Lights on stAGE!Learning to (self-)create together through dance

<< Background >>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<< Objectives >>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<< Implementation >>1. Project coordination/2 transnational face to face meetings 2. Conducting 6 interviews with local practitioners in the field of community dance with resumes in a good practice compilation. 3. Promotion/Setting up local network: partners produced their local promotion material using the common CI. Through stakeholder mapping, institutions with access to older people could be identified and were contacted for promotion of the workshop cycles and to build up collaboration networks.4. Developing draft “Lights on stAGE – practical guidelines for a creative dance format for older ages”: partners commonly developed a draft structure for pilot implementation of the format 5. Each partner implemented two 3-month-long workshop cycles with final public showings of the created dance pieces. 6. Each partner held a sensitizing event (panel discussion); in Barcelona it was organized in the frame of the film festival “la Gran Pantalla”, where the docu video was shown.7.a evaluation session with participants to gather feedback with reflection questionnaires and other qualitative methods. b. Each partner produced/disseminated two videos, documenting and promoting the workshop format. c. The final Handbook and was produced/disseminated. << Results >>a Corporate Design and Logoa common website local instagram accounts as a tool for a constant documentationa collection of good practice examples, layouted in the CI (pdf, english)A.R.E.A: info leaflet (cat/esp) addressing older potential participants, infoleaflet addressing stakeholders (cat/esp) A.R.E.A: posters for the promotion of the workshop cycles & public showings, Barcelonaqueraum: posters and info-flyers for the promotion of workshop cycles & public showings, Viennatwo 3-month long creation processes with two different groups of people between 65 - 82 years old (24 participants) and 2 created dance pieces shown in public in Viennatwo 3-month long creation processes with two different groups of people between 65 and 78 years old (25 participants) and 2 created dance pieces shown in public in Barcelonatwo teaser-workshops of three days, Barcelona (22 participants)video Lights on stAGE Vienna (german, eng. subtitles)video Lights on stAGE Barcelona (cat/esp, eng. subtitles)short docu “Was bewegt dich?”, Vienna (german, eng. subtitles)short docu “Tens molt a moure”, Barcelona (cat/esp)panel discussion Vienna, 23.3.2023 at Schauspielhaus Wienpanel discussion Barcelona, 9.7.2023 at Film Festival “La Gran Pantalla