ABSTRACT
This chapter examines performance techniques that establish a circuit of care, which includes those living with cognitive impairments valued as equals in the circuit. It will analyse the performance of Ruff (2012) by Split Britches, created by performer and stroke survivor Peggy Shaw, with her long-time collaborator and director Lois Weaver. The chapter describes how Ruff explicitly acknowledges frailty and how care is performed by the audience, by Weaver’s performance interventions and by Shaw’s performance expertise. Taking into consideration Jonathan Thompson’s “aesthetics of care” and Daniel Engster’s discussion of Martha Fineman’s notion of “vulnerability,” the performance is shown to establish a mutually supportive circuit of care, between performer, audience and dramaturg. In addition, the chapter explores other examples of theatre practice and performance research with elders in care settings, including work by relational clowns and the use of improvisatory techniques with the author’s father in his last year living with Alzheimer’s disease. The chapter argues that care, developed through such theatre practices, is not unidirectional and, drawing on writers on care such as Eva Feder Kittay, Nel Noddings and Joan Tronto, will establish the presence of a circuit of care generated by different professional and everyday performance practices. It will argue that such practices disrupt assumptions about the binary of carer and cared-for and that the interrelational nature of theatre and performance – particularly improvisatory theatre techniques – can establish care that is mutually beneficial for all people working and living with dementia and other cognitive impairments.
