Author: National Council on the Aging

Publication Year: 1976

Media Type: Report

Summary:

The conference also highlighted the fact that older Americans are an important new constituency for expanding arts programs, as audiences, as contributors of time, skills, knowledge and other resources, and as students, teachers, and creators. More than 200 arts and aging leaders from thirty-one states, the District of Columbia and Canada participated.

Abstract:

The National Council on the Aging, Inc. (NCOA) has worked since 1950 to bring about the creation of services and programs that make the lives of older persons more meaningful and personally gratifying. In 1973, the National Center on the Arts and the Aging was established as a program of NCOA to serve as an advocate and catalyst for linking the arts and the aging together. The Center on the Arts and the Aging's mission is to ensure that older persons have an equal opportunity with other age groups to participate in and have access to the arts.

The Washington-based Center initially funded by the Administration on Aging/HEW is a clearinghouse for program ideas and information. Now supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, it sponsors workshops, seminars, and conferences and offers technical assistance and consultation to individuals and organizations interested in developing a closer relationship between older persons and the arts.

Following several years of sponsoring workshops exploring the arts as a force contributing to the well being of older persons, NCOA convened the first national conference Arts and the Aging: An Agenda for Action, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 1976. It was an endeavor to focus national attention on the role of the arts in developing a more positive image of aging and the aged in our society.

The conference also highlighted the fact that older Americans are an important new constituency for expanding arts programs, as audiences, as contributors of time, skills, knowledge and other resources, and as students, teachers, and creators. More than 200 arts and aging leaders from thirty-one states, the District of Columbia and Canada participated.

CONTENTS
Arts and the Aging: an agenda for action.
Forum: Access to the arts.
Workshops:
     Building the arts/aging alliance; expanding cultural services, Theatre Arts, Music,
     Visual Arts, Museums: opening the doors.
     Integenerational programming.
     The vulnerable and institutionalized aged.
Agencies and organizations represented.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Aging