<h4 style=”font-size: 12px;”>AUDIO // In this episode Claire speaks about the current health crisis, and how it could potentially affect creatives and our connection with each other.</h4>
Social activity is an essential aspect of any community, and that includes elders aging in place or in specialized communities that provide a sheltered environment emphasizing safety and physical care. The opportunity to gather in groups prevents the isolation that impacts physical and mental health. Equally important the cultural arts extend to individuals a feeling of well-being, an opportunity to transcend their circumstances and nourish the spirit. Gathering to enjoy a performance is a kind of community witnessing that enhances individual lives beyond the moment. Attendees may relive the moment in shared appreciation and extend feelings of belonging and connectedness that counteract debilitative feelings of alienation that stem from loneliness.
For 20 years, spurred on by personal conviction and the feelings expressed by loved ones at a time of illness and rehabilitation, I’ve offered cultural education and outreach programs in a variety of community elder settings. I have a strong commitment to the potential of arts participation, as witness and/or maker, to uplift through connection, to resolve conflict, and to bring light into darkness. Residents and staff together benefit from engagement with the arts by sharing in arts activity and performances.
I’ve seen withdrawn individuals move towards re-connection, seen eyes light up, and heard voices lift to be heard. I’ve offered arts activities to elders and to their direct care providers who felt they had nothing to share, only to have them blossom and reach out to members of younger generations. I’ve attended performances by gifted artists and cultural workers who make a point to reach out to each generation. The opportunity for our elders to continue to access the performing and hands-on arts are perpetuated in communities by multigenerational effort. In elder living communities and while aging in place, a vibrant cultural life is a significant health factor.
In times of physical distancing, how then can cultural arts workers stay in touch with their audiences and continue to provide a roster entertainment, classes, and all forms of participatory outreach? Those who are operating as freelancers like myself have had to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. Educative platforms are available for classes. For performers, live-stream and recorded events are utilized to offer individuals access. Anywhere groups of people can tune in together there can be a sense of community. I’ve been most impressed with residential settings that offer tablets to residents to follow along or offer a projection screen in a corridor where each individual can view from their doorway, at a suitable distance from others, yet nonetheless together. Keeping to a schedule of activity times, even if not participating in close quarters, provides elders with hands-on arts expression that focuses the mind in a productive and soothing aesthetic experience. The results can be shared with care workers in person and family members and fellow residents via a tablet.
Creative work inspires creative solutions that may well spark change beyond immediate needs. We can move past our anxiety of the moment, which we have no choice but to accept. Creative arts allow the individual to make space between their physical confinement and their mental space. The repetitive nature of arts, the lifting of brush or pencil, the instrument or the voice, the need for practice, and the pure pleasure of the experience is meditative and comforting. It provides flow, the generative state of immersion in present experience. In joyous and sorrowful times the arts we practice from childhood provide continuity. Bringing music to those who are faltering is a way for families and friends to share their love and memories, reaching out to loved ones to soothe their journey and say goodbye.