[photo credit; Lineage Performing Arts Center]
On August 22, the Pasadena nonprofit will host “Staging Your Grand Exit: A Day of Death, Art, and Legacy,” a full-day workshop that folds practical end-of-life planning — advance directives, the Five Wishes document, ethical decision-making — into a day built around live performance, creative workshops, and conversations about grief and mortality. The event is part of an ongoing death education series at Lineage, produced by Artistic Director Hilary Thomas with a panel of artists and experts, according to the organization.
The workshop runs from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Lineage’s 6,200-square-foot center at 920 East Mountain Street in Northwest Pasadena. Participants will work through tools for organizing their affairs and creating meaningful legacies, and explore the role of art in navigating grief and mortality, the organization said in a press release. Interwoven throughout the day will be performances drawn from Lineage’s original works and community programs, illuminating how stories, movement, and memory continue long after we are gone, according to the press release. Lunch, snacks, and a closing happy hour are included.
Five Wishes, one of the planning tools featured in the workshop, is a widely used advance directive document created by the nonprofit Aging with Dignity. The document, which has been distributed to more than 40 million people, addresses personal, emotional, spiritual, and medical wishes in everyday language and meets legal requirements in 46 states and the District of Columbia.
Thomas, who grew up in Pasadena and founded Lineage Dance in 1999, has built the organization’s programming around collaborations with nonprofits on subjects that include breast cancer, mental health, and reproductive rights. The Staging Your Grand Exit series extends that approach to death and dying, combining the practical work of end-of-life planning with the emotional and creative dimensions that performance can reach, according to Lineage’s organizational materials.
The Lineage Performing Arts Center describes itself as a place for unique artistic connections, inspiration, education and powerful experiences, according to the press release. The workshop is aimed at people who are planning ahead for themselves, caring for loved ones, curious about death education, or interested in what the organization describes as “living more intentionally.” The day is framed not around fear or sadness, the organization said, but around preparation, compassion, meaning, and inspired living.
Lineage Performing Arts Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has operated in Pasadena for more than 25 years. The organization moved to its current Northwest Pasadena location in 2018 after completing a $650,000 capital campaign to transform a long-abandoned property into a community arts hub. Cynthia Crass serves as executive director.
“Staging Your Grand Exit: A Day of Death, Art, and Legacy” takes place Saturday, August 22 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Lineage Performing Arts Center, 920 East Mountain Street. Cost was not listed at the time of publication; registration is available at lineagepac.org. Lunch, snacks, and a closing happy hour are included. Free parking is available in the CVS parking lot adjacent to the venue. For more information, call 626-844-7008 or visit lineagepac.org.
The day begins with advance directives and ends with a happy hour — the space between them held for the kind of conversation most people put off until it is too late.
