The project's overall aim is to facilitate older learners’ access to dance as an artistic practice and to contribute to a general shift in the image of age and ageing through seniors' active participation in a dance creation process and, thus, connecting seniors and art venues. With this general aim, we targeted the following objectives with Lights on stAGE: - stimulate the individual and social creative potential of older people through dance and movement as a tool for expression - provide seniors a channel for self-representation through dance - empower older people through participation and engagement in a collective creation and learning process - foster interaction, communication and community building through dance as a social common activity - improve the mental and physical health of older people by training cognitive, senso-motoric, emotional and social abilities - raise awareness among stakeholders in the artistic and cultural sphere for a more inclusive approach - combat stereotypes of older people – as a positive and life-affirming impulse after the COVID-19 crisis that contributed to problematic images of older people - improve the visibility of older persons as learners and creators
To connect with others plays a significant role in the wellbeing of people. People with strong social connections live longer and have better mental/physical health. As people age, they tend to have fewer social ties than in earlier life and are therefore more affected by the harm of loneliness. Being considered as a high-risk group in the COVID-19 pandemic, older people have been especially affected by isolation measures. Against this background we considered it crucial to recreate opportunities that enable older people to feel they belong to a community and that encourage them to remain active. Dance is a great tool for social bonding since it connects people through moving and creating together. Dance also provides new means of expression and mental and physical stimulation. Participating in dance activities is therefore a learning process in which people acquire and develop great personal and interpersonal skills. Furthermore, older people tend to either become invisible in our society or are reduced to a few, mostly negative images. In contrast to that, we think that older people carry with them a treasure of (incorporated) memories, experiences, knowledge and competences. These, we tried to make visible with Lights on stAGE