HOLDING OUR OWN:
EMBRACING THE END OF LIFE
Sunday, April 21
3:00pm at Whitcomb’s
What makes a good death? And how can I help myself and others prepare? Our speaker Camilla Rockwell, a 22 year hospice volunteer, will explore these questions through discussion, film and live music. Her film HOLDING OUR OWN: EMBRACING THE END OF LIFE, a moving and tender treatment of life’s final passage, gently guides viewers into this oft-avoided topic. HOLDING OUR OWN features the stunning work of Vermont artist Deidre Scherer and the heartfelt harmonies of the Hallowell hospice chorus to examine aging and the end of life with a wise and celebratory approach.
After the film, the Noyana Singers, an acapella hospice chorus from Burlington, VT will sing and lead a brief Q & A session about their work. Join us for this surprisingly joyful way to think about a difficult subject.
Suggested donation: $10
This is a lovely, sensitively shot, and uncompromising film that stares with generous and empathetic eyes at a process many of us would rather look away from. — Ken Burns, filmmaker
About the director: Camilla Rockwell worked with filmmaker Ken Burns for over a decade before producing her own films on creativity, the arts, healing and well-being. Her documentaries Stone Rising, Holding Our Own and Mother Nature's Child have been broadcast on public television. In 2014, Rockwell produced Full Circle: The Art & Heart of Aging, a three-day festival that explored the gifts and challenges of aging through art, music, writing, film, dance and theater. Rockwell has been a hospice volunteer for over 20 years and in 2006 helped to found the Noyana Singers, Burlington’s hospice chorus.
Since its inception in 2003, Hallowell has served hundreds of families in the Brattleboro area and has helped launch a number of hospice choirs throughout New England and across the country. Hallowell serves as a strong model for the growing movement of the practice of bedside singing for the dying.
Noyana Singers
Inspired by Hallowell’s model, the Noyana Singers are a trained group of hospice volunteers who provide songs of comfort at the bedsides of the dying in private homes, nursing homes, hospital rooms and at the McClure Miller Respite House in Chittenden and Grand Isle Counties of Vermont.
Deidre Scherer is a pioneer in the medium of thread-on-fabric and has exhibited since 1979, including solo shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art; and the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York City. Scherer received the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine’s 2008 Humanities Award; the Rhode Island School of Design’s 2010 Alumni Association Award for Artistic Achievement; and a fine arts fellowship from the Open Society Institute. Her work appears on the cover of the best selling “When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple”. You can see her work on her website.