Stroke Odysseys will tour the UK (Image: Pari Naderi)
When: 4th October – 16th November 2018
Where: Touring to locations across the UK
£: Ticket prices vary, depending on the venue
What is it?
This autumn, stroke survivors will take to the stage in a daring movement and song project, specially choreographed by Ben Duke. Stroke Odysseys will tour UK venues from Thursday 4th October to Friday 16th November.
Choreographer Ben Duke, composer Orlando Gough, health professionals and survivors of traumatic brain injury have collaborated on a poignant movement and song production that asks who we become when we lose a part of ourselves.
Some of the most profound questions that preoccupy survivors of stroke and other traumatic brain injuries, touch on hopes of regaining the lost faculties that are core to their identity; including speech, song, movement and dance. In Stroke Odysseys, stroke survivors perform alongside professional musicians, singers and dancers to tell their stories; of who they are, who they were, and the journey they’re on.
Rosetta Life is an organisation that use the arts in health innovation, and has been working for three years on the Stroke Odysseys project, to help people living with the debilitating long-term effects of a stroke or brain injury. The project is a partnership between health professionals and artists to help those with an altered capacity to move, speak and express themselves.
Stroke Odysseys music and movement project (Image: Pari Naderi)
Often the participants are suffering from severe depression or anxiety. Stroke Odysseys helps them to recover their identities and find purpose again. There are around 100,000 strokes in the UK each year.
The show will be accompanied by panel discussions with dancers, musicians, neurologists and neuroscientists, to explore the impact of storytelling, through song and dance, on the brain’s ability to heal itself. Rosetta Life will be working with local health professionals and artists working in health care, to share their findings of the benefits of using movement and song in recovery.
They will be running extensive residencies and discussions on topics such as Dance and Health (The Point, Eastleigh) Post Stroke Music and Neural Plasticity (Queen’s University Belfast), Movement, Voice and Recovery (Theatre by the Lake, Keswick), and Performance Arts and Life After Stroke (Kings College London). At most venues they will also be leading free workshops for people living with the effects of a stroke.
The need for Stroke Odysseys has been identified by a wide network of clinicians, health care practitioners, patients and family members who are guiding the direction of the project through a series of practice research workshops. Following the project, a clinical evaluation report will be released to assess its effectiveness and make recommendations for future implementation.
The tour dates are:
The Point, Eastleigh in Hampshire on 4th October (tickets cost £12 or £10 for concessions)
Theatre by the Lake in Keswick on 12th October (tickets cost £5 – £12)
The MAC, Belfast on 18th October (tickets cost £10 – £12)
The North Wall, Oxford on 25th October (tickets cost £16 or £14 for concessions)
Kings College London on 3rd November
Lakeside Arts in Nottingham on 8th November (tickets cost £17 or £15 for concessions)
Circomedia in Bristol on 16th November
More info: strokeodysseys.org