On April 27th, we held our first Knowledge Sharing Day, hosted by partners The Corn Exchange in Newbury, to officially launch Vamos's Strategic Touring Project Full Mask Theatre and Dementia Audience Development.
The event was a chance for all twelve key partner venues for year one to come together, share ideas and plan marketing and evaluation for the project, as well as to share insights into work some of our venues are already doing with people living with dementia and their carers: thank you to Penny Allen of The Courtyard, Hereford, and Alice Williams of The Belgrade, Coventry, for being so generous in sharing their organisations' excellent work with everyone.
We were lucky enough to also have key note speakers Ian Sherriff and Alexis Kirke with us. Ian is Academic Partnership Lead For Dementia at Plymouth University, and Alexis Kirke is from the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at Plymouth University. Ian reminded us that every one of us on this planet is unique and special - including people living with dementia, each of whom is an important individual with a past, present and future. Meanwhile, Alexis spoke with passion about his work around memory tunes - supporting people with dementia to remember simple tasks in their day-to-day lives via music and composition, and how music, film and media can be used to encourage better empathy for people living with dementia and help others experience it from the inside. Their words and work were inspiring and affirming, and we have been spurred on in our mission to change the world in our approach to dementia!
Watch this space for the next part of our Strategic Touring Project: a tour of Sharing Joy, our theatre performance made for people living with dementia and their carers, visiting care homes and venues nationally in July.