Jim on Dementia Arts

Jim describes participating in the Memory Arts Cafe performance at IONA Senior Services on Thursday, Sept. 20th in Washington DC. The event was part of the Dementia Arts Festival and featured musician Judith-Kate Friedman, Songwriting Works, dancer Maria Genne, Kairos Alive! and poet Gary Glazner More info at dementiaarts.com

Memory Arts Café

New York Memory Center & Alzheimer’s Poetry Project Present

Memory Arts Café

Brooklyn, NY – September 12, 2012 – Memory Arts Café is a new series of free art events for people living with Alzheimer’s disease, their caregivers and the general public and is co-produced by New York Memory Center and the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. 

The series, which takes place on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, includes light refreshments and the opportunity to chat with the guest artists.

This Memory Arts Café event features Jesse Neuman, musician and Founder and Director of MusicWorks NYC. Poet Gary Glazner will host the event. 

Wednesday, October 10th, at 6 pm

New York Memory Center

199 14th Street at 4th Avenue 
Brooklyn, NY 11215

(Take the R to Prospect Ave.)

For info: call (718) 499-7701

National Center for Creative Aging & Alzheimer’s Poetry Project Present Dementia Arts Festival

We are thrilled to announce a series of performances focused on bringing attention to the expanding opportunities the arts bring to people with Alzheimer’s. The events take place at Washington DC assisted living and adult day care centers in support of the National Alzheimer’s Plan Act. For a full festival schedule please see dementiaarts.com.

Memory Arts Café Performance Thursday, September 20th, 6 to 8pm Iona Senior Services, 4125 Albemarle Street, Washington, DC 20016.

You are invited to a performance for people living with Alzheimer’s disease, their caregivers and the general public. New Mexico poet Stuart Hall reads work documenting his experience in living with dementia. Maria Genne, Kairos Dance and Judith-Kate Friedman, Songwriting Works and Gary Glazner, Alzheimer’s Poetry Project will lead the audience in the creation of a new performance. The event includes light refreshments and the opportunity to chat with the guest artists. We are excited to show an excerpt from Anne Bastings’ film “Penelope Project,” which documents the performance of using the Penelope story from Homer’s Odyssey to engage an entire long-term care community in the creative process and Songwriting Works’ new music video, “WWII Homecoming Song.”

Sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association Washington DC Chapter, Center for Aging Heath and Humanities, Generations United, Iona Senior Services, and the Society Arts and Healthcare with support from the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, the Helen Bader Foundation, the MetLife Foundation and the Pabst Charitable Foundation for the Arts.

Memory Arts Cafe, Wed. August 8th 6pm

New York Memory Center
and Alzheimer’s Poetry Project
Present Memory Arts Cafe

This Memory Arts Cafe event will highlight the artists of New York Memory Center in performance. They will lead the audience in the creation of new work featuring music, dance, poetry and collage. Poet Gary Glazner will host the event. PLUS a SUMMER BBQ!

The performers and artists include: Ismail Butera, Musician in Residence; David Azarch, Percussionist in Residence; Ruth Azarch, Artist; Pamela Lawton, Artist; Jennie Smith-Peers, Improv and the Rhythm Breaks Dance Group.

Wednesday, August 8th, at 6 pm
New York Memory Center
199 14th Street at 4th Avenue • Brooklyn, NY 11215
(Take the R to Prospect Ave.)
For info: call (718) 499-7701 or visit alzpoetry.com

Memory Arts Cafe

Memory Arts Café is a new series of free art events for people living with Alzheimer’s disease, their caregivers and the general public and is co-produced by New York Memory Center and the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. The series, which takes place on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, includes light refreshments and the opportunity to chat with the guest artists.

This Memory Arts Café event will feature dancer Heidi Latsky in performance and she will lead the audience in the creation of a new dance. Poet Gary Glazner will host the event.

Wednesday, July 11 at 6 pm New York Memory Center 199 14th Street at 4th Avenue • Brooklyn, NY 11215 (Take the R to Prospect Ave.) For info: call (718) 499-7701 or visit alzpoetry.com

"Latsky asks us to look at people for what they are capable of, rather than what they can't do." - The Washington Post

"Latsky…diminutive vessel of energy, concentration, and passion- personifies that state every dancer aspires to-in which intent and execution are one." -The Village Voice

About the performer: HEIDI LATSKY the Artistic Director of Heidi Latsky Dance has been a moving force in the dance world for many years, as a choreographer for stage, theater and film. Latsky initially received recognition as a celebrated principal dancer for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance. In addition to creating more than fifteen works for Heidi Latsky Dance, Latsky has been commissioned to create new work by the Cannes International Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, the Joyce Theater: Altogether Different Festival, Performance Space 122, 92nd Street Y, Alvin Ailey Dance Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Heidi Latsky Dance was a recipient of a 2006 rehearsal residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and a residency at the Abrons Arts Center, 2009 where GIMP premiered. Latsky is an innovator in disability arts. Her piece GIMP features four trained dancers and four performers who have physical disabilities. It turns on its head accepted notions of dance, performance and body image. Latsky and company have created a piece of work that is a natural and completely unique vehicle for dialogue, increased understanding and civic engagement.

Memory Arts Café

 New York Memory Center & Alzheimer’s Poetry Project Launch

New York State’s First Memory Arts Café

Memory Arts Café is a new series of free art events for people living with Alzheimer’s disease, their caregivers and the general public, and is co-produced by New York Memory Center and the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. The series takes place on the 2nd Wednesday of each month and includes light refreshments and the opportunity to chat with the guest artists. 

Wednesday, June 13 at 6 pm

New York Memory Center

199 14th Street at 4^th Avenue • Brooklyn, NY 11215

(Take the R to Prospect Ave.)

For info: call (718) 499-7701 or visit alzpoetry.com

About the performers:

Legendary jazz critic, Nat Hentoff, has praised Roger’s work as "the most joyously encouraging way of expanding the audience for jazz."  In partnership with the NYC Alzheimer Association Chapter and jazz singer, Peter Eldridge, Ms. Rogers has produced two Alzheimer's benefit concerts entitled “For Those We Love.” (louiserogers.org)

The Boston Globe wrote of pianist, composer, educator, and bandleader Mark Kross "Kross digs hard with a bright contemporary piano style with Monkish bop influences.” He is the Head of the Music Department at the Middlesex School, an independent high school in Concord, MA and has released five CD’s with his band, The Mark Kross Five-Piece Trio.

About the producers:
Founded in 1983, the mission of New York Memory Center is to help older adults who have cognitive, physical, and emotional limitations, to maintain or improve their level of functioning so that they may enjoy their later years at home and within the community. Through an innovative wellness center, New York Memory Center meets the needs of individuals living with Alzheimer’s and related dementia disorders and their Caregivers. NYMC offers two primary programs: Lotus Club, an early intervention and support program for those experiencing the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s and related dementias; and Memory Life Services, a program which provides more extensive services suitable for adults in the community with middle to later stage memory loss. For additional information, please visit nymemorycenter.org.

Gary Glazner founded the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP) in 2004. The APP was awarded the 2012 MetLife Foundation Creativity and Aging in America Leadership Award in the category of Community Engagement. The National Endowment for the Arts listed the APP as a “best practice” for their Arts and Aging initiative. NBC's “Today” show, NPR's “All Things Considered” and Voice of America have featured segments on the APP.

Alzheimer's Poetry Project in the News

Carnegie Hall- Clint Needham- When We Forget

Thrilled to announce this Saturday, March 24th at 7pm at Carnegie Hall is the world premier of "When We Forget," by the composer Clint Needham which was inspired by my poem, "We Are Forget." You may hear part of the composition at: Dementia Weekly Blog

Needham writes about his experience as a father of twins leading him to think about memories of their lives and how that led him to research memory. During his research he came on the Alzheimer's Poetry Project website and my poem, "We Are Forget," which he generously credits as his inspiration. I was knocked out when he wrote me a few months ago to tell me about the composition.

The piece was commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra more on them at:http://www.orpheusnyc.com/about.html

We Are Forget
Gary Glazner

We are the words we have forgotten.
We are shifting and pacing.
We wrote this poem.
It’s a pretty poem.
Can you bake a cherry pie?
Never more, never more.
We have no horizon.
We don’t recall washing or eating
or what you just said.
Ask me my name.
Ask me if I have children?
You’re a pretty lady.
You have beautiful eyes.
Wash me, put me to bed clean,
hold me as I fall asleep.
Give me a kiss, brush my hair.
You are my daughter?
Light washing over us moment, moment.
You’re a handsome man.
Our hand writing is beautiful
twists and loops of letters
we can’t remember our hands.
Our ears are wishful
we can’t remember our ears.
We can speak every language,
we can’t remember our mouths.
We are porous.
We are the past.
We are forget.