Brightening Air: The Ballad of a Care Centre

Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh is a ten day, nationwide season of arts experiences running from 11-20 June 2021, led by the Arts Council and funded by the Government of Ireland. The programme includes The Ballad of a Care Centre, a site-specific theatre work delivered via live performance and virtual reality to previous clients of Naas Day Care Centre. 

Since 2019, John Conway has been developing work built around the individual and collective oral histories of older people who attend the Naas Day Care Centre.

Their stories, audio recorded during an Age and Opportunity Artist in Residence programme in 2019 have, under Conway’s vision, become this work of art that reconnects the day care centre residents with their memories and stories. Strands of their memories and life stories are entwined to form a new narrative presented under both a nostalgic and critical lens, which explores the romanticising of certain experiences and the minimising of others, whilst acknowledging mortality and the challenges of social isolation, aging, and age related illness.

Using traditionally performed site-specific theatre, virtual reality, and cutting-edge motion capture technology, to build worlds-within-worlds-within-worlds where the viewer is taken on an out of body – out of time experience, this unique event will be presented to previous project participants from Naas Care of the Aged.

Further information: https://brighteningair.com/experiences/the-ballad-of-a-care-centre

The Ballad of a Care Centre is supported by Kildare County Council Art Service / Creative Ireland, in partnership with the HSE, Naas Care of the Aged Centre, and Riverbank Arts Centre.