Author: National Center on Arts and the Aging

Publication Year: 1978

Media Type: Report

Summary:

This book is the result of a national conference on arts and the aging, held in Lexington, KY January 1978. Since 1973, the National Council on the Aging (NCOA) and its National Center on Arts and the Aging have convened two such national conferences, offering 65 specialized sessions advocating and demonstrating how arts programs and services can be made available to older Americans.

Abstract:

This book is the result of a national conference on arts and the aging, held in Lexington, KY January 1978. Since 1973, the National Council on the Aging (NCOA) and its National Center on Arts and the Aging have convened two such national conferences, offering 65 specialized sessions advocating and demonstrating how arts programs and services can be made available to older Americans.

This concentrated and sizable advocacy effort has been made in the belief that the arts are a force for change - that older persons engaged in creative work help modify existing stereotypes about themselves and their peers in a society where being old is too often synonymous with nonproductivity.

We believe that through arts disciplines - the visual and plastic arts, theatre, dance, music, folk arts, and creative writing - older Americans can speak for themselves more eloquently than others can speak for them. NCOAs experience proves that older people are eager to take up new or renewed interests in the arts, as spectators and/or participants whenever and wherever arts and aging managers afford them opportunities to do so.

CONTENTS
Viewpoints:
     Growing wise about growing old.
     Enriching the lives of older Americans.

Education and training:
     Priorities of the office of education.
     The role of the university.
     College and camping for Seniors.
     Training arts/aging practitioners.
     Training arts administrators.
     Discussion.

The artists:
     Group session with artists.
     Older Persons and the Theatre Arts.
     Teaching painting in a retirement community.
     Writing workshops for elders.
     Professional theatre for Seniors.
     Discussion.

Funding resources:
     Resources for arts and the aging.
     Having an impact on area agencies on aging.
     Title XX and the arts.
     Funding resources in the arts world.
     The State Arts Agency.
     Discussion.

Celebrations:
     Showcasing the arts for older adults.
     The Vintage Festival.
     Focusing on folklife through seniors.
     Discussion.

Research:
     Understanding the constituency.
     The arts as a force with the isolated and frail.
     Discussion.

Community contacts:
     Reaching the handicapped, the isolated, and the institutionalized aged.
     Responsibilities of community arts agencies.
     Arts and aging in the Big Apple.
     Capitalizing on the talents of older persons.
     Literature for Seniors.
     Attending to needs through the area agencies on aging.
     Stretching resources through cooperation.
     City Spirit in New Orleans.
     Arts in the multipurpose center.
     Opening dance to older persons.
     Getting it together in St. Louis.
     Discussion.

Acknowledgements.
Conference faculty.

Speakers:
     Ronald Alvarez.
     Harold Arberg, Ed.D.
     Marie Artesi.
     Rosalyn H. Ball, Ph D.
     Ellen Bay.
     Marjorie Berlow.
     Kenneth B. Billups, Ph.D.
     Jane Bloom.
     James Burr.
     Lucius F. Cervantes, S. J. Ph.D.
     Nash Cox.
     Fran Daly.
     Richard Driscoll.
     Lani Lattin Duke.
     Naomi Eftis.
     Laura Fox.
     Shirley Genther.
     Ruth Glick, Ph.D.
     Susan Guma.
     Denis Healy.
     Gabriel Mary Hoare, S.L.
     Donald Hoffman, Ed.D.
     Jean Ellen Jones, Ph.D.
     Sister Joan Leonard, O.S.U.
     Harold Mann.
     Gerald Ness.
     Anne Ogden.
     Jack Ossofsky.
     Tom Screven.
     Gail Chandler Sobol.
     Carol Starr-Rubins.
     Paul Sturm.
     Tim M. Sublette.
     Jacqueline T. Sunderland.
     C.R. White.
     J. Robert Wills, Ph.D.
     Danielle Withrow.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Arts Education