The K’ilu Company – To bring the techniques of immersive theater and sensory engagement to additional communities across North America by training cohorts of Jewish family educators and expanding the Ark Adventures program.

What are you most excited to see come to fruition through this expansion of Ark Adventures?

It’s exciting to see the Ark Adventures program come to life in new communities, and use a new artistic container to invite families into Shabbat. We have been struck by the way the program has built community and captivated families here in Chicago, and we can’t wait to expand that impact. We’re energized to train family educators to use Sensory Theater as a modality for a family Shabbat experience, and to introduce more very young children to how Shabbat and Torah stories can come to life through immersive theatrical play and hands-on sensory exploration.

How do immersive theater experiences increase the “stickiness” of the Jewish learning for children and families?

Arts Education research tells us that when children and families experience a story in a hands-on embodied way, and their senses are activated, they actually develop deeper memories. It sticks. And, they experience a deeper sense of social bonding, feeling closer to each other and community. Immersive theater brings story and ritual to life in a way that it feels lived and experienced rather than just received. That’s why we feel it is the perfect vehicle to introduce Jewish learning and engagement to young children and their families.

What’s a meaningful moment you’ve experienced leading Ark Adventures that has stuck with you?

When I watch young children and their grownups lean forward, eyes wide in wonder, fully immersed in an Ark Adventures experience, it is magic. During the Ark Adventure, we unroll a large piece of fabric designed to look like a sky filled with stars, and we invite families to snuggle together in the stars as we sing the ancient words of the Priestly Blessing — to give a blessing to the children for Shabbat. When I look around, and I watch grandparents, parents, and children looking at each other and singing these words, lit by the dim lights aboard the “ark”, I feel a deep sense of community and spirituality.