Rites of Passage For Life’s Transitions
Wednesday, April 30th, 2025, 7pm – 8:30pm ET
Our February webinar is open to all INELDA members as part of membership benefits.
Please login to your INEDLA Account to access the recording:
Webinar Guests:
Amanda Marie Ellis King, CFSP | Embalmer and Funeral Director, INELDA Trained-Doula
Jackie Naginey Hook, MA | Spiritual director, Celebrant, and INELDA_trained End-of-life Doula at Koch Funeral Home
Webinar Moderator:
Kimberly Stravers | INELDA Educator, Celebrant, and Former Funeral Attendant
Webinar Guest(s):
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Zeyneb Sayilgan, Ph.D. | Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies (ICJS)
Recorded Wednesday, March 25th, 2026, 7pm – 8:30pm ET
Webinar Guests:
Dr. Kevin Bott | Educator, activist, and community-based theater artist
Jan Cohen-Cruz | Educator, activist, and community-based theater artist
Webinar Moderators:
Shelby Kirillin | INELDA Educator
Nicole Heidbreder | INELDA Educator
During mourning, the living mourners and the deceased constitute a special group, situated between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
—Arnold van Gennep
Educators, activists, and community-based theater artists, Jan Cohen-Cruz and Dr. Kevin Bott met with INELDA educators Shelby Kirillin and Nicole Heidbreder for a conversation on ritual structures and rites of passage.
We learned about rituals for people returning from incarceration that are led by Dr. Bott through his work with Ritual4Return. Additionally, Jan’s insights about Arnold van Gennep’s three-part framework of rites of passage, incorporation of ritual, and their book, Performing Emancipatory Rites of Passage, which traces rituals from birth to death gave us a framework for how we can conceptualize the importance of ritual. Their book includes a chapter that shares the voices of INELDA team members in a roundtable about death and dying.
Additionally, we learned about end of life rituals that Shelby and Nicole engage in with the people they work with, as well as their personal rituals.
Guest Speaker Bios:
Dr. Kevin Bott is founder and artistic director of Ritual4Return, Inc (R4R). In 2006, Kevin began facilitating prison theater workshops for the non-profit, Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), and in 2007 became RTA’s first director of education. In 2019, Kevin was named the “Blade of Grass-David Rockefeller Fund Joint Fellow in Criminal Justice. In 2024, R4R was awarded the Katz Prize for Excellence in Public Humanities and in 2025 was awarded first place in the “Arts Advancing Social Justice” category by the National Organization for Arts in Health.
Kevin is the director of Rutgers Arts Online, the online division of Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Previously, Kevin served as Dean for Civic Engagement at Wagner College and, prior to that, served as Associate Director and Director of Cultural Organizing at Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and three children.
Jan Cohen-Cruz performed with the NYC Street Theater in the early 1970s. She taught at NYU Drama for 28 years, creating their applied theater program. Jan directed Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life (2007–2011), a consortium of socially engaged artists, designers and humanists affiliated with higher education, launching their journal Public. She was director of field research for A Blade of Grass, supporting socially engaged artists. She is co/author or co/editor of nine books, most recently See Me: Prison Theater Workshops and Love, also the basis of a podcast, and Performing Emancipatory Rites of Passage, coedited with Kevin Bott. Jan facilitates theater and writing workshops, often incorporating the work of August Boal, most recently with NYC im/migrants. www.jancohencruz.com
ALL members can view this webinar as part of the INELDA membership benefits. [Members Register Here]
Non-members can purchase access to attend this webinar for $15 and will receive a link to view the recording following the event.
The recording of this September 2023 webinar has been made available to all members as part of your INELDA membership benefits. Non-members who purchased access to this webinar may also view the recording.
Sign in to your INELDA Account to access a recording of this webinar [CLICK HERE]
Tier 2 & 3 members can view this webinar at no cost as part of the INELDA membership benefits.
Tier 1 & Non-members can purchase live access to this webinar for $15 and will be able to view the recording following the event.
