For this project, two teaching artists join forces to explore five crucial dimensions of arts participation with older people in need of care. In doing so, they investigate drama & theatre as a means of connection for people living with dementia, arts education as a sustainable practice (with implementation of creative aging in arts education programs), challenges and assets of cross-disciplinary collaboration, the artistic-pedagogical value of creative aging for the teaching artist, and how theatre can break down the walls of the residential care home and create engagement with and from the neighbourhood. The researchers take different paths using a mixed methods approach (ethnographic research, interviews, case studies, experiment) and seek intersections to challenge, stimulate, compare and test each other as an artistic research community. The project aims at an implementation of the findings in the educational courses of Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and a dissemination in the professional field and wider society, with an article, workshop(s), lectures, an implementation plan for educational training programs in the arts and a participatory theatre performance.
Image: (c) Grouls Photo
Update: March 2025
