Creativity, Arts and Older People
A blog by David Slater
‘Space reserved for being serious is hard to come by in a modern society, whose chief model of public space is the mega-store (which may also be an airport or a museum)” Susan Sontag So we’re back together again sitting around the office table eating delicious rhubarb cake. Its over a week since the first… Continue reading Talking with audiences
Memory and Place is a complex multi-stranded work that has been uncovered and nurtured by a team of artists led by Rebecca Swift, Creative Producer at Entelechy. It has been commissioned by Siobhan Davies Dance Studios situated near the Elephant and Castle district of south London, an area undergoing massive social change and redevelopment. Yesterday… Continue reading Memory and Place
He arrives unannounced and unexpected, carrying a slim leather case, sits down at the piano stool and starts to play Erik Satie. Tuesday lunch time at Meet Me at the Albany and the soft lyrical phrases of the music drift out and over the jacket potatoes with tuna toppings; fracturing time into a delicate symmetry of… Continue reading Satie and Jacket Potatoes
Yesterday I was invited to contribute to a Small and Thoughtful event hosted by London Bubble exploring theatre making and older people. It was a great opportunity to blow the dust off past experience and celebrate the performers who I apprenticed myself to over thirty-five years ago. Afterwards we went for a drink in the… Continue reading Letters Home
In 2014 Entelechy Arts, in south London, partnered with Freedom Studios, in Bradford, to work with professional and non professional older performers to devise, perform and tour 'Home Sweet Home', a play about what it means to grow old in contemporary Britain. One year later the effect of the programme is still being felt...… Continue reading The Ripple Effect
After the trauma of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in the east of Japan there was an increase in the number of philosophy cafés. Strangers were meeting to talk, share experiences and attempt to comprehend the meaning of the disaster, the physical and emotional impact that it brought to their lives. Philosophy was seen as… Continue reading Japan (part 4) /Falling and Flying (part1).
Last week I participated in an extraordinarily illuminating and eccentric event curated by Chrissie Tiller and the Participatory Arts Lab to both celebrate and mark the sad demise of the MA in Participatory and Community Arts, at Goldsmiths. Participation on Trial was, to quote the blurb, a Dada-esque, playful (but serious) critique of participation in the arts.… Continue reading An Act of Treachery
Around the year 2000 the shopkeepers in the town centre of Fujinomiya, under the shadow of Mount Fuji had a problem. It’s a story that UK high streets have been very familiar with. Out of town competition by national chains with a buying power that they couldn’t match were taking away their trade. A large… Continue reading ‘Arts and Dementia’: responding to the challenge of the Fujinomiya Shopkeepers.
Founded in 2006 by the internationally renowned theatre director Yukio Ninagawa, the Saitama Gold Theatre was born ‘out of a desire to search for new form of theatre based on the personal histories of people of age’. There were extensive auditions with a desire to find people who were not professional performers. Nigagawa was keen… Continue reading Back to Shakespeare
I’ve finally taken up time travelling and I don’t think it’s just the effect of the jet lag or the mesmerising shadow of the cherry blossom gently wavering outside my hotel bedroom window. I’m in Tokyo with colleagues from the UK arts and cultural sector, guest of the British Council, on a weeklong study tour:… Continue reading Japan
Creativity, Arts and Older People 