KAIROS ALIVE

We want every elder and person with a disability to experience wellbeing and hope, and be actively engaged in joyful, creative community life through intergenerational intercultural dance, music, story, and arts and health research learning engagement. Kairos Alive! empowers elders, people with disabilities, and intergenerational community to feel good, have hope, stay connected, and cultivate physical, emotional, social and cognitive health. We do this through creativity engagement programs in dance, music, story, and health research learning. Our programs, which tap the creativity in everyone, were featured in the PBS documentary, Arts and the Mind. Kairos: The open moment of creativity where eternity meets the present. Kairos Alive! is a 24-year-old Minnesota nonprofit, evidence-based, arts and social impact organization based in the power of creativity engagement that promotes individual and group leadership for healthy active lifestyles. Our mission is to transform lives through dance, music, theater and the latest arts and health research learning. Our vision is to celebrate elders and people with disabilities at the center of vital intergenerational creative communities, inspiring enjoyment and well-being for all. Our goals are to serve as an innovator of programs, educator in Arts and Health approaches, and a catalyst for systems change. We have 7-years of experience developing live 2-way interactive participatory virtual programs. Kairos Alive! is a recognized pioneer in the Arts and Health/Creative Aging movements. Our programs have won national awards from the American Public Health Association and the American Society on Aging, and have contributed to research in the field. They are recognized as model programs by the National Endowment for the Arts. Rachelle Shultz, CEO, Winona (MN) Health: "Our Kairos events were amazing! Staff loved learning this approach, and it has opened up whole new ways of thinking. We have great stories about the impact on residents. [Four years later,] our staff in long term care still use what they learned with Kairos!" Five major Kairos Alive! programs are making significant contributions to the fields of Arts and Health, and Creative Aging: 1. Choreography of CareTM (CC) describes our larger vision of creating individual and community wellbeing through intergenerational interactive participatory dance, music, story, theater - and the latest body/mind health education. Through CC, we serve as links between performing arts and healthcare, to create compelling works of art, enjoyment and research-verifiable health benefits. 2. Kairos ClubhouseTM Webcasts. We have 7-years of experience developing popular 2-way interactive participatory streamed arts and health engagement webcasts serving individuals and groups of people in the Twin Cities, greater Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida and California. Our current flagship webcast over Zoom, Kairos ClubhouseTM is a weekly engaging and inspiring research-based 2-way "TV show" that's a mix of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, Reading Rainbow, Soul Train, Science Friday and Live From Lincoln Center for all ages and abilities. With music, adapted dance and movement, stories, and arts and health research learning, it makes creative connections between isolated people, improves health, and promotes intercultural understanding. The show is popular with a network of senior day programs and organizations who serve people with disabilities throughout greater Minnesota. We webcast from studios in Bloomington and St. Paul, MN. We frequently collaborate on webcasts with other organizations, including the Minnesota Orchestra and the American Swedish Institute, among many others. 3. Moving WellTM is our certificate training program for nurses, physical, occupational and recreational therapists, social workers, certified nursing assistants, program managers, family caregivers, students, artists and citizen activists involved with elders and people with disabilities. We give participants specific tools for engaging family members, colleagues and clients physically, mentally and emotionally through joyful performing arts involvement to affect personal and community health and wellbeing. Availability via Zoom; will launch Fall 2023. 4. Our Intergenerational Dance HallTM is an all ages and abilities re-imagining of the community dance as the intersection of artistic, physical, and social involvement, with elders and people with disabilities at the center of intergenerational dance and story performance art making, involving underserved audiences. 5. Our Community Arts and WellbeingTM Residency is our community wide project involving individual and organizational collaborators in the arts, healthcare, social services, education, business, government and Tribal Nations, designed to foster creativity, and optimal health and wellbeing, with elders and people with disabilities at the center of this activity.6. Other special programs: We have extensive experience working with neuro- divergent people of all ages, and we have multi-year projects with organizations that serve veterans and people with Parkinson's disease. We continue to provide leadership in the field of creative arts and aging. Six studies are based on the work of Kairos. Through in-depth artist training, and presentations and involvement programs for both the public and for collaborating leaders, we continue to develop this work locally with our many Minneapolis and St. Paul partners, as well as with outstate partners. National involvements include mounting residencies, trainings and keynotes in Washington, DC, Johnstown, PA, Orlando, FL Santa Fe, NM, Phoenix, AZ and San Francisco, CA, and at the International Federation on Ageing conference in Bangkok, Thailand. We provide education on the value of engaging elders and people with disabilities in the arts, celebrating their existence and experience, and changing stereotypes that imply that older people are no longer able to contribute or be productive members of our communities. Our work offers direct joyful experiences in intercultural understanding, acceptance and enjoyment. We serve as grassroots catalysts to bring out the creativity of the older adults and people with disabilities with whom we work, changing their social status in the community, and impacting the way people interact through the lens of performing arts experiences led by professional artists.