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two - Ages and Stages: creative participatory research with older people
- Edited by Anna Goulding, Newcastle University, Bruce Davenport, Newcastle University, Andrew Newman, Newcastle University
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- Book:
- Resilience and Ageing
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 19 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 19 December 2018, pp 43-64
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Summary
Editorial introduction
This chapter provides insight into a long-running programme of research exploring the value for people's sense of well-being and resilience of being involved in theatre. The project represents a successful example of a creative, participatory research programme. The authors focus mainly on the process of the research and their reflections on that process. None the less, the chapter also indicates that taking part in such a research programme may have consequences that arise out of the act of participation.
Introduction
Ages and Stages is a continuing collaboration between researchers at Keele University and colleagues at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastleunder- Lyme. Funded initially by the national, cross-council New Dynamics of Ageing programme (Oct 2009–July 2012) and, subsequently, by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)'s Follow-on Funding Scheme (2012–13) and Cultural Value Project (2013–14), we have explored historical representations of ageing within the New Vic's well-known social documentaries; examined the role that the theatre has played – and continues to play – in the creative lives of older people living in the Potteries; devised and toured four different theatre pieces to date; developed, delivered and evaluated a pilot inter-professional training course; and established the Ages and Stages Theatre Company. In this chapter, we focus primarily on one of our two awards under the AHRC's Cultural Value Project in which we employed creative participatory methods to turn Ages and Stages’ members into a ‘company of researchers’. The aim of the award was to co-explore the cultural value that members place on their experiences of theatre-making (Bernard, Rezzano and the Ages and Stages Company, 2014). Here, we describe the design and conduct of this project; discuss how the research findings were turned into performance; and reflect on the challenges of working in these creative and collaborative ways. In doing so, we show how our approach and findings add to earlier Ages and Stages work that has already highlighted the benefits of theatre engagement for older people in terms of: enhancing identity, belonging, well-being, self-esteem and self-confidence; challenging deficit, negative and stereotypical views of ageing and late-life creativity; promoting dialogue between, and facilitating the inclusion of, both older and younger people; building supportive social networks, trust and reciprocity; extending skills, widening horizons and challenging capabilities;
fifteen - The place of theatre in representations of ageing
- Edited by Alan Walker, The University of Sheffield
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- Book:
- The New Dynamics of Ageing Volume 2
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 25 July 2018, pp 285-306
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Summary
Prologue
The interdisciplinary ‘Ages and Stages’ project, funded initially under the New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) programme, has evolved into a continuing collaboration between Keele University and the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme. The first ‘Ages and Stages’ project (2009–12) examined historical representations of ageing within the Vic's ground-breaking documentaries and docudramas (produced between 1964 and 1995), and explored the contemporary recollections and experiences of older people who are, or have been, associated with the theatre in different ways. Archival and interview material was drawn together to create the ‘Ages and Stages’ exhibition and a new, hour-long, documentary drama, ‘Our Age, Our Stage’. Between 2012 and 2013, further funds were secured from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) follow-on scheme to focus on translational work, and we were subsequently awarded two additional grants by the AHRC under their Cultural Value Project. In this chapter we concentrate on the first three-year project; readers interested in following through what we have done subsequently are invited to visit the ‘Ages and Stages’ and ‘Live Age Festival’ websites (www.keele.ac.uk/agesandstages and www.liveagefestival.co.uk).
Act One: Setting the scene
Social and critical gerontologists, as well as literary and cultural scholars, are increasingly interested in the artistic engagement of older people, and in how the arts may construct, perpetuate or challenge stereotypical views of old age and existing models of the ageing process (Gullette, 1997, 2004, 2011; Basting, 1998, 2009; Small, 2007; Lipscomb and Marshall, 2010; Mangan, 2013). While recent reviews (Cutler, 2009; Castora-Binkley et al, 2010; Mental Health Foundation, 2011; Noice et al, 2014) affirm the value of older people's engagement in cultural activities, they also point to a lack of research on theatre and drama more specifically. This is despite the fact that, as Lipscomb (2012) argues, theatre provides us with an untapped potential for interdisciplinary collaborations and investigations; it is a cultural arena in which both ageing and older people are highly visible as audience members, participants, characters and increasingly, as performers (Bernard and Munro, 2015).
In terms of representations, there is a long tradition of theatre drawing heavily on stereotypes of older people and on deficit models of the ageing process, extending back to early Greek tragedies (Charney, 2005; Robson, 2009).
three - Understanding and transforming ageing through the arts
- Edited by Alan Walker, The University of Sheffield
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- Book:
- The New Science of Ageing
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 04 March 2022
- Print publication:
- 29 August 2014, pp 77-112
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Summary
Introduction
Ageing can be both understood and described as a storied process, part of what Holstein and Gubrium (2011, p 103) have described as ‘the narrative quality of lives’. We hear and tell stories about growing old; we read and watch published and filmed stories about older people; we are surrounded by images of ageing with their implicit narratives. Such stories permeate our social world and shape our expectations about older people and about growing old ourselves. In this chapter we intend to explore this process further, drawing on research that has explored the character of the stories that older people tell about their lives and, in some cases, making the links to more formal narratives found in genres such as fiction and other representational practices, in collaborative artwork, in art galleries and the theatre. We are particularly interested in how dominant social representations of ageing (Moscovici, 2000) can be contested through a process of active narrative work, that is, engaging older people with representational processes at various levels as consumers of such narratives (as readers, as members of group interactions, as theatre goers, as social beings) and as producers of them (discursively, in interviews and groups, using diaries and through various forms of artistic expression). In highlighting such elements, we are interested in ways of challenging negative social representations of ageing through the active participation of older people in different art forms.
Both narrative making and narrative exchange are everyday processes of making sense of a changing world by which we provide a certain meaningful coherence to a series of events. Such narratives have a certain form and structure which can convey not only particular thoughts about those events, but also incorporate gestures, feelings and actions. As such, narratives can become not only descriptions of past events but plots for future actions. Freeman (2011) has described the phenomenon of ‘narrative foreclosure’ or the process by which we come to believe that life is over before it is physically ended. We stop developing initiatives and accept that decline and exclusion are inevitable. Public institutions often reinforce this narrative in their negative representations of ageing and in their exclusion of older people from a range of activities.
Narrative accounts are habitually and constantly exchanged and shared in everyday social interaction.
Ages and Stages: the place of theatre in the lives of older people
- MIRIAM BERNARD, MICHELLE RICKETT, DAVID AMIGONI, LUCY MUNRO, MICHAEL MURRAY, JILL REZZANO
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- Journal:
- Ageing & Society / Volume 35 / Issue 6 / July 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 10 March 2014, pp. 1119-1145
- Print publication:
- July 2015
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- Article
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Despite the growing interest amongst gerontologists and literary and cultural scholars alike, in arts participation, ageing and the artistic outputs of older people, comparatively little attention has yet been paid to theatre and drama. Likewise, community or participatory theatre has long been used to address issues affecting marginalised or excluded groups, but it is a presently under-utilised medium for exploring ageing or for conveying positive messages about growing older. This paper seeks to address this lack of attention through a detailed case study of the place of one particular theatre – the Victoria/New Victoria Theatre in North Staffordshire, England – in the lives of older people. It provides an overview of the interdisciplinary Ages and Stages project which brought together social gerontologists, humanities scholars, psychologists, anthropologists and theatre practitioners, and presents findings from: the archival and empirical work exploring the theatre's pioneering social documentaries and its archive; individual/couple and group interviews with older people involved with the theatre (as audience members, volunteers, employees and sources); and ethnographic data gathered throughout the study. The findings reaffirm the continuing need to challenge stereotypes that the capacity for creativity and participation in later life unavoidably and inevitably declines; show how participation in creative and voluntary activities shapes meanings associated with key life transitions such as bereavement and retirement; and emphasise the positive role that theatre and drama can play as a medium for the inclusion of both older and younger people.