When Alzheimer's inspires art that inspires art

In the past few months I have had communications from two people who told me that my photographs in Love, Loss and Laughter inspired their art. What an honor! 

The first was from Bisakha, a wonderful Indian dancer who performed at the September 2012 conference on art and Alzheimer's at the University of Worcester in the UK. Her dance enchanted everyone present and we exchanged cards. A few months later she wrote to tell me that she had used one of the photos, fully enlarged on the screen, as the backdrop and inspiration for a dance performance. 

About the same time I received a message from Maureen Cullen telling me that her writing group in the UK had been inspired by the book and she sent me a copy of the book they had produced. 

Over the next few days I will tell you more about these two projects, and will provide you with the email addresses of both of them should you want more information. To start, below is Bisakha's overview of "Fleeting Moment," her dementia-friendly dance performance.

Thank you Bisakha and Maureen.

Inspiration of Love Loss and Laughter (LLL )

I can not single out one comment or incident as the inspiration behind "Fleeting Moment," our dementia-friendly performance, but Cathy Greenblat's book Love, Loss, and Laughter, and her lecture definitely influenced my thinking and the making of this production .

Our idea of a dementia-friendly performance is an inclusive event in a mainstream arts venue to uplift the spirit of the audience, irrespective of their health concerns. We created a performance prioritizing the needs of those living with dementia, taking into consideration concerns that stop people living with dementia and their carers from attending performances.

Our initial consultation with people living with early stages of dementia and the network of their care providers highlighted several points. We incorporated them in the designing of the structure of the performance. I still had no idea of what should be its content. 

While the content should not deny the condition, it should also not dwell on it for too long. This is where it must remain different from issue-based work.

A photograph from the book Love, Loss, and Laughter caught my attention. It was an image of two people under an umbrella, crossing the road on a wet day. I saw a connection between this image and a Chinese dance with umbrellas.

Our artistic team reflects the 21st century cultural diversity of the country. It includes Indian, Chinese and Western contemporary dancers, as well as an English singer and a musician who creates music using instruments from all over the world.

Our "umbrella dance" starts with a large projection of the photograph. In the production my role is that of a dancing narrator. I come in with my umbrella to introduce the dance and the picture. Referring to the caption from the book, I address the audience saying, "As umbrellas protect us from rain, we need to make virtual umbrellas with love that protect our LOVED ones (I deliberately avoided mentioning Alzheimer’s). The next item is an umbrella dance. While we watch the dance, let’s think who could come under our umbrellas and what will we make our umbrellas with."

This leads us to a traditional Chinese umbrella dance. As that dance finishes, other dancers enter with their clear plastic umbrellas decorated sparingly with words from Tom Kitwood's definition of what constitutes care and other similar expressions and symbols of caring. After dancing a short while, showing simple movements with the umbrellas, supported by  volunteers they give out umbrellas to the audience and invite them to join in. Before long, the performing space starts to buzz with small conversations, exchange of smiles, laughter and joyful casual dancing.

During the first performance I asked the person standing next to me, "Can I come under your umbrella?" He said, "Yes my dear, you most certainly can." Under the umbrella we found a few moments to chat. I wanted to know what will he make the umbrella with? Straight away came the answer "harmony."

There seemed no difference among the people freely sharing with each other. In that crowd there were people with many identities but none defined by any deficit. There were artists, students, officials of funding bodies, parents, partners, therapists, people living with dementia, people caring for others, residents from care homes and medical professionals, all of them enjoying being present at that moment.

For the second phase we took a bolder decision to invite three people with dementia and their carers to come and stay with us in a residency for three nights and help us prepare the next performance. It was no easy task to find people who were prepared to take this risk. Two of the three couples came forward because of the umbrella dance. They had come to see the first performance. Val and Pat, the two wives who were the carers of their husbands, had found it pleasantly surprising to see how much their husbands had enjoyed joining in the umbrella dance. They decided to come forward.

During the Choreo-lab, we were debating whether to have the projection of the photograph. Some thought because there was no direct interaction between the dance and the image it was not necessary to have it in the background. It was doing nothing more than making a reference to the book Love, Loss, and Laughter.  I knew that for the first performance I needed the image to "hold my hand." Emotional connections help to give a convincing performance.

The question was do I still need this emotional anchor for the second performance or can the dance now stand on its own strength? Although it did not feel right without the image to make the reference to, still I prepared myself to take the risk.

When we asked the opinion of our guest consultants, Val and Pat strongly opposed the idea. They were familiar with the image which they had seen in another context related to care of people living with dementia. We were even told the story behind the image; until then we did not know it.

The projection of the image stayed in. I was glad. It was not just my dependency; it was important to give the audience we are aiming to reach a reference which has association to the world of their own experience.

Using Cathy Greenblat's photograph is giving us credibility among the audience members whose lives have been, in one way or another, affected by dementia.

Bisakha can be reached at bisakha@blueyonder.co.uk