Dementia, Narrative and Performance (eBook)

Acknowledgements 6
Contents 9
Abbreviations 11
List of Figures 13
Chapter 1: My Mother’s Story, My Story 14
Focal Points, Challenges, and Contributions 17
Theoretical Contexts, Disciplinary Locations, and Approach 22
Mapping the Arguments 28
Resisting the ‘Right Kind’ of Dementia Story 31
References 36
Filmography 44
Part I: Dementia, Identity and Narrative 45
Chapter 2: Recasting Senility: The Genesis of the ‘Right Kind’ of Dementia Story 46
What Is Dementia? Biomedical Approaches 47
Defining the ‘Right Kind’ of Dementia Story 49
Recasting Senility as Alzheimer’s Disease: Historical and Geocultural Contexts 53
The ‘Crisis’ of Dementia: Sociopolitical and Economic Contexts 55
“A very neoliberal condition” 58
Metaphors and Stigma 61
Them and Us 62
References 65
Filmography 68
Plays 68
Chapter 3: Narrative Regimes 69
Narrative and the Construction of ‘Reality’ as ‘Normalcy’ 70
The Narrative Self: How Stories Constitute Selves 71
“Against Narrativity” 76
Reminiscence Regimes: Reminiscence and Its Therapies in Dementia Care 78
Digital Storytelling and Virtual Technologies 87
‘Re-story-ing’: What Might Narrative Look Like Beyond Reminiscence? 91
References 94
Part II: Dementia in Performance 100
Chapter 4: Staging the ‘Reality’ of Dementia 101
Exploring Theatre of the Real 103
Staging Real Life: A Brief Genealogy 107
The Revival of the Real: Theatre of the Real and the “Lie of the Literal”13 113
Defining Verbatim Theatre and Locating Its Cultural Work 116
Words and Dementia: Do They Matter? 122
What Dementia Offers Theatre of the Real 125
Constructing ‘Real’ Worlds 126
Representation and Reality 129
Normative Age-and-Dementia-Effects 131
References 134
Plays 138
Chapter 5: Staging Dementia Voices in Australia: Missing the Bus to David Jones, Theatre Kantanka, and Sundowner, KAGE 140
Postdramatic Theatre 142
Missing the Bus to David Jones2: The Production 145
The Coming of Age 146
“The Shangri-La Living Room is a Carnival of Entertainment and Activity” 148
Warehousing 151
Authenticity-Effects in Missing the Bus to David Jones 154
Resistant Strategies 157
Lust for Life 161
What Is Missing in Missing the Bus to David Jones? 163
A Tragedy Is About to Unfold 166
Sundowner as Dramatic Theatre 168
Memory as a Carrier of Identity 171
All You Need Is Love 172
Putting MBDJ and Sundowner in Conversation 174
References 177
Films 181
Plays 181
Television 182
Chapter 6: Mapping Applied Performance in Dementia Cultures 183
Narrative Interventions, Social Intentionality, Change, and Transformation 185
Change, Choice, and Participation: Dementia as Provocateur in Applied Performance 186
Narrative Recall and Healing 191
Re-story-ing (Old) People Living with Dementia: TimeSlips 195
TimeSlips: Resistance to the ‘Right Kind’ of Dementia Story 196
TimeSlips: Problems of Control, Power, and Regimentation 200
Narra[tive]-Theatrical Spaces/Places 201
The Bucket List, Starett Lodge 203
De Hogeweyk 206
Rethinking the Story 210
References 214
Filmography 219
Chapter 7: “I Don’t Want to Disappear”: Dementia and Public Autobiographical Performance 220
The Provocations Dementia Offers to Autobiographical Performance Scholarship 222
Rights, Justice, and Agency 224
To Whom I May Concern® (TWIMC): Origins and Format 227
“I don’t want to disappear”: The Politics of the ‘I’ in TWIMC 228
A Boundary Phenomenon 231
Staging the ‘I’ 234
Discourse Disables the Possibility of a “Real-real” 239
Performers and Spectators 241
Promising Change 243
References 245
Part III: Dementia as Performance 250
Chapter 8: Rehearsing a Theory of Dementia as Performance 251
Situating Performance Paradigms 252
Rehearsing a Theory of Dementia as Performance 255
Dementia Activism as Cultural Performance 264
References 269
YouTube 272
Chapter 9: Revisiting My Mother’s Story, My Story 273
Future Imaginaries 279
References 280
Films 281
Television 281
Index 282