Crossroads in Creative Aging
CROSSROADS IN CREATIVE AGING
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Two year research project
Promoters: Annouk Van Moorsel and Ellen Dierckx
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Image (c) Grould Photo
For this project, two teaching artists join forces to explore five crucial dimensions of arts participation with older people in need of care. In doing so, they investigate drama & theatre as a means of connection for people living with dementia, arts education as a sustainable practice (with implementation of creative aging in arts education programs), challenges and assets of cross-disciplinary collaboration, the artistic-pedagogical value of creative aging for the teaching artist, and how theatre can break down the walls of the residential care home and create engagement with and from the neighbourhood.
The researchers take different paths using a mixed methods approach (ethnographic research, interviews, case studies, experiment) and seek intersections to challenge, stimulate, compare and test each other as an artistic research community.
The project aims at an implementation of the findings in the educational courses of Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and a dissemination in the professional field and wider society, with an article, workshop(s), lectures, an implementation plan for educational training programs in the arts and a participatory theatre performance.
Lies Vandeburie
researcher
Beeld © Anne Verbist
Bob Selderslaghs
researcher
Lies Vandeburie (1992) holds a Master’s degree in Drama – Kleinkunst (Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, 2016) and a teaching diploma in Drama (2019). She is active as a performer, creator, musician, and teaching artist. Her work with people in poverty (2016–2018, vzw De Link) sparked her interest in community-based theatre. In 2017, she wrote Mistig Land, a monologue on dementia. From 2019 to 2023, she worked part-time in elderly care, which inspired her to connect theatre and care. This led to her research project Never Too Old to Make a Scene (Conservatoire, 2023–24). In 2024, she became a certified Dementia Reference Person and cultural ambassador for people with dementia. Her research continues within the Maak een scène project, part of a broader inquiry into sustainable artistic practices in care, supported by the King Baudouin Foundation.
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Bob Selderslaghs, PhD (1973) is Head of the Educational programmes in Dance, Drama and Music ath the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, and works as a teaching artist and researcher in drama and education. He graduated from the Royal Conservatoire himself in 1996 with a master of Drama and started working as an actor in theatre and television. He always combined his artistic work with artistic-educational activities, and in 2001, he obtained his teaching certificate at the University College of Antwerp. From 2008, Bob has been teaching, coordinating and researching at the Conservatoire, while maintaining his artictic practice. Bob published several articles and books on (cross-domain) initiation and on Mantle of the Expert: a dramatic inquiry approach to learning and teaching that he has been researching intensively since 2016. In 2022, he obtained his PhD with the thesis ‘MoE 2.0 - Mantle of the Expert: from dramatic inquiry towards an artistic result in arts education’. He is also chair of the research group CORPoREAL.
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www.mantleoftheexpert.be ​​