Arts at the Heart feature on Big Society
by Free Software on Nov.22, 2009, under
To read Clive Parkinson's paper on Big Society, go to: http://www.nalgao.org/e107_images/custom/aahseptfinal1b.pdf
RAMBERT DANCE: AWAKENINGS
by Free Software on Nov.22, 2009, under
Much of the arts and health movement is concerned with the instrumental impact of the arts, with organisations like Arts for Health striving to engage marginalised communities in creative and cultural activity that might impact on well-being. There is ample evidence that illustrates engaging in the arts not only improves physical and mental health, but the very act of bringing people together provides something of the civic glue to healthy communities.
The implicit impact of the arts in relation to health and well-being however, is harder to define. Many interesting studies illustrate that the theatre and gallery-going public are more likely to be the educated middle-classes, and that people marginalised by issues such as mental ill-health are far less likely to participate in cultural opportunities because of broad ranging social and economic barriers.
For someone with limited experience of contemporary dance, an invitation to the Lowry to watch a new piece of dance being premiered could have made for a challenging evening. The Lowry was full to capacity for this premiere of Rambert Dance Company’s interpretation of the work of Dr Oliver Sacks, Awakenings, already made famous by the Hollywood film of the same name,
As its stimulus, Awakenings, uses the true story of a group of patients affected by sleeping sickness following the 1918 flu pandemic. Through the prescription of the drug L-Dopa, the patients who had been in a catatonic state for decades become suddenly animated, but the drug’s effects are short lived and this brief period of lucidity is marred by seizures and delirium, with patients ultimately slipping back into a twilight world.
This performance visually and physically captures the passage of treatment, from the liberation of symptoms to the subsequent relapse of the patients. For the audience and dancers, the music replaces the drug L-Dopa and offers us the opportunity to connect viscerally to the isolated and disjointed worlds of the individuals affected by this strange sleeping sickness.
The unpredictability of the tics and twitches of this condition were made manifest by the dancers as they entered, walking backwards onto the stage, as if wary and watchful of their condition. Suddenly, we would see their bodies contract in spasm, accompanied by spikes of music. In contrast were the darker moments, when a percussive thrum reflected the depressive slump of the patients; the dancer’s bodies heavy with the burden of this illness.
There was a real sense of tension in the audience, watching people dressed as if for work on a summer’s day on Madison Avenue, literally frozen in their tracks, as they made their way to or from their destination. We had the impression that they were locked into a world entirely within them-selves and that all they could do was to observe the effects of the condition as it took over them.
On the empty stage, the elegantly dressed and beautifully lithe performers made visible something of the internal landscape of the patients they inhabited. But what relevance to this arts and health agenda is there?
Having worked with a wide range of communities who believe that the ‘high-arts’ have nothing to do with them, I’m aware that dance or ballet is often dismissed as inaccessible to people who haven’t experienced it. I am often looking for ways to describe disease, illness or concepts of well-being and frequently words are insufficient. What I crave are universal metaphors that reach out beyond the confines of language or cultural experience and beyond the common assumptions that status is a barrier to appreciating subtle or complex ideas.
It would be easy to argue that Awakenings was very unambiguous and without a need for tricky interpretation or you may share my view, that this visceral manifestation of what it is to be human and to have free will, only for that free will be taken away, makes both fluid and solid the potential and frustration that our fleeting experience of life offers.
It would be easy to argue that Awakenings was very unambiguous and without a need for tricky interpretation or you may share my view, that this visceral manifestation of what it is to be human and to have free will, only for that free will be taken away, makes both fluid and solid the potential and frustration that our fleeting experience of life offers.
by Free Software on Nov.22, 2009, under
We’ve heard a lot about Big Society over the last few months, but what does it mean for the Arts/Health agenda in the North West?
We’re planning an event at Manchester Metropolitan University on the 29th October 2010.
This will follow on from last years North West Frontier, where health professionals, artists and other actors from the field fed into the start of a regional/sub-regional conversation around inequalities, the arts, health and well-being.
Aspirations from this event included; networking opportunities; access to wider networks and knowledge; training and advocacy.
We also discussed a strategic framework for the region, but with government changes, ongoing structural changes across all sectors and now vicious cuts, creating another strategy seems a futile exercise.
Following feedback from the networking sessions and dialogue across the region, what we’d be interested in doing is spending time together and creatively pulling together a Manifesto for Arts/Health across the region.
So this isn’t necessarily about frameworks, bullet-points and strategy; but it will be a statement about shared vision, passion, commitment and possibility that we and key allies can sign up to.
If you want to take part, places will be very limited and details will be forthcoming, but for now email artsforhealth@mmu.ac.uk to express your interest in taking part.
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We’re planning an event at Manchester Metropolitan University on the 29th October 2010.
This will follow on from last years North West Frontier, where health professionals, artists and other actors from the field fed into the start of a regional/sub-regional conversation around inequalities, the arts, health and well-being.
Aspirations from this event included; networking opportunities; access to wider networks and knowledge; training and advocacy.
We also discussed a strategic framework for the region, but with government changes, ongoing structural changes across all sectors and now vicious cuts, creating another strategy seems a futile exercise.
Following feedback from the networking sessions and dialogue across the region, what we’d be interested in doing is spending time together and creatively pulling together a Manifesto for Arts/Health across the region.
So this isn’t necessarily about frameworks, bullet-points and strategy; but it will be a statement about shared vision, passion, commitment and possibility that we and key allies can sign up to.
If you want to take part, places will be very limited and details will be forthcoming, but for now email artsforhealth@mmu.ac.uk to express your interest in taking part.
29th OCTOBER 2010
by Free Software on Nov.22, 2009, under
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| Peter Sutton: http://www.petermaum.co.uk |
