Embodiment and Creativity Featured at Medical Humanities Conference Durham

CENTER FOR MEDICAL HUMANITIES

DURHAM UNIVERSITY
ASSOCIATION FOR MEDICAL HUMANITIES CONFERENCE 2009

CALL FOR PAPERS

The sixth annual conference of the UK and Ireland Association for Medical Humanities takes place in Durham, UK, 6th to 8th July 2009, on the general theme Taking the Body Seriously. The conference’s aim is to bring humanities resources, both single-discipline and inter-disciplinary, to bear upon our understanding of how our bodies constitute both the possibilities of, and the constraints upon, leading flourishing lives. Key themes include:


• the role of the body in framing experience, knowledge, values and the imagination
• the place of the body in relation to creativity and the arts, both as generator and as object
• how science’s methods and agenda reflect the fact and form of our embodiment; and
• the place of medical conceptions of the body, health and well-being within prevalent contemporary understandings of human flourishing

In addition to these themes, there will also be a general section accommodating papers on topics of broad interest within medical humanities.

Papers under all of these themes, including the general section, are invited from medical humanities researchers, teachers and healthcare practitioners. Papers may be in any of three forms: full plenary presentation (40 mins); elective paper presentation (25 mins); or workshop presentation (15 mins). Abstracts of up to 250 words should be submitted electronically by 1st April 2009 to the organisers at cmh.admin@durham.ac.uk. Abstracts will be reviewed independently and decisions made and communicated to applicants by 24th April 2009.



Jane Macnaughton, Martyn Evans
Centre for Medical Humanities
Durham University

*Note for Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal subscribers and blog visitors: I was contacted today about this conference and advised that the organizers are seeking presenters and potential speakers. CM

Digital Storytelling, Digital Mythology Offers New Opportunities for Embodied Cultural Learning

Garry Oker

Ancient Mythology Meets Digital Technologies

posted by: Cheryl McLean
Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal

Digital Mythology Progressive New form of Cultural Education, Dreamer's Stories Live for Future Generations

We recently heard from Garry Oker who is a member and past Chief of the Doig River First Nation near Fort St. John, BC.. Garry works in both traditional and modern settings and can speak the Dane-zaa language, facilitating communication between First Nations and an international business audience regarding complex land issues.

He is also a musician and artist who uses digital storytelling and narrative methods in action and practice as a form of embodied cultural learning in education.

In his new collaboration with music producers, video game developers, and animators he will be animating traditional mythological characters into a video game that will teach tribal stories and songs to future generations.

Garry was one of the leaders involved in the Dane Wajich, Dane-zaa Stories and Songs: Dreamers of the Land project which brought together elders, youth and leaders who worked collaboratively with ethnographers, linguists, videographers and web designers to document the history, stories and songs that connect the Dane-zaa people to the land.The theme for this exhibit, “Dreamers and the Land,” was inspired by the return of a Dreamer's drum to the community.

Quotes from the website: “On June 28th, 2005, a group of Dane-zaa elders, young people, linguists, and anthropologists met at our Doig River First Nation's Cultural Centre to plan a website. Chief Garry Oker came to the meeting carrying a drum skin that had been in safe storage in his home for many years.”

“Some of the elders at the meeting recognized the drum as one made by the Dreamer, Gaayea, who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and who was a teacher for Charlie Yahey. They remembered stories about Gaayęą's life, and the story of his death. Dane-zaa Dreamers like Gaayęą received songs from Heaven in their dreams and often drew maps of their visions on tanned moose hides and on the skins of their drums. “

Garry’s work, sharing the stories of the Dreamer’s songs, continues today through digital technologies.

In our recent communication he reports, “I have recomposed traditional Dreamer’s songs while maintaining the original structure, melody and rhythm as narrative melodies to encapsulate the essence of the Dreamer’s Story. The Dreamer’s songs will be retold through animated characters (swan people) transported from ancient times into a video game to develop a multicultural perspective while simultaneously respecting traditions and shaping the future. These animated swan people will help others imagine, observe, imitate and practice Dreamer’s melodies in future ceremonies. . Dr. Gregory Cajete has written in his book “Look to the Mountain” that “tribal myths contain tremendous potential for illuminating the education of both the individual and the community through creative, linguistic and visual forms that are emotionally affective for members of a tribe.” (1994, pg. 115) I believe my research and development work in digital mythology will help traditional people to continue to learn about themselves through a critical analysis of the sharing of tribal knowledge.”

“I have many stories that require translation and I am willing to work with educators who want to push the boundary of learning using multiple disciplines. My goal is to transport ancient characters from stories and make them come alive through interactive learning workshops.”

Garry Oker recently presented his research “Digital Mythology” at the World Indigenous Education Conference in Melbourne Australia.

Visit his website

Alzheimer's, Drama and Research, New Performance Seeks to Foster Humanistic Approach to Dementia Care Practice

Ethnodramatic Production to Help Enhance Communication and Relationships

CCAHTE Journal Advisory Board members include leaders in the creative arts, health, training and education as well as researchers and scientists working at the intersections of the arts and sciences. Continuing our reporting on CCAHTE Journal Advisory Board members and their ongoing projects this morning, we present information about a new ethnodramatic production by Pia C. Kontos, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, The University of Toronto.

Below we present brief excerpts from the paper, “Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s, Moving from Ethnographic Texts to Performing Ethnography", Pia C. Kontos and Gary Nagalie, University of Toronto as published in Qualitative Research, 2006. (excerpts published with author permission.)

There were three main goals in developing the ethnodramatic production “Expressions Of Personhood in Alzheimer’s”

1) to provide an accessible presentation of research to audiences of diverse disciplinary backgrounds

2) to recover the experiential immediacy of the body present in the original data-gathering setting, which, in the case of this dramatic production, permits a powerful demonstration of how selfhood is manifested in gesture and action

3) to create a space to engage in a form of social inquiry that resonates simultaneously with critique and the envisioning of new possibilities (Denzin, 1997).

Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s is a production that not only re-presents embodied expressions of selfhood in Alzheimer’s disease, but also critically exposes depersonalizing tendencies of treatment contexts and caregiving relationships that are a consequence of an assumed loss of selfhood that is widely associated with the cognitive deficiencies that lie at the core of dementia. It is our contention that this ethnodramatic production has the potential to open a space for seeing the humanity of persons with dementia, and for envisioning the prospect of a truly humanistic approach to dementia care practice.

As part of the development process Kontos created a partnership with ACT II Studio, a theatre school and creative drama centre for older adults, which is part of the Seniors Education Programs in Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Toronto, Canada. ACT II Studio has a demonstrated history of developing socially relevant dramas for public presentation. Their director, Vrenia Ivonoffski, agreed to provide artistic directorship.

The collaborative process began with a meeting between Kontos, Ivonoffski, and a group of interested actors. All were provided with descriptions of the research participants who feature in the five vignettes. Five actors committed to the project, all having had some personal experience with Alzheimer’s disease, which was agreed upon by Kontos and Ivonoffski as necessary background to sensitize them to the general condition of the illness and, as much
as possible, to the nuances of embodiment in the lived experience of the illness.

The development of Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s is part of a larger research agenda to humanize the practice of dementia care. With the production now complete, we are embarking upon the next stage of our research, which involves the performance of this drama and focus groups we are conducting with nurses and ancillary health care professionals in three different long-term care facilities. It is anticipated that responses to the performance by the focus group participants will serve as a springboard for discussion about embodied selfhood, and how perceiving a broader range of behaviour as meaningful could enhance communication and the development of interpersonal relationships, and how this could ultimately improve the quality of caregiving and the quality of life of those living with Alzheimer’s disease.

Contact info: Pia C. Kontos: Department of Public Health Sciences University of Toronto 11035-550 University Avenue Toronto, ON M5G 2A2CanadaTEL: (416) 597-3422, ext. 7609FAX: (416) 597-7105Email: kontos.pia@torontorehab.on.ca

Qualitative Research http://qrj.sagepub.com/

ACT II Studios, Toronto http://www.ryerson.ca/~act2/activities.html