Creativity, Arts and Older People
A blog by David Slater
The question was written on the board leaning against the street herbalists table on the junction between Wayne and Colleville just outside Silver Spring Metro: “How do you be come a good human been?” The text on a wall in the Phillips Collection nr the Dupont Circle offered a curatorial response: “ a mixture of… Continue reading Wandering and Wondering in Washington DC
I was introduced to the dancer Ida Arbeit in what was to be the last days of her life. She was 101 years old. This was no gentle lounge seat encounter. We were in an activities room transformed into a dance studio in a retirement apartment block in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St.… Continue reading Encore
Water music from the town of Alexandria on the banks of the mighty Potomac River
There is a moment when gravity questions the challenge his spiritual self is making to his physical one. As he twists and turns in the centre of the circle of his friends and acquaintances in the downtown Washington DC day centre he almost looses his balance. It feels like he is literally jiving on the… Continue reading The setting has changed
Floating high in the ionosphere there are balloons with instruments that pick up traces of exploding stars. You cannot travel across the United States, attempting to navigate a way through the territory of creative aging, without continually breathing in the presence of Dr. Gene Cohen. Way back before knowing of this journey, I had dared… Continue reading Dr. Gene Cohen
“How are you today?” I am in the American National Bank in Boulder drawing out money. There is music in the background and someone talking on the radio; something familiar about the voice, something familiar about the story: “…making art, the memories bubble up. She took two cone shaped shells and she traced around them… Continue reading Broadcasting
On the bus back from Denver to Boulder Colorado as dusk falls over the distant Rockies, I’m reading Michael Sandel’s ‘Justice’. He quotes Alasdair MacIntyre: ‘We live our lives as narrative quests.’ “I can only answer the question ‘what am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories… Continue reading The bus back from Denver
I drive back over the Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco from my first visit to Stagebridge nourished by the alchemy of theatre, full of new stories, song and succulent peach cake. A tiny glimpse of a complex body of practice: I sit in on the Word for Word class:" Once upon a sunny morning… Continue reading Music and peach cake
I visited a dance class for seniors in Berkeley this morning. Before class I was chatting to Judy Job and I mentioned that I was the director of an arts company in south London called Entelechy. "Ah", she said, " The actualisation of an idea". She has a grandson named Entelechy. She has danced for… Continue reading A Grandson named Entelechy
Dear Sue, Suzanne, Walter, James, Felicia, Sally, Dolly, Here it is! I think we should all congratulate ourselves! Twelve minutes of drama from nothing in 34 minutes. You are all so brilliant at improv. I'm now going to take this back to London and share it with our company there. They may already be catching… Continue reading The Boyfriend
Creativity, Arts and Older People 