Minnesota Folk Tale Gardening Clubis a cooperative, all-process, co-creative, audience-as-artist participatory theater for enjoyment, emotional healing, gender reconciliation and community building based in the world folk tale corpus, mythology, archetypal psychology, expressive arts strategies and culture studies. This theater of enthusiasm explores possibilities of freedom, connection, action, depth of feeling and hope. In this theater, personal and community stories mingle with the world’s enduring stories. Spontaneity of experience brings us into deeper relationship with our own nature and potential, and with that of our communities and the larger world. In this compassionate and soul making process, we can experience enjoyment, meaning, emotional healing and connection, while contributing to something larger than ourselves, and creating opportunities for richer participation in life. Participants are guided to access expanded capabilities, flexibility and self-empowerment through structured and improvisational play, and play making based on autobiographical and world cultural stories. Encouraged to trust their own ways of experiencing and participating, individuals are urged to act as the primary authors, directors and actors in the great plays of their own lives, and to participate more fully in those of their companions and the larger world. We model how participation can be ecstatically cathartic, with expressed mirth and grief to encourage emotional and social healing. This arts and society engagement work is trauma-informed, welcomes expression of grief to metabolize insults to inherent dignity, and ameliorates the effects of colonialism through “recovery of self." Workshops and presentations have been offered on this work at: • Pathways Health Crisis Resource Center, Minneapolis • Robert Bly's Minnesota Men's Conference • Mankind Project National Conference • Men's Center, Minneapolis • Collaborative on Health and the Environment Conference, NYC • Chennai (India) Storytelling Festival (2022-23-24) Many participants have reported significant positively life-changing experiences. Covid public health measures required us to move to all virtual programming, which allowed us to welcome guest storytellers, and participants from distant lands. We continue to host a monthly Zoom engagement session for men, and plan to remount in-person sessions soon. Minnesota Folk Tale Gardening Club was founded by Cris Anderson in 1993. Cristopher Anderson Minnesota Folk Tale Gardening Club 4524 Beard Avenue South Minneapolis, Minnesota 55410 USA +1 (612) 209-2712 anders at bitstream.net |
The way of working together that you call Minnesota Folk Tale Gardening Club combines heartfulness, great skill, compassion, delight, bravery, intentionality, trust and awareness.
– Margaret Rubin, Center for Sacred Theatre Thank you so much for this wonderful work. It definitely stirred my cauldron. What a gift! – Participant It's a place to play as children play – in a way that brings to life our deepest truths. – Participant This is so deep, rich and finessed – a joy. Thank you! – Participant This helped save our marriage! – Participant You have touched my essence. This workshop is unlike anything I have ever done before. To enter into the sacred expanded womb space was nurturing, cathartic, pleasure-filled and joyous. I feel like I have arrived. I continue to feel each and every one of you as a generous source of wisdom and empowering life access. – Participant These stories are teaching me; it's like I'm growing thousands of eyes around my head. – Participant Much gratitude and respect. This is much needed medicine for the soul. – Participant I am humbled to say that I love the space and occupants of the vessel. – Participant This has been a godsend for me during these times. – Participant Thank you for the group tonight. Fabulous life-giving time. – Participant Through working with folktales, you and team have developed a wonderful method of enabling participants to consider their ancestral legacies; to discover, remember, and recover aspects of themselves; and to cultivate the hearts, minds, and souls of themselves and their groups. – Eric Miller, PhD, Director, Chennai Storytelling Festival |