Kate Wakeling & Jonathan Clark of the Trinity Laban Conservatatoire of Music and Dance,London, UK, have written an article for the international journal of ageing and later life.
"Beyond health and well-being: transformation, memory and the virtual in older people"s music and dance" argues for the extension of research into older people and the participatory arts beyond its bio-medical impact and notions of "well-being."
Wakeling and Clark explore the complex processes and possibilities of transformation that the participatory arts can initiate, examining how performance can create intriguing linkages between past, present and future experiences. Taking a phenomenological approach to the study of memory, recollection, reminiscence and future anticipation, they discuss how arts participation can ""actualise"" potential
memories in older participants, examining how and why this kind of
expressive activity animates the idea of ""virtual"" selves.