Professor Miriam Bernard

Transcription

1 The Place of Theatre in Representations and Recollections of Ageing: preliminary findings from the Ages and Stages project ( ) Professor Miriam Bernard Climate for Change, 10 th IFA Global Conference, Melbourne, Australia 3-6 May 2010.

2 Outline of Presentation The Team The Place The Research Design Preliminary Findings The Next Steps Links, Dates, Contacts

3 The Research Team Mim Bernard: Project Leader - social gerontologist/policy & practice. Lucy Munro: SL in English - drama expert/documentary research in archives. David Amigoni: Prof of Victorian Studies cultural theorist/narrative analysis. Mike Murray: Prof of Social/Health Psychology qualitative research. Jill Rezzano: Head of Education, New Vic Theatre. Michelle Rickett: Research Associate ethnography and performance. Ruth Basten: linked PhD student. Tracey Harrison: Project Administrator.

4 The Advisory Group Anne Basting: Associate Professor of Theatre, the Peck School of the Arts and Director, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee's Center on Age & Community, USA. Joanna Bornat: Emeritus Professor of Oral History, Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open University, UK. Peter Cheeseman, CBE: Director,the Victoria Theatre/New Vic Theatre, Susan Feldman: Senior Research Fellow, Healthy Ageing Research Unit, Monash University, Australia. Alan Hatton-Yeo: Chief Executive, the Beth Johnson Foundation, UK. Nick Jones: Managing Director, the New Vic Theatre. James Knowles: Head of the School of English, University College Cork. Gordon Ramsay: Lecturer in Drama and Performance, University of Nottingham, UK. Pam Schweitzer: Founder & Artistic Director, Age Exchange Theatre Trust, UK,

5 The NDA Older People s Reference Group Mary Brown: retired Open University social science tutor. Tony Carter: active trade unionist throughout his career; co-ordinated the Age Well campaign on retirement. Teresa Lefort: 25 years experience working with older people s groups, both as a volunteer and representative. Elizabeth Sclater: 40+ years experience of working with older people as a social worker, policy officer and volunteer.

6 The Place North Staffordshire The Potteries Pits, Pots, Steel and Tyres

7 The Theatre/The University Old Victoria Theatre New Vic Theatre Keele University

8 The Social Documentaries

9 The New Vic Theatre Archive

10 The Research Design Strand 1: Historical Representations of Ageing Strand 2: Recollections and Contemporary Representations of Ageing Strand 3: Performing and Re-presenting Ageing

11 Strand 1: Representations New Victoria Theatre Archive at Staffordshire University. Literary and cultural analyses of materials which include: Interviews with local people on which some of the most famous social documentaries were based. Scripts, programmes, photographs, audio recordings, reviews, correspondence, press cuttings etc.

12 Strand 2: Recollections Individual and group interviews with older people who were/are: Sources for the Vic's ground-breaking social documentaries; Volunteers with the theatre; Audience members throughout their lives; Actors and others who made their lives in the area and continue to be part of the local community

13 Strand 3: Performance Intergenerational strand. Vic Youth Theatre and older interviewees. Material from Strands 1 and 2 will provide the basis for creating a new social documentary. A performance and exhibition at the New Vic. Travelling production into local schools and centres for older people. A range of associated materials for practitioners and policy makers. Evaluation of the performance/dissemination process.

14 Preliminary Findings: archive Peter Cheeseman, commenting in the early 1970s, said theatre had a responsibility to take the place of old men and to show people the past of their community. (Elvgren, Jr., G. A. (1974) Documentary theatre at Stoke-on-Trent, Educational Theatre Journal, 26, 86-98).

15 Preliminary Findings: archive Representations: Place; Community; Family & intergenerational relations; Ageing. Len Preston s Grandad (The Knotty) Me grandfather helped to cut it (the railway) out from the bare turf as a navvy.. and it so happened that he was reading this newspaper as one of the engineers happened to see him reading, which was most unusual thing in those days for a working man to be able to read and write. Engineer: you readin that? Grandad: aye. Engineer: proper reading? Grandad: aye. Engineer: cans t read then? Grandad: aye, and do numbers wot I taught meself. The engineer took him into the office and tested him to see what he could do and he found as he could read and write and do figures so he yanked him out of the gang and made him into a surveyor s chain.

16 Preliminary Findings: pilot interviews Recollections: Place (the documentaries) kind of earthed you in Stoke in a way, so you understood something about the culture and the background of Stoke from those plays. (Pilot 1) Community I think the particularly interesting thing was that they d gone out and actually spoken to local people about their experiences and then out of that created the plays that was bonding with the community but also celebrating what this area had been all about, you know the various occupations and experiences people had. (Pilot 2)

17 Preliminary Findings: pilot interviews Recollections: Family & intergenerational relations When I haven t got a friend to go with I go with Ahmed who lives down the road. He s 18 and I ve known his father for years and one day I said what do you mean you ve never been to the theatre Ahmed? I said would you like to come with me? Yes please he said. (Pilot 1) Ageing I used to go to the theatre with my husband 20 something years ago then after he died I missed going to the theatre and to places. I actually had a lady working for me who was a volunteer at the New Vic and she said to me about going that was much better going there and it gave me more confidence I suppose it s always when you ve gone with somebody, y know you don t really like going on your own and now I wouldn t think twice about it. (Pilot 3)

18 The Next Steps: Archival Work: ongoing. Individual interviews: 80 x 1 hour long narrative interviews (programmes as prompts). Group interviews: 4 groups (sharing material from the archives/key findings from individual interviews). Ethnography: participant observation with New Vic volunteers and the Revolve adult education group, to be conducted in parallel with the individual and group interviews.

19 International Links Corresponding members of the Advisory Group from the USA, Australia and Canada. Collaboration/exchange with new project: Health and Creative Aging: Theatre as a Pathway to Healthy Aging. Prof. Janet Fast et al. University of Alberta. Funded under the Canadian Institutes for Health Research-UK New Dynamics of Ageing Research Initiative.

20 Advance date for 2012 Theatre, Ageing and Community Memory One-day conference linked with: British Society of Gerontology s 41st Annual Conference Hosted by the Centre for Social Gerontology at Keele University July 11 th -14 th 2012

21 Thank you for listening! Ages and Stages Team Room CM1.16, Claus Moser Centre Keele University Staffordshire ST5 5BG Tel: +44 (0)