Theatre Company using performance to help residents enjoy and express themselves in a care home environment

Bright Shadow allows residents with dementia to create meaningful experiences while remaining in the care home environment by stimulating all five senses during participation in the company’s performance workshops.

After seeing the power that participatory theatre had on residents in a care home as part of a placement for their university studies, Rhiannon Lane and Katy Hirst decided to use their knowledge on performance to create a theatre company delivering workshops for people with dementia.

The two former students are now co-directors of Bright Shadow, a theatre company working within the community to create performances to boost people’s creative involvement in themed workshops.

Each workshop has a main theme such as the British Seaside, Wimbledon or Winter Wonderland with props and activities designed to allow residents to take part in the experience which is individually designed to suit the needs of each group of participants.

Co-Director Rhiannon Lane said: “We may journey to a 'desert island' in one workshop by wearing necklaces and decorating the room with lanterns garlands, singing summery songs, doing some seated hula dancing, telling stories of shipwrecks and enjoying delving our hands into some sand – amongst other things!”

Care home staff members are also involved with the performance and can learn how to deliver further creative activities through Bright Shadow training with access to ‘Bright-boxes’ containing resources and guidance on delivering performance workshops.

Ms Lane said: “Staff members really enjoy seeing their residents in new ways, getting to know them better and discovering different approaches and activities that successfully engage them. Our evaluation sessions are often full of stories of surprising moments when residents participated or expressed themselves in a way they hadn't previously.

“There is also a bit of reservation at the start which is completely natural – as staff are worried they will have to start singing and dancing and going wildly out of their comfort zones.

“However, our ethos is to enable people to be themselves and use their talents, character and abilities and so staff end our projects feeling equipped to deliver workshops in a way that suits them.”

“We saw what a difference taking part in performance workshops made for people – they went from sitting around the edges of a living room, with nothing but the TV for stimulation, to spending two hours with us talking, laughing, singing and being themselves. At the end of our project, two women were adamant that they had been best friends for life – although we knew they had only met through living in the home.”

However the workshops do not focus on reminiscence and the company believe residents should be given more opportunities to enjoy living in the present through meaningful experiences.

Ms Lane said: “In general people do not spend all of their time thinking about the past and so why should we ask people with Dementia to do so? People with dementia have as much right to enjoy themselves, make new memories and have hopes for the future as the rest of us. This, together with the events of our past, is what makes us human and what makes us all feel alive and emotionally healthy. Therefore it is vital that we enable people with dementia to do the same by living in the here and now.

“However, if someone starts to reminisce in our sessions then we will make room for it and encourage it – because that is what that person wants to do and it is a validating experience for them.”

The company is working towards improving and expanding their bright-box resources range and revealed future plans to employ people to deliver these workshops to reach more care home residents at sensory workshops.

Ms Lane concluded: “We would like to continue to deliver programmes in care homes across the UK. We are planning a lot of growth and expansion over the next few years to enable us to do this by employing new staff and practitioners and by developing new models in order to reach more people.”

For more information please visit: www.brightshadow.org.uk