Upcoming events
5 Gates of Grief
FIVE GATES OF GRIEF
from Francis Weller’s Wild Edge of Sorrow
On April 28th 2024 from 4-7 pm, we present the 5 Gates of Grief: an immersive and interactive installation with live activations of the gates by the artists at the Maas Building.
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First Gate: Everything we love we will lose. Artist: Jordan Deal
Second Gate: The places that have not known love. Artist: Lauren Silver
Third Gate: The sorrows of the world. Artist: Joshua Marquez
Fourth Gate: What we expected and did not receive. Artists: Sam Rise and Bennett Kuhn
Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief. Artist: Dwight Dunston aka Sterling Duns
Portal to Joy: Salt Trails member Rev. Rhetta Morgan will close the evening by welcoming guests into a joy portal as a reminder that when grief is embraced instead of shunned, it is a portal to transformation.
• • •
5 Gates of Grief
Maas Building (enter on 5th side at 1320 N 5th street, 19122)
Sunday, Apr 28, 2024 from 4-7 pm
Opening invocation will start at 4 pm
Portal to Joy closing ceremony at 6:30 pm
The Gates will remain open for visits on Monday 4/29 and Tuesday 4/30 from 4-7 pm. Artists will not be present, but you are more than welcome to come visit during these hours!
ALL ARE WELCOME. THIS EVENT IS FREE, WITH THE OPTION TO TIP INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS VIA THEIR VENMO ACCOUNTS.
NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED. COME BE WITH US!
Text/call Rebecca 215 688 7766 or Catherine 215 285 3315 with questions or to get accessibility info
ADDITIONAL DETAILS HERE.
Screening of "The Last Ecstatic Days"
Screening of "The Last Ecstatic Days" documentary, with talkback to follow.
@ The Maas Building, 1325 N Randolph Street, Philadelphia, PA.
Watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/Og4ItddToWk
Entry for this is $10, which can be paid at the door or using this link:
Ethan Sisser, a young man with terminal brain cancer, sits alone in his hospital room. When he starts livestreaming his death journey on social media, thousands of people around the world join to celebrate his courage. Still, Ethan envisions more – to teach the world how to die without fear. To do that, he needs to film his death.
Honoring Ethan’s wish, his doctor Aditi Sethi transports him to an idyllic house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. What unfolds next is a story rarely glimpsed: how a community of strangers helps a young man die with grace.
A sensory immersion into leaving the body, “The Last Ecstatic Days”reveals a man who will not let us forget him – even after he’s taken his final breath.
Psychedelics, Death and Presence
Rebecca Maury, MD in conversation with Scott Kirschenbaum, director of The Last Ecstatic Days.
Free, open to the public. @ The Maas Building, 1325 N Randolph Street, Philadelphia, PA.
Honoring of Our Dead: Brass Band, Food + Drink
Please come join Threshold Collective and Artist/Death Doula Annie Wilson on Wednesday, November 1st at The Maas Building for a celebration honoring our beloved deceased. Doors open at 6 PM. There will be an honoring ritual, brass Second Line band, tamales, and drinks! Day of the Dead, Samhain (pagan, Galic), All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Halloween, Allantide (pagan, later Christian, Cornish), Dziady (‘Forefathers Eve” pagan later Christian, Russian), and more are all holidays celebrated right around November 1st the world over to honor and call back ancestors, and in recognition that at this time of the year the veil between the worlds is thin, and our ancestors can come. If you can, bring a photocopy of a photograph if you're beloved deceased, if not we’ll provide pen and paper to write their names and we will honor them together. Then Philly Second Line will play! “Historically, the African-American community began second lines as neighborhood celebrations. The neighborhood organizations offered social aid to freed slaves, such as loans and insurance, and used the second-lines as a form of advertising. Second lines were also used to honor members who died in their community, which launched the idea of second lines at funerals” (neworleans.com). Suggested donation 10$ for the band!
Survival in Ruins - Katie Vickers
Katie Vickers is a Philly based artist situating herself between performance and choreography. Her work seeks for friction between sensation and meaning. She is focused on slowness as resistance, ecology, and storytelling through collective weaving.
Her upcoming work, Survival In Ruins, is a memoir that contemplates grief, parenthood, and slowness. Inspired by the birth of her second son, a father with Alzheimer’s, and mycelium networks – a body moves forcefully slow confronting the reality of the making and unmaking of a life. Survival In Ruins asks us to sit inside growth and loss, stillness and silence, and what it means to be called into extreme presence.
Learn more at www.katie-vickers.com
Survival in Ruins - Katie Vickers
Katie Vickers is a Philly based artist situating herself between performance and choreography. Her work seeks for friction between sensation and meaning. She is focused on slowness as resistance, ecology, and storytelling through collective weaving.
Her upcoming work, Survival In Ruins, is a memoir that contemplates grief, parenthood, and slowness. Inspired by the birth of her second son, a father with Alzheimer’s, and mycelium networks – a body moves forcefully slow confronting the reality of the making and unmaking of a life. Survival In Ruins asks us to sit inside growth and loss, stillness and silence, and what it means to be called into extreme presence.
Learn more at www.katie-vickers.com
IT’S COMPLICATED …THIS GIFT OF LIFE
Michelle Pauls, solo theatre artist presents the World Premiere of her new play for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival! IT’S COMPLICATED …THIS GIFT OF LIFE is based on her tumultuous, traumatic and ultimately hope-filled life of the past three years. Watching her husband’s manic spiral out of control, and then horrific accidental death, all during the COVID pandemic inspired this multi-disciplinary theatrical production. Starring Michelle Pauls and directed by Carly L. Bodnar. Dates for IT’S COMPLICATED… run September 15-23, 2023. Ticket prices are $25.00 (discounts available) and can be purchased through the Philadelphia Fringe website or at the door of the venue, Vox Populi Gallery, on the day of show. Vox Populi Gallery is located at 319 N 11th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107.
BUY TIX HERE: https://phillyfringe.org/events/its-complicated-this-gift-of-life/
Box Office: 215-413-1318
Show dates and times for IT’S COMPLICATED...THIS GIFT OF LIFE
September 15 @ 7:00pm
September 16 @ 9:00pm
September 17 @ 7:00pm
September 18 @ 6:00pm (Talk back with Naila Francis after this performance)
September 22 @ 7:00pm
September 23 @ 9:00pm
Nights of Grief & Mystery w/ Stephen Jenkins
Nights of Grief and Mystery:
Stephen Jenkinson, author and cultural activist, and Gregory Hoskins, musician, will be coming to Philadelphia on July 23rd, 2023 for an evening of story and song at The Ethical Society on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Stephen is known for his profound and culture-changing work at the end-of-life. Gregory Hoskins is a Canadian folk rock musician known for his solo career and for his work with the band Stickpeople.
https://orphanwisdom.com/event/nogmphiladelphia/
Inaugural grief & loss salon
Threshold Collective is hosting our inaugural grief and loss salon:
Dancing on the Threshold on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, the Summer Solstice. Contributing artists have been chosen for their beautiful and moving work related to the themes of grief and loss, and include Naila Franics, poet; Dawn Smelser, poet and story weaver; and Annie Wilson, choreographer among others. Come join us for a beautiful evening in celebration of life, love, and loss in the beautiful Maas courtyard. Solstice bonfire included!
Rough and Tumble Productions Fundraiser
On June 1st Threshold Collective and the Maas Building will be hosting a cabaret and fundraiser for Rough and Tumble Productions and their piece “Good Grief!”
Medicine Drum Birthing Ceremony
Threshold Collective hosts Mia Luz - Drum Doula
Experience the magic of birthing your own medicine drum with your very own love, passion & energy entwined in its being. Connect with the heartbeat of Mother Earth and the spirit world to discover your true self.
You will learn some basic shamanic traditions and rituals and as a final passage, I drum over each newly born drum to pass on a transmission that was gifted to me by the Original Mother of Drums.
We will be making your choice of a 14", 16" or 18" round elk-hide drum with cedar frame and the mallet. COST: 14" Drum $375 , 16" Drum $395, 18" Drum $415
Price includes all materials and the workshop. Register by paying in full. Venmo: mialuz33
Please provide your e-mail address, date for the workshop and the size drum you would like to birth or pre-purchase a drum at the link on this page.
Grief and Loss ARTIST Residency
Ongoing (March 2023)
Threshold Collective is honored to be hosting our first annual Grief and Loss Residency artist Kaz K Sherman. We feel fortunate to have a home in the Maas building where the infrastructure exists to support artistic exploration of death and grief. In addition to this annual grief residency, we will have ongoing artistic programming related to these themes, as we build community and conversation around exploration of death, loss and grief.
About Kaz:
Kaz K Sherman's work incorporates her background in dance, writing, theater, music, and the handyman arts. She choreographs and performs, builds sets and props, designs sound and video, and writes text. Her investigations in craft and visual art, including glassblowing, woodworking, drawing, and sculpture, illuminate how the body extends to and through other materials, culminating in an interdependent world where objects elucidate bodies, choreography is language, and words become tools. She's been a freelance stage technician, technical director, and production manager for over 25 years. In conjunction with her show Soft Goods (2016), which explored work, death, loss, and the occupational self-obliteration of stagehands, she partnered with Behind the Scenes to create a mental health/chemical dependency counseling fund specifically for technical production workers, the first of its kind in the nation. Since 2020, she's been working in COVID healthcare support, helping to run testing and vaccinations sites across Minnesota. She's currently working on a project exploring transplants, hospital workplace culture, and the hospicing of people, animals, and careers.
RECKONING LIVE
Join Stephen Jenkinson and Kimberly Ann Johnson for a special live conversation on their new release, their co-written book, Reckoning, hosted by The Threshold Collective.
Reckoning is an unguarded, sober meeting with Spirit Work, Conspiracies, Elderhood, Grief and Plague and Building Culture in a Me First Era. “Try this at home. With Companions.”
When? Monday, February 27th (Door opens at 6:15pm/ Talk 7pm-8:30pm/ Book signing until 9:30pm). Register here.
Where? MAAS Building – 1320 N 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19122
Tickets are required and the cost is $25 – Register here.
Click here to purchase audio book, paperback or hardcover of Reckoning. We will have a limited number of books available the night of. Cash preferred.