meaning
<br /> and importance of individual life stories, and offers participants the opportunity to share
<br /> their wisdom with a larger audience.
<br /> Artist Experience
<br /> Sheila Kerrigan co-founded TOUCH Mime Theater (based in Carrboro) in 1976. With
<br /> TOUCH, she collaboratively created original performance, toured, performed, and
<br /> conducted workshops and residencies across twenty states for seventeen years. She
<br /> directed, wrote, and performed with Jelly Educational Theater (based in Chapel Hill) for
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