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Posts Tagged ‘healing’

Shakespeare for Vets

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2013| 2 Comments »

I’ve blogged before about programs that use theater for healing purposes and programs that use the arts specifically to help veterans.

Now Dana Ferguson writes at The Los Angeles Times about Shakespeare getting into the act and easing vets into the job world.

“Fifteen years ago former Pfc. and military police officer Jerry Whiteside had two masks tattooed on his left bicep, one smiling, one frowning. …

“Little did he know that more than a decade later, he would be symbolically reunited with the images imprinted on his skin.

“His journey began at the end of a 30-year struggle with drugs and alcohol, he said. Whiteside, a Chicago native turned Angeleno who had served in the Marine Corps from 1972 to ’76, sought help from the Veterans Administration in Los Angeles. He completed a detoxification program in 2011 and for this summer was referred to the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles to do various jobs on the set of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Whiteside, 61, and some 30 other veterans of the Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and the Gulf wars assisted in building the set and working odd jobs with the production, which continues through July 28.

“Shakespeare Center artistic director Ben Donenberg said employing veterans stemmed from another of the company’s outreach programs, Will Power to Youth, which hires young Angelenos to study and perform Shakespeare plays. After seeing alumni of the program serving in the armed services and later seeking jobs at home, Donenberg said, the company decided to extend its employment program opportunity to veterans, starting last year. …

“One of the things we want to do as a company is to ease the transition to civilian life, and part of that is on the civilians; there’s only so much the veterans can do,” [Chris Anthony, associate artistic director at the Shakespeare Center] said. “The rest of us have to see them in a different light. It’s something we need to work on as civilians.” More.

Photo: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times
Military veteran Jerry Whiteside passes out programs before each Shakespeare Center performance.

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Art Therapy and Cancer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

No one needs to be told that art is healing. I find it can cheer me up when I’m just having a bad day. I even tell coworkers who are stressed out, “Go over to Fort Point and look at some art.”

But for those who care more about data than folk wisdom, there is research.

Genevra Pittman writes at Pacific Standard, “Music, art, and dance therapy may relieve anxiety and similar symptoms among people with cancer, according to a new analysis of past studies.

“Researchers who analyzed results from trials conducted between 1989 and 2011 said the benefits tied to creative arts therapies were small, but similar to those of other complementary techniques such as yoga and acupuncture. …

“The analysis included 27 studies of close to 1,600 people who were randomly assigned to receive some form of creative arts therapy or not, during or after cancer treatment. Patients with breast cancer or blood cancers—such as leukemia and lymphoma—made up the majority of study participants. Music, art, and dance therapy programs varied in how often sessions were conducted and over what time span. …

“On the whole, people with cancer who were assigned to creative arts treatments reported less depression, anxiety, and pain and a better quality of life during the programs than those who were put on a wait list or continued receiving usual care.” More.

I didn’t get into art therapy when I had cancer, but I’m sure I would have liked it. I did have a booklet created by past patients that contained daily readings, and more often than not the choices hit the spot. The patients named the booklet “No Other Way but Through.”

Photo: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Art therapy program

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More on Veterans and Arts

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I have blogged before on the use of the arts to help veterans readjust to civilian life. Today I’d like to highlight an initiative started by veteran Drew Cameron and Drew Matott. It focuses on the art that interests them most — papermaking — and is their way of giving back and moving on.

“The Combat Paper Project utilizes art making workshops to assist veterans in reconciling and sharing their personal experiences as well as broadening the traditional narrative surrounding service and the military culture.

“Through papermaking workshops, veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beaten into a pulp and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences in the military.

“The Combat Paper Project is based out of art studios throughout the United States and has traveled to Canada and the United Kingdom, providing veterans workshops, exhibitions, performances and artists’ talks.” More here.

Photograph: Combat Paper

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Cancer Dance Class

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2011|

Of course, it wasn’t really called Cancer Dance Class. It was called “I Hope You’ll Dance,” and any woman who had ever had cancer was welcome to come to Emerson Hospital and join in. It wasn’t really dance either. I would call it dancelike movement to recordings. With props. Teacher Susan Osofsky-Ross was a cancer survivor herself and had a great collection of music from her many years in the dance world. Some pieces, like “You Raise Me Up,” had a spiritual vibe.  But in the same session we were just as likely to perform numbers like “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” (with feather boas) or “Everything Old Is New Again” (with bowler hats). There was a lot of chat and laughter even though not all of us were in remission.

One of the women brought her mother in a wheelchair. The mother had a heart condition. She danced with her arms and often cracked us up with her quiet humor. One day we came to class and learned that she had had an attack and was now upstairs in the hospital. She was in a coma. Her daughter had been with her all night and decided to join us for class while her brother kept the vigil. At the end of the class, we asked the daughter whether she thought it would be a good idea if we took the boom box up to her mother’s room and did one of the dances for her. Bonny said, “Yes. Let’s try it.”

So up we traipsed, through the hospital corridors to the sick room, and quietly sang and “danced” one of our more uplifting numbers around the bed in the cramped room.

We still like to think Bonny’s mother heard us and was pleased.

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Art Opens Up the World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2011|

We watched a couple unusual documentaries last night and last weekend. Often by the time films are available on Netflix, all I remember about the review is that someone highly recommended them. I know only that we will get a big surprise.

“Marwencol” and “Waste Land” were amazing surprises. They turned out to have something in common, too — the idea that art can lift people from despair, help them see things in a way that opens up their world. What was different between the movies was that for the troubled guy who created art in “Marwencol,” showing his work in a NYC gallery is quite beside the point of his healing process and probably the last thing he needs.

The movie is beautifully executed, but one has the sense that the young filmmakers who think the protagonist will benefit from the big-time art world don’t understand psychology very well.

The protagonist of “Waste Land,” successful Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, although equally idealistic, understands his subjects better, having experienced a life similar to theirs in his impoverished childhood. He decides to combine an art project with helping “garbage pickers” in the world’s biggest landfill, in Rio. Getting to know a few of the workers really well, he develops tremendous admiration for them and their deep dignity. He pays a few to work with him on giant portraits on themselves, portraits that play on the themes of some famous paintings. They use recyclables to complete the images, which are then photographed and shown in galleries and at auction. The proceeds come back to the people and help them both individually and collectively.

But the biggest transformation is not monetary but rather what Vik anticipated based on his own life experience — that by seeing things in a new way, they would get new ideas about themselves and their possibilities.

 

 

 

 

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