A one day conference bringing together artists, health professionals and patients to explore the role of performance in health care contexts.
Rosetta Life, leading innovators in arts in end of life care, will offer new models of practice for the delivery of community arts in health at a one day conference entitled Performing Ourselves, to be held in Birmingham, 29 March 2010. Performing Ourselves will explore the ethics, the potential and the actual outcomes when professional performance arts and digital media technologies combine in collaborations with the frail and the vulnerable.
Arts in health is traditionally defined by a practice where the act of engagement in creative activity means more than the artwork produced – watercolours, creative writing as therapy, art therapy and music therapy have all thrived in the health context. Rosetta Life believes that professional arts collaborations not only offers participants the chance to regain the dignity and self esteem that illness often takes away but also to become confident advocates for the issues they are exploring, thereby enabling them to make a difference by contributing to the process of change in service delivery.
Digital media are too often viewed with unease by the uninitiated, yet working with new media offers people access to the creative processes of art making that they are all too often excluded from. This conference will explore the potential of digital technologies for performance artists to offer excellence in delivery. The conference will offer presentations of digital applications that show the potential for the severely disabled. Presentations will be lead by Cambridge University Engineering and Design Centre and by Mike Phillips, director of I-Dat, School of Arts and Media, University of Plymouth.
Performing Ourselves addresses the need to take risks to deliver excellence and examines the ethical questions surrounding these risks. The conference will bring together artists, health care practitioners, commissioners, volunteers and service users. We hope that the day will map a strategy that can offer policy makers a way forward for commissioning and delivery. Focussing on service delivery for the most vulnerable and frail in our communities, Performing Ourselves will address how the performing arts, new technologies and healthcare can work together to offer sustainable community led practices.
Rosetta Life have been commissioned through People Dancing to deliver Moving into Being, a three year programme of movement workshops and performances to increase movement and dance opportunities for the elderly, people living with serious illnesses and people who are recovering from neurological trauma. People Dancing is a three year programme that uses the inspiration of London 2012 to get as many people as possible dancing across the West Midlands funded by Legacy Trust UK, Arts Council England West Midlands and Advantage West Midlands.
Please contact Jennifer Sweeney, 07930 239 005 for enquiries or to book a place email: bookings@rosettalife.org
www.rosettalife.org
www.performingourselves.co.uk