Since 2019, artist John Conway has been developing work built around the individual and collective oral histories of older people who attend the Naas Day Care Centre. Below John Conway introduces his new project, The Ballad of a Care Centre, presented as part of the Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh festival.
Traditional ballads are typically of unknown authorship, having been passed on orally from one generation to the next: The Ballad of a Care Centre weaves life stories of men and women from the Naas Care of the Aged Day Centre into a new narrative, and tells it to audiences of one using traditional performance and virtual reality.
Originally devised pre-COVID19 as a site-specific theatre work for the care setting and based on research from an Age and Opportunity Artist Residency in 2019, Ballad was reimagined to emulate a full theatre experience as a way of rekindling connections with older people who are vulnerable to social isolation and most impacted by cocooning, and to bring critically brilliant and accessible art experiences to a community who despite a proliferation of online activities, the relaunch of culture and the slow return to relative post-lockdown normality, may be left behind.
I begin community art projects with tea and chats. I find this the best way to get insight into the normal things which define and characterise a group of people. It also make space for participants to trust in my sincere interest in them, and my desire to figure out what we might make together, why, and for whom. My interest in gathering stories was first met with skepticism by some participants: "What good is listening to our stories to anyone?" I believe the value of working together is that we might find out.
Over the months of my residency, we developed a trusting space for sharing which centered around a teapot and Micheal Tea Higgins tea cozy. The men and women shared their life stories; stories of love and loss, joy and regret; school, work, songs, dances, the loss of life long partners, childbirth and the loss of children, as well as refreshing and unexpected discussions on religion and sexuality. As the sessions went on, and as a result of the atmosphere we cultivated together, the group began to value each others' stories, and to reevaluate the idea that their own life stories merited being heard. They told me it made them feel like they weren't forgotten. Some shared deeply traumatic experiences for the first time – I didn't solicit these experiences, but participants felt safe and secure and were always treated with respect and dignity. Others relived tragic bereavements multiple times over many sessions, either as the result of a diminished memory or at having an ear to listen empathetically.
The Ballad of a Care Centre uses virtual reality to create a further world inside the performed world of theatre. Conceptually, it plays on repetition and mis-recollection, and uses VR to bring us on an out of body / out of time journey into the mind's eye from the comfort of our chair. The work is not a feel-good retelling of anecdotes but a heartfelt and challenging contemporary theatre work which does not shy away from the difficult material that was shared or the challenges that participants faced in their lives, nor does it underestimate their capacity as a critical audience who are deserving of targeted art works of the highest quality.
Ultimately the work that emerged from my conversations in the care centre is grounded in these conversations: It is a tribute and an acknowledgement to the audio recorded stories which were shared with me, many of which went previously unacknowledged, or in a typically Irish fashion, were minimised, glossed over, and buried deep down. Though their oral histories live on in aspects of this ballad, sadly, some participants have passed away since the original recordings were made.
The Ballad of a Care Centre, written and directed by John Conway, runs from 16 – 20 June - find out more here, and find out more about the Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh programme here.
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