Dementia and Caring: Arts Performance and Panel Discussion

An Arts Performance on Dementia, “Vamping,” by Kali Quinn, followed by panel presentations and discussion with U. of Toronto  Medical Anthropologist Janelle Taylor, Jessica Ruhle (Director of Education and Public Programs at the Nasher, including “Reflections: The Nasher Museum’s Alzheimer’s Program), Lisa Gwyther (LCSW) , and the carer of a patient with dementia. The event will be publicized to recruit students as well as faculty and community members to explore dementia through anthropology and performance art.

About the performance, “Vamping”: With 91 years of experience, Eleanor now sits in a nursing care facility longing for her home of sixty-three years. As she moves through medical testing and care for Alzheimer’s Disease, she pieces together her fractured memories, reckons with her regret, plays through her childhood, and finds her own way to complete her life. Performed by solo theater artist Kali Quinn, this show has moved audiences throughout the US over the past ten years with the hope to grapple with ageism and through witnessing Compassionate Creativity, create a new intergenerational culture, care, and around the possibilities of elder hood.

Date: October 23rd, 2019

Where: White Lecture Hall, Auditorium, 107

Time: 7-9 PM (Show follow by a panel discussion)

Kali Quinn’s Bio:  Kali Quinn lives in Providence, RI where she has taught physical theater at Trinity Rep/Brown University, MIT, and Accademia dell’Arte (Tuscany). She mentors solo performance, emerging artists, and companies around the world based on her teaching memoir/audiobook, I Am Compassionate Creativity and creates performances looking at aging, dementia, memory care, patient-provider communication and intergenerational grief – with recent medical humanities or narrative medicine residencies at Lehigh University, Duke University, and Wake Forest. www.kaliquinn.com

Janelle Taylor’s Bio: Janelle S. Taylor is a medical anthropologist, appointed as Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Her research has focused on a number of different aspects of medicine including: fetal ultrasound imaging, advance care planning and medical decision-making at the end of life, conceptualizations of “culture” within medical education, the use of “Standardized Patient” simulations to teach clinical skills to medical students, and more. Recently, much of her research has attended to questions relating to dementia, including: practices of recognition and caring; exclusion of people with dementia from geriatrics research; and friendship in the face of dementia. She has worked with physician colleagues on mixed-methods health research, and recently held (as PI) a grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to support research using data from medical research and medical records to shed light on the situation of older adults with dementia who do not have family available to provide caregiving support. Taylor is the author of a prizewinning scholarly book, co-editor of a scholarly volume, and author or co-author of numerous articles appearing in journals of medicine and medical education as well as medical anthropology and cultural anthropology. A thread running through all of her research is a concern to document and understand how ideas, words and images have material force in the world; how “persons” are socially made (and unmade); and how medicine and health care are involved in all of this.

Jessica Kay Ruhle’s Bio: Jessica loves art and loves sharing it with people. She joined the Nasher Museum Education Department in 2010 and became Director of Education in 2015. She leads Reflections: The Nasher Museum’s Alzheimer’s Program, directs the gallery guides, and leads the planning of all educational programs hosted by the museum. Under her leadership, the Education department has expanded to provide museum accessibility to a wider audience, including teen programs, bilingual programs, strengthened community partnerships, and events for visitors with low sight and differences in hearing. She gives frequent public talks about art museums and visitors with dementia and spoke on the topic for TEDx Greensboro in March 2018. She sits on the board of advisors for the NC Alzheimer’s Association. She was the 2014 and 2018 NC Museum Educator of the Year, awarded by the North Carolina Art Education Association. Before arriving at the Nasher, Ruhle worked in the museum education field at a variety of institutions including a hands-on children’s museum, the NC Museum of History, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Davidson College, and a M.A.T. in Museum Education from The George Washington University.

Lisa Gwyther’s Bio: Lisa P. Gwyther, MSW, LCSW is a social worker and Senior Fellow of the Duke Center for Aging with forty years experience developing community-based education and support programs for individuals living with dementia and their family caregivers.  She founded the Duke Dementia Family Support Program in 1980, a state and community level source for dementia information and support.  Ms. Gwyther is an Associate Professor in the Duke Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the author of more than 150 books and journal articles about dementia care and services.  She serves on many state, national and international advisory groups on dementia care and services.

Debby Greenwood: Debby cared for her husband, Tony, at home from his diagnosis to his death from a progressive dementia.  Debby and Tony, participated in all education and support programs of the Duke Dementia Family Support Program, and Debby continues to participate in a monthly closed support group for family caregivers.  Debby and Tony were active participants in the Nasher Museum program led by Jessica, and Debby presented at a conference for museum dementia program directors held at the Nasher Museum last Fall.