Creativity, Arts and Older People
A blog by David Slater
At the Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange in Maryland last month the company made it very clear that they do not work with the concept of outreach. Members of the main performing company led all of the workshops that I attended in senior centers in Maryland. I love the clarity of the vision. There is art… Continue reading ‘Outreach’ and hope revisited
South London. The Stephen Laurence Centre. A seminar on intergenerational practice organized by our neighbours Age Exchange. I had been asked to run two breakout workshops sharing something of my American experience. Each of the sessions lasted forty minutes. Felt like I needed forty days. Way back in the 1980’s the older women from our… Continue reading Cocktails and Kindergartens
My daughter arrives home from the National Portrait Gallery with the gift of a post card. Tom Phillips lithograph of Samuel Beckett: “NO MATTER. TRY AGAIN. FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER. So many of the people who I met in the US squeezed time for conversations in between the wild rush to meet funding application deadlines.… Continue reading Sandwiched by Angels
And so it all comes to an end, my great American Adventure (only joking of course it doesn’t) with a cup of coffee from Mr. Peet’s place in the departure lounge at JFK. Joanna Harris had taken me to the original store in Berkeley and of course she had known him as she had… Continue reading Mr. Peet and an Airport Lounge and Love continued…
It is towards the beginning my visit to MoMA that I missed the critical companionship of the women I had wandered round the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton Massachusetts with. “Let Art Touch You” is the museum’s strap line. These women knew how. We’re back to driving on the Los Angeles freeways at night in… Continue reading “It’s wonderful people can do things like that”
We’re not good about talking about intimacy, certainly in the UK. Up until now most of my writing energies have been focused on the mostly joyless last of writing funding bids, trying to secrete passion in between the lines of recycled text. Taking this sabbatical has been a delight. Suddenly whole new packages of words… Continue reading Love and an awkwardness with words
[Bibi Melville from Maryland talking about a cross-generational/ cross-cultural programme that she is working on] Almost eight weeks ago in Burbank on the outskirts of Los Angeles I help to run a workshop for senior managers at EngAge. We asking the question how can we more effectively communicate the stories from different residential centre programmes.… Continue reading Books
Creativity, Arts and Older People 