Workshops

Dive a little deeper and attend a workshop (or two) at Spirit in the House!

You can now purchase workshop tickets online!

This year, Spirit in the House is pleased to add a workshop series to its festival programming providing opportunities to delve a little deeper into areas central to our mission of spirituality, social justice and the arts.

There are five different workshops, each is two hours long, and all but one offered twice. Most of the workshop leaders also have a show he or she is performing in at Spirit in the House.

Workshop admission fees are $25 for one workshop or $20 each for two or more.

Here are the five workshops being offered:

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Building Artistic Relationships Across Cultural Boundaries

David Jordan Harris with Hend Al-Mansour

Sunday, March 1, 1:00 - 3:00 pm (Church of Youth)

David Jordan Harris leads a workshop, “Building Artistic Relationships Across Cultural Boundaries,” with Saudi visual artist Hend Al-Mansour. They’ll discuss best practices in cross-cultural dialogue and what can make well-intentioned collaborators fall short of their goals.

David Jordan Harris is a musician, writer, and composer. He has initiated many collaborations with performers, choreographers, designers, and directors who come from different faith and cultural traditions. He is also performing in “A Night in Persia” at Spirit in the House with Voices of Sepharad

Hend Al-Mansour is an installation artist whose work focuses on her identity as a contemporary Muslim woman. She tells stories of Arab women using textiles, cosmetics, silk screen printing, and Arabic calligraphy.

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Church and Stage

Dean J. Seal

Saturday, February 28, 1:00 - 3:00 (Church of Youth)
Saturday, March 7, 1:00 - 3:00 (Church of Youth)

Church and Stage is about how to make the Bible interesting to young people. It is also about how to use theater as a fundraiser, as a means of outreach, and as a means of praxis, i.e. living out your theology in practice in the community. Fun work, good marketing advice. Price includes a copy of the book Church & Stage, published by Cowley Press, Cambridge, MA.

Dean J. Seal is Executive Director of Spirit in The House. He was formerly Producer of the MN Fringe, where he won Festival of the Year twice and Impresario of the Year once. He has been an Associate of the Playwrights’ Center, and has a Master’s Degree in Theology and the Arts. He is also performing “Backwards Ecclesiastes” for one night at Spirit in the House.

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Laughing in the Dark: Storytelling, Trauma and Humor

Nancy Donoval

Tuesday, March 3, 7:00 - 9:00 pm (Social Hall)
Saturday, March 7, 1:00 - 3:00 pm (Social Hall)

This workshop will explore how shaping and telling stories of grief and loss, illness and trauma can offer opportunities for healing to artist and audience. We will also touch on how humor is vital to the process of transforming private pain into public art.

As a veteran storyteller, Nancy Donoval specializes in crafting good art out of hard stuff and finding the funny in the unspeakable. She has been a featured performer at festivals around the country including the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Nancy teaches storytelling at Metropolitan State University and is a respected story coach and consultant. She is also performing her one-woman show, “Date Rape for Beginners: A Seriously Funny Tale of Trauma and Recovery” at Spirit in the House.

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Stepping Into the Sacred: A Bibliodramatic Workshop

Lennie Major

Sunday, March 1, 12:00 - 2:00 pm (Movie Room)
Sunday, March 8, 12:00 - 2:00 pm (Movie Room)

In this bibliodrama workshop you will experience sacred scripture personally as a living, dynamic event as you enter directly into the text through acts of imagination. You BECOME the characters involved and speak with their voices. It’s a trip where the sacred can open before your eyes and ears!

Jewish storyteller Lennie Major has trained extensively in the techniques of bibliodrama with its originator, Peter Pitzele, and has facilitated bibliodramas in a wide variety of settings over the last six years. Lennie is also performing “The Evil Angel and The Birthing of Demons” at Spirit in the House.

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Story in the Service of Advocacy

Loren Niemi

Saturday, February 28, 1:00 - 3:00 pm (Social Hall)
Tuesday, March 3, 7:00 - 9:00 pm (Movie Room)

The axiom: “He who frames the issue, controls the issue” may be extended to stories. Indeed, Stories are an effective tool for advocacy when we tell them with clarity and emotional engagement. This “hands on” workshop will take participants through the message framing and story processes to identify, shape and tell compelling stories around your advocacy issues.

Loren Niemi has spent forty years telling political and community stories as an organizer and consultant as well as thirty years creating, collecting, performing and teaching stories for audiences of all ages. The public policy work he does is a fundamental transformative kind of storytelling with a focus on assisting individuals, organizations and communities to recognize that they have stories to tell and to consciously shape and tell them to better their lives and culture.