Our summer tour of Sharing Joy came to an end last week after visiting care homes, dementia cafes, hospital wards and theatre venues throughout June and July.
Sharing Joy is a performance made especially for people living with dementia and their carers, and encourages confidence, participation and making connections. The tour took in all kinds of different settings, and was performed by four fantastic singing, dancing, puppeteering, mask-wearing actors - Alejandra Bacelar Pereira, Nik Howden, Douglas Rutter and Lotte Tickner.
We’d like to thank all our audience members living with dementia for coming to the shows, and for being up for engaging in something new; thanks, too. to their supporters - be they family, friends or care staff; to all the care homes who welcomed us into their lounges; and to all of our wonderful Strategic Touring theatre venue partners who are working really hard to make genuine connections with the whole community and creating something that will last well beyond the tour.
We’ve had the most wonderful feedback from audience members living with dementia, including:
“I would like the day all over again."
“I love the music, getting out of the room, out of the ordinary. Just fantastic.”
“Oh I had fun, yeah!”
The making of the show and this tour would not have been possible without the generosity of our sponsors: Arts Council England (Strategic Touring Project), Sir Barry Jackson Trust, Gary Wiltshire, Worcestershire County Council, and the Elmley Foundation. Sharing Joy was originally developed in partnership with The Hereford Courtyard, with inspiration from movement-play specialists JABADAO, and a special commission of the show has toured as part of Sanctuary Care's Shine project.
If you would like to find out more about what the tour was like, cast member Alejandra Bacelar Pereira has written a blog about the day-to-day impact the show has had. You can read it here.
Thank you to Merafield View Nursing Home for the picture montage