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National experts assemble to explore
creative aging
On Thursday, Oct. 1, a group of nine
national experts will assemble at Ithaca
College to discuss “Creativity and Aging:
Exploring Community Initiatives.”
The gathering is hosted by the Linden Center
for Creativity and Aging, which was
established in 2007 within the Ithaca
College Gerontology Institute to encourage
research on the relationship between the
creative arts and an enhanced quality of
life among older adults.
Gene Cohen — founder and director of the
Center on Aging, Health and Humanities at
George Washington University — will kick off
the conference with his keynote address,
“Why Creativity Matters.”
“Getting creative in your later years is a
self-fueling engine,” said Cohen, who holds
an M.D. from Georgetown University and a
doctorate in gerontology from the Union
Institute.
“The more you do, the more you can do. . . .
Sustained participation in an arts program
has a very positive effect on the immune
system. It’s that mind-body connection.”
The conference will feature panel
discussions exploring the ways arts
organizations and aging services can involve
older adults in arts programs as well as
presentations of the latest research on how
arts involvement promotes physical health
and well-being among older adults.
Participants will include:
• Gay Hanna and Susan Perlstein from the
National Center for Creative Aging. Located
in Washington, D.C., the Center is a
nonprofit agency dedicated to fostering an
understanding of the vital relationship
between creative expression and quality of
life for older people regardless of their
ethnicity, economic status or level of
physical and cognitive function.
• Roy Ernst, professor emeritus at the
Eastman School of Music and founder of the
New Horizons Band Program, which provides
entry points to music-making for older
adults.
• Sue Perlgut, performer, playwright,
director, story teller, and founder of the
Senior Citizen Theatre Troupe of Lifelong.
• Marsha Gildin, teaching artist and
administrator with Elders Share the Arts, an
organization that connects generations
through the art of storytelling.
• Jennifer Haywood, Ithaca College School of
Music faculty and conductor of the Ithaca
College/Longview Intergenerational Choir.
• Harry R. Moody, director of academic
affairs for AARP and author of many articles
and books on the humanities and aging,
including “Aging: Concepts and
Controversies.”
• Martha Strodel, director of the NYS ARTS
Rural Arts Program, which serves cultural
organizations in rural New York counties.
The conference sponsors are the Linden
Center for Creativity and Aging, National
Center for Creative Aging, Finger Lakes
Geriatric Education Center (FLGEC-UNY) and
National Guild of Community Schools of the
Arts.
“With 78 million baby boomers on the
retirement horizon, quality of life for
aging boomers is a public imperative,” says
director of Ithaca College’s Gerontology
Institute, Professor John Krout.
Krout, who organized a daylong conference
entitled “Creativity and Aging: Exploring
Community Initiatives,” notes that research
shows, among other things, that staying
engaged in creative activities significantly
improves overall health and improves scores
on the Geriatric Depression Scale.
Given the demographic we face, “We need to
develop a new paradigm where, instead of
seeing aging as loss, we see aging as
something that involves gain,” said Krout. A
growing body of research shows the aging
brain is not all a story of decline: “It’s
not ‘use it or lose it’ — it’s use it and
improve it,” he added.
Krout points to Martha Graham dancing until
75 and choreographing until age 96, as well
as “Dr. Seuss” (Theodor Geisel) publishing
in his 80s.
“While
these represent examples of extraordinary
artists, studies show that many people of
lesser talents continue to practice and take
much gratification from their creative
endeavors into old age,” he said.
“We need to think of our aging population as
a rich resource, and I think boomers are the
leading edge of a potential revolution in
old age.
"They
will change how our institutions relate to
older adults and how we define old age for
our family and ourselves.
"They
[boomers] are astute politically and will
demand solutions to their problems and the
issues they care about, particularly about
their quality of life; they will not retire
to the front porch,” said Krout.
“Boomers present new and exciting
opportunities for greater creativity in all
walks of life.”
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