Creativity, Arts and Older People
A blog by David Slater
‘What kept you awake was a feeling that everything in the world has its own size, that if you found its size among the swellings and diminishings it would be calm and shine’ from Tall Windows by Robert Hass I sneak into the theatre transformed into a playground of hanging silks, wires and ropes and… Continue reading Off Balance?
We’re in a rehearsal space in Nós do Morro , high on the slope of the Vidigal favela with Ipanema beach and one of the greatest views of Rio stretched out beneath us. Outside a blazing afternoon sun; inside six older women weaving in and out of each other, chanting from photocopied scraps of text:… Continue reading Vidigal: Shakespeare, Sex and Sonnets.
One of the seeds planted by my Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship comes to fruition. Our most recent 21st Century Tea Dance at Entelechy in The Albany Theatre, Deptford southeast London, just went global with a live link-up with older performers from EngAGE from Burbank in California. Together over the last few months we have been… Continue reading Transatlantic boyfriend goes live!
The whole experience is wrapped magically in a scorching Indian summer: late September and the temperatures are in the high twenties. Seven days spent preciously- rich experience juxtaposed with a ‘doing nothing in particular’ rhythm. Two older actors from the Brazilian company Casa das Fases spend a week with older performers from Entelechy. ‘We learn… Continue reading Casa das Fases and Entelechy in London
‘Now just imagine the triumphant procession’ says the narrator in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, only here on this south London street there are no fictional animals (just real people) and it is the beginning of an adventure rather than the end. I was going to write about the theatre of the performance event but it… Continue reading The triumphant procession
Everyone’s individual letters and mementos are gently folded into a nest of coloured tissue paper tied with a skein of red wool. All week we have been playing with words. How do we express our dreams? What secrets do we share? How do we parcel up packets of ourselves for transportation to Brazil? We wrap… Continue reading Letters to Londrina
Friday morning. Traces of the conversation hover over the silence of the empty room. On the paper tablecloth amongst the discarded coffee cups, scattered peanuts and wilting stalks of mint someone has scribbled Tony Kushner’s line: ‘Respect the ecology of your own delusions’. A few weeks ago we bought a table for the Entelechy office:… Continue reading Entelechy’s Table
Creativity, Arts and Older People 