Createquity.: It’s no coincidence that your fox-trot-loving great-aunt lived to a ripe old age, putting you and your siblings to shame with her dexterity. A robust set of research suggests that participatory arts activities are effective mechanisms for increasing the health and quality of life of aging individuals.
2 comments:
I went to the Alzheimers Association International Conference in Toronto with my mom, who works in a dementia clinic, this past summer in Toronto and there was consistent research from all over the world indicating that activities like exercise and problem solving games reduced the risk of developing Alzheimers disease. It makes perfect sense that the arts too are a part of this idea and can benefit the lives of so many, especially the elderly. Besides the health benefits, I've also volunteered with some older people who have mentioned that they spent the first year or two of their retirement doing nothing. They hadn't planned anything and didn't know how to fill their day without work. If senior art classes were more common, retirees could get a jump start on filling their free time while improving their bodies and minds. Arts education is a necessary factor of our well being throughout our whole lives.
So often, it seems like the big discussion topic of development teams in the arts is how do we bring new audiences into the theatre to form a base that we can build subscribers off of. This conversation is valid and comes up for the right reasons, but there is another side to the topic: the generation that we are “leaving behind”. My sister works in a geriatric wing of a hospital and she specializes in occupation therapy. Every week, I hear a new story of how great this patient was and how wonderful this other patient was. We are so eager to create arts for the younger audiences like ourselves, that we are quick to forget about the generation that came before us. I feel like some people in my generation are quick to dismiss these audiences because they are “old-fashioned” or “traditional” but they just like us have been through shifts in generational thought. They aren’t as stubborn as we often think and it is great they way this article talks about the relationship between the arts and aging.
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