Dramaturgy of assistance: performing with dementia or age-related memory loss

Abstract

The autobiographical shows The Waiting Room (by John Mann and Morris Panych), and Sonic Elder (by Vancouver’s The Chop Theatre), both featured performers with dementia or marked age-related memory loss who performed rock music live on stage. These professional Canadian productions used a dramaturgical approach (dramaturgy of assistance) that foregrounded relational and embodied selfhoods, thus highlighting the performers’ musicality and relationships. While The Waiting Room partially sought to mask the performer’s need for support to maintain a slick, commercial aesthetic, Sonic Elder’s approach was more transparent about exposing memory challenges, and to a greater extent disrupted traditional loss-based dementia narratives.

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