For the fourth year, Nina Wise brings her evening “Soul-O” to The Marin Center. In this year’s “Wild Wisdom”, Nina will create a solo performance based on the week’s events and Vinny Ferraro will give one of his signature dharma talks. Both will deliver unpredictable and moving presentations about what it is like to be human in these times. Their presentations are likely to help you laugh, feel, think & see your life and the world in new ways.

Besides being renowned as a performance artist, Nina Wise is a Dharma teacher at Spirit Rock and beyond. Her original works, performed in prestigious venues world-wide, have won awards for playwriting, innovative design, & new theater with three NEA fellowships and seven Bay Area Theater Critics’ Circle Awards.

Vinny Ferraro is the Senior Trainer for Mindful Schools in Oakland, California and his work was the subject of MTV’s “If You Really Knew Me”. He was trained by Jack Kornfield to teach the Dharma, and is a nationally recognized leader in designing & implementing mindfulness interventions for at-risk youth.

In 1987, he began volunteering his time to be of service. He went on to help establish Dharma Punx in the mid 90’s. In 2001, he began teaching for Challenge Day, teaching emotional intelligence and other social skills, eventually becoming their Training Director, and leading workshops to more than 100,000 youth. He then became the Training Director for the Mind Body Awareness Project, a non-profit that teaches meditation to the incarcerated.

He is a Guiding Teacher for “Against the Stream,” and for 14 years has led a Friday night meditation group in San Francisco.