ACTIVISM ON AGEING

 Recently I had cause to pull together my work on Ageing as opposed to other projects, so I reproduce this below.  

My script for 'The Benefit' is a welcome break from this  and am glad to report that an extract was well received at a Bristol Old Vic Scratch Night last month.  

MY WORK AND ACTIVISM ON AGEING AND THE LIFECOURSE

 I began my blog in 2019:  New Wave Ageing: (Ageing, Cultural Diversity and the Performing Arts).  An early post sums up where I stand:-

As a Londoner, but resident in Bristol for the last 11 years, I have an inherent and professional interest in this city’s  multicultural arts communities and environments.   Even if I had not taught drama in Hackney for many years, and performed in various, curious settings, these would always be my comfort zones.  Some 15 years ago I took a not unrelated shift towards sociology, ultimately gaining a PhD with the University of Bristol.  So I have grown older myself sheltering under these complimentary umbrellas.  My desire now is to connect with individuals and organizations, creative and otherwise,  who want to see positive changes, for now and for future generations, in the way we experience our  later lives.  Consistent with public policy in Bristol, these are to:-

 

·       Promote the cultural diversity of older men and women through the performing arts and beyond. 

 

·       Challenge traditional representations of later life and the ageism they perpetuate.

 

·       Re-present later life through the lens of authenticity and autonomy.

 

Further  Age-Relevant Professional Activity:-

2010 Advisor on Qualia Theatre’s production at Bristol Old Vic Theatre In Her Shoes All about older women and their clothing.

https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/activities/advisor-on-production-in-her-shoes-performed-at-the-bristol-old-v Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

2012  Older and….? A collaboration with photographer Deborah Weinreb. Older and... (dwphotoart.wixsite.com) An exhibition and workshop at Bristol’s MShed.  A project challenging perceptions of older people in society.  Funded by the ESRC.

2015 Awarded my PhD from the University of Bristol!  Truth to the Materiality of Later Life:  the Significance of the Aesthetic to the Support Needs of Older People.

2019        NEW WAVE AGEING[1]  (A discussion document, available on request)

        

 ‘If we are to successfully move to a new cultural environment – one that accepts age diversity and eschews age prejudice – we must consider a wide range of ways in which older adults can make a contribution.’ (Biggs, S. Kimberley, H. Carr, S. 2015:7) [3]

I was  grateful to those who took it seriously, eg. Acta Theatre, Diverse Artists Network, Theatre Bristol and Sarah Smith (former Board Chair of Tobacco Factory Theatre). 

2019:  Ageing and Identity Workshop (I am not who you think I am) at Bristol’s Trinity Centre. (described on my blog) Ageing, Cultural Diversity and the Performing Arts: 2019 (newwaveageing.com)

2019: I was a Theatre Bristol Agent at ‘Age Against the Machine Festival of Creativity in Ageing’ London Borough of Lewisham. About Age Against the Machine | Age Against the Machine

2021 – 2: My play script Age Queer afforded dramaturgical support by Theatre West under their Arts Council funded Zooming Ahead Scheme for Women Writers.  This followed up by a Zoom performance and a rehearsed reading at Bristol’s Trinity Centre.

2022:  Presented at a Theatre Bristol Assembly: Emergent at any Age.  My presentation entitled ‘Lifecourse, Legacy and Multigenerational Approaches to the Arts’ (powerpoint available on request).

2022: Extracts from Age Queer performed in the Galleries Broadmead Shopping Centre as part of the Artivist in a Box / Altered Festival highlighting the strong relationship between local artivists and political activism. (described in my blog).  I wrote on a jacket to underscore this.

 

 

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[1] New Wave definition : : 1. a fashion in something, such as art, music, cinema, or politics, that is intentionally different from traditional ideas in that subject or activity: 2. people who are doing activities in a new and different way: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/new-wave

f art on people’s lives.

[3] Carr. A., Bigg, S. Kimberley, H.  (2015) Ageing, Diversity and the Meaning(s) of Later Life.  Cultural, Social and Historical Models to Age By in Readings in Law and Social Justice V11/2015 Issue pp 7 - 60

THE BENEFIT an extract

 The Benefit is a show intended for solo performance this Autumn.  It is a mix of narrative, verse and dialogue.  The protagonist is a bespoke, black men's overcoat travelling from back to back - or hand to hand - across time and space.    

I'm introducing here one of the characters who 'owns' the overcoat for a short period of time.  Marlon describes herself as a 'flaneur -or 'flaneuse - take your pick'.  She cruises the streets of her war-torn city in the spirit of the great French poet Baudelaire seeking out subjects for the poetry she writes.  She  dresses impeccably in a man's lounge suit channelling the style of the German actress Marlene Dietrich. 

She is arrested by an army officer and interrogated.  She charms him and wins our Overcoat from him in an arm wrestling contest.  She is freed, but on condition that she does a bit of spying for him 'out the back' of a cafe where anarchists supposedly meet.  Marlon, of course,  has no intention of doing this and sets off to do a bit of flaneuring around the city.

 Now Marlon has  absolutely no intention of going out the back or in the front or even round the side of any premises and having missed her daily flaneur round the city, she sets out to see what or whom catches her eye.  But feeling in need of a stiff drink after her interrogation she finds a seat on the terrace of a café.  Sure the tables are a little charred and half the bar is missing but it’s business as usual.  As she sips a large brandy, she notices  a girl picking her way like an angry pigeon through snow sludge and chunks of masonry.  She is wearing a top dollar  fox fur coat but it doesn’t sit well with her,  this girl being  in no fit state to benefit from either its warmth or elegance. Yes, a very angry pigeon, Marlon thinks when she notices that the fur on one sleeve is horribly burnt, burnt black. A poem takes shape in her mind.  Damaged Stock

she’ll call it.

A red fox fur I saw the other week

Draped on a mannequin with a

Sharp jaw and sharper carmine lips

Dead animals the both of them

On display in the window of a department store

Screaming ‘Look at me’

For the respectable amongst us to

Conspicuously consume,

To feed our greed for privilege,

To nourish an illusion of some certainty

In our oh so fractured lives.

 

Fur and skin,

The skin of the fur stretched

Stretched tight, nailed,

Stretched and nailed down,

 Alive, wasn’t it?  Once.

Yet the red fox fur moves,

And  lives in the mind of   

Our angry little pigeon,

Sharp, hungry eyes and sharper carmine lips

Short-changed, short sighted

Aware she’s drawn the short straw

When she should have  won the prize.

Look at her, trying for all she’s worth,

To hide her disfigurement

That charred black sleeve,

That dead red fox fur

Who’s  more damaged now?

The fur coat or the wearer?

A soldier at a café table laughs

And throws a bottle at the angry little pigeon.  

Now Marlon, sensing she  might get a bottle thrown in her direction, and conscious of looking like a slag heap in our overcoat,   decides to move on.  Plus she’s dying for a pee and she’s not running the gauntlet of what this café has to offer.  She knows just the place. 

FIVE YEARS OF THIS BLOG!  

My blog has served me more as an aide memoire or diary than an interactive blog inviting comment and discussion.  Over the last year I've explored the option of having a website or self-publishing some of the essays I've written, particularly those composed during Lockdown. Unfortunately the cost of living blows these options out of the water. 

Firstly technical help is imminent  in tidying up this blog so titles of posts are evident on the home page. Such as my more detailed CV accessible in the April 2023 post below.  

Secondly help at changing the domain name. I have done so much work on later life academically, in my writing (Age Queer)  and through  performance  (Artivist in a Box). I have so many other directions I want to go in. 

The last year has seen me:-

 In two  supporting artist roles in local filming via Phoenix Casting of the blink and you'll miss me kind,  Also playing a dying woman in a University of Bristol student film, Evenescent Nexus, for which the highly professional young film makers raised the money to pay the cast.  

Spending much time on immensely rewarding trustee duties for Travelling Light Theatre. 

Being an Open Mic impresario (?) for fundraisers at Cafe 5 (Bristol Refugee Rights) and at the Dark Horse (Travelling Light's Big Give Challenge). 

Enjoying improv workshops at the amazing Wardrobe Theatre

Seeing great theatre here in Bristol.  

And finally researching and writing my  script for The Benefit. The first draft has been completed and excerpts have been performed at the above Open Mic events.