Creative Aging
THERE ARE DAYS THAT REMIND Meryl Klein why she founded Creative Aging as a way of enriching the lives of senior citizens through the arts:
“I had an actor who was doing a monodrama about Abe Lincoln,” she says, recalling one of the nonprofit organization’s first performances, when it was based in Cincinnati, where she lived at the time. “One lady came in for the performance and seemed so totally out of touch with the world that I started thinking, 'I’m not doing anybody any favors with this. She would be more comfortable just sitting in her room.'”
Then something shifted. “The actor started to recite the Gettysburg Address at the end of his program, and this woman who had no contact with reality suddenly started to recite it with him. It was her only opportunity in who knows how long to be part of something for a moment. It was so powerful that I still get chills thinking about it.”
Meryl, who has a degree in gerontology, was seeing up close what she had learned about: that the arts are important to seniors’ health, such as helping to create new neural pathways in the brain, easing depression, and more.
Meryl later moved to Memphis and launched Creative Aging Mid-South in 2004. Since then, the group has produced performances and workshops at facilities throughout the area, from blues concerts to glass-fusing classes. And experiences like the woman who sprung to life at the words of the Gettysburg address continue to occur on an almost daily basis.
Meryl met a man who had not been able to speak since having a stroke, but he could still sing, so he never missed the chance to join in when bands came. At another performance, a woman sat at the back of the room with her head down until the performer began singing a familiar spiritual. “All of the sudden, she sat up and started singing along with him,” Meryl remembers. “She had this smile on her face like you would not believe.”
Performing for the Fun of It
When Meryl first asked local blues and R&B singer Jewel Jones to perform, Jewel assumed she was being asked to do it for free, and she still jumped at the chance. “People who are elderly now, used to be able to get out and go listen to music,” Jewel explains, “and now many of them can’t. So somebody needs to bring it to them.”
In truth, Creative Aging does pay its performers, with some of the regulars earning more than $8,000 a year from gigs in assisted-living facilities. It’s not a fortune, but it’s a way for Creative Aging to attract great talent while supporting local musicians who often appreciate the chance to supplement their income between other gigs while making their own contribution to a unique audience.
“It can’t be all about the money,” explains Jewel, who brings along a live band to every performance. “I’m having a great time doing it. The music inspires them. And if I were in a senior citizen home, I would want somebody to come out and inspire me.”
Another fringe benefit: there’s always an appreciative audience. “Sometimes you go to gigs, and there may not be many people in the audience. But I don’t have to worry about that with senior citizens, because they always look forward to seeing me.”
Jewel recently became one of two Memphis artists to win Creative Aging’s Sister Armin Cooper Award, given to those who demonstrate a passion for the group’s mission—which Jewel says stems from a passion for engaging the seniors themselves.
“I interact with them,” she explains. “I talk to them and let them sing along with me. They request songs, get up and dance, and have a good time. I treat them like they’re any audience in any club and not in a nursing home.”
Memories beyond Words
Meryl understands that many people fear, as she did in the early days of bringing the arts to nursing homes, that their work doesn’t make a difference. But she believes wholeheartedly it does.
“It’s important for individuals who visit loved ones—especially those with dementia—to know that the positive feelings from an interaction last far longer than recollections of the interaction itself,” she explains. “Let’s say my mom has dementia and doesn’t know my name. And I leave thinking, this is ridiculous—she doesn’t know who I am, so why do I go? But the feelings elicited remain.”
Like Jewel, she notes that one of the best features of a Creative Aging performance is glimpsing pure joy on faces in the audience.
“We send out great, professional musicians,” she says, “and a lot of these folks in the audience know the artists’ names because they’ve been around for a while. We have people waiting for the artist at the front door, sometimes an hour before the performance is scheduled to start.
“Some of them might be so disabled they can hardly move,” she adds. “But if you look, you’ll still see tapped fingers or people moving their heads in time. Everybody responds in some way to the artists performing for them, and that’s what we really want.”
Sent from my iPhone
No comments:
Post a Comment