Healing Arts Scotland 2024 Launch

The Healing Arts Scotland Opening Celebration event takes place outside the Scottish Parliament at 4pm on Monday 19th August as part of Edinburgh International Festival.

Article Source: Healing Arts Scotland
Last Updated: 19 June 2024 12:10

Healing Arts Scotland 2024

Announcement of countrywide HAS events and speakers, including Opening Celebration at Edinburgh International Festival

Announcement of key conference speakers, country-wide HAS events and details of outdoor Opening Celebration Event at Edinburgh International Festival.

• The Healing Arts Scotland Opening Celebration event takes place outside the Scottish Parliament at 4pm Mon 19th August as part of Edinburgh International Festival, featuring over 250 performers and participants from across Scotland in an energetic celebration of music and dance that captures the spirit and healing power of coming together through the performing arts. Ensembles featured include Scottish Ballet, National Youth Pipe Band, TRYST, Oi Musica and Samba Ya Bamba. Scottish Ballet will present a specially commissioned dance piece featuring an ensemble cast of community performers, including Scottish Ballet's Youth Exchange company, NHS Lothian staff, Dance Base's PRIME Elders Dance company and Dance for Parkinson's Scotland group. The work will be performed to Mackay’s Memoirs by the late Scottish Celtic fusion artist Martyn Bennett, which celebrates its 25th anniversary – it was originally commissioned for the opening of the Scottish Parliament building on 1 July 1999.

• The HAS Conference, in Edinburgh on 19th & 20th August and Glasgow on 21st August will feature Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer Sir Gregor Smith, as well as leading international arts health figures, including Christopher Bailey, Arts and Health Lead at the World Health Organization and a co-founder of the Jameel Arts and Health Lab; Dr Jill Sonke, from the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida; Nils Fietje and Calum Smith from the Behavioural and Cultural Insights Unit at the WHO Regional Office for Europe; Dr Daisy Fancourt, Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology at University College London; Sangeeta Isvaran, dancer-performer and founder of the Wind Dancers Trust, who has developed the Katradi method, working in marginalised, underprivileged communities using arts in education, empowerment and conflict resolution across 30 countries; Kunle Adewale, renowned Nigerian international artist, Founder and Executive Director of the Arts in Medicine Projects and the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship, and arts in health practitioner; Magdalena Schamberger, theatre director, who collaborates with people living with dementia to create accessible performances in theatres, care homes and other settings; Fiona O’Sullivan, Director of Children’s Wellbeing for the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity; Agustin Ivanez, Argentinean neuroscientist and Director of the Latin American Brain Health Institute at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (Chile), interested in global approaches to dementia and social, cognitive and affective neuroscience; Dr Nisha Sajnani, Associate Professor and Founder of Arts & Health at NYU. The conference will also highlight the innovative arts and health work happening in and across Scotland.

• The new Healing Arts Scotland website healingartsscotland.org/ is launched today, and features an interactive map showing all the Healing Arts activities happening across the country so far – more will be added as they register. Examples of events include:

Cancer Tapestry, the latest project from Dr Andrew Crummy MBE, creator of The Great Tapestry of Scotland, and Macmillan Cancer Support, unveiling a tapestry featuring 100 cancer stories from around Scotland, with the opportunity to add a stitch of your own to this historic artwork during live tapestry workshops;

Small Town Boy, marking the 40th anniversary of the LGBTQ+ anthem, with an exhibition and rave at SWG3, Glasgow curated by Scottish artist Joe Henry in collaboration with Bronski Beat and London Records. Artists taking part include Scottish artist, designer and DJ Charles Jeffrey, Irish Sculptor James Horan, Drag Queen Jonbers Blonde (RuPaul's Drag Race), Scottish/Filipino artist Csian Canave, as well as the original photographs from the Small Town Boy video by Steve Rapport, which have been painted over by Joe Henry, adding a layer of authenticity and nostalgia, further contextualizing the struggles and triumphs of the LGBTQ+ community.

Storywalk, an outdoor storytelling walk with wild foraged tea in the Cairngorms National Park, 'restorying' the land with folktales, lore of plants, trees and nature, as well as highlighting injustice within the landscape to help healing in its broadest sense.

WHO Arts & Health Lead / Co-Director Jameel Arts & Health Lab, Christopher Bailey said:

“Many cities around the world have taken part in our series of Healing Arts activations, but I am excited to see Scotland taking a truly national approach. Scotland’s unique sense of community, its embrace of all art forms, and its commitment to health for all promise to be an exciting combination. I can’t wait to participate and see what the communities come up with.”

Chief Medical Officer, Sir Gregor Smith said:

“The links between the arts and health are long established, not only in creating the environment for good health to flourish, but in supporting people with long term conditions. Scottish Ballet are leading exponents of this approach and I am immensely proud to be attending and supporting Healing Arts Scotland Week to learn more about how we can make the most of this fantastic opportunity to improve people’s health and wellbeing.”

Scottish Ballet CEO/Artistic Director, Christopher Hampson said:

"Healing Arts Scotland 2024 will be an inspirational week-long celebration of the huge impact the arts has on the nation's health and well-being. Scottish Ballet is proud to be leading on this global outreach project in collaboration with the WHO and a host of partner organisations. I’m really excited about the largescale participation performance taking place outside Scottish Parliament – it will be a true testament to all the wonderful arts health work that happens every day across Scotland."

Edinburgh International Festival CEO Francesca Hegyi said:

“The Edinburgh International Festival is proud to be part of the first ever nationwide Healing Arts campaign in Scotland. This is an important dialogue to help address health inequalities across the country and we look forward to facilitating those conversations throughout August.”

Healing Arts Scotland:

Whether it is dance classes, choir rehearsals, creative writing workshops or pot throwing, fantastic events take place every day all across Scotland that help improve people’s wellbeing. Healing Arts Scotland is a week-long celebration of these events, highlighting the joy they bring to those who take part, and their importance to the nation’s physical, mental and social health. This will be the first ever countrywide Healing Arts Week, following previous city-wide celebrations around the world, including New York, Paris, London, Venice and Jaipur.

The Opening Celebration of Healing Arts Scotland, taking place on 19 August, features over 250 performers from across Scotland in an energetic mass participation performance of music and dance outside the Scottish Parliament.

Scottish Ballet will present a specially commissioned dance piece featuring an ensemble cast of community performers, including Scottish Ballet's Youth Exchange company, NHS Lothian staff, Dance Base's PRIME Elders Dance company and Dance for Parkinson's Scotland group. They will dance to Mackay’s Memoirs by the late Scottish Celtic fusion artist Martyn Bennett, a landmark work by the GRIT Orchestra. The song has a strong connection to the Scottish Parliament itself, as it was commissioned for the opening of the Scottish Parliament building on 1 July 1999. This performance marks its 25th anniversary and is performed with live musicians from piping supergroup TRYST and the National Youth Pipe Band, under the musical guidance of GRIT Orchestra’s Greg Lawson.

Two new musicals compositions will also be debuted, by youth street band musicians Oi Musica with Glasgow-based collective Samba Ya Bamba, and the National Youth Pipe Band, in a mass moment of music making that captures the spirit and healing power of coming together through the performing arts.

The Opening Celebration will be followed by the HAS Conference in Edinburgh - two days of international industry speakers and panel discussions on the impact of healing arts activity, a conference and Wellbeing Concert in Glasgow and a series of special events in Aberdeen, Orkney and Lewis.

Events can be registered and viewed on the brand new Healing Arts Scotland website, which has an excellent interactive map showing all the brilliant events taking place across the country.

Healing Arts Scotland 2024 is led by Scottish Ballet as part of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab’s global ‘Healing Arts’ campaign in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, and will be produced together with a national coalition of organisations across culture, science, health, education and government.

Alongside Scottish Ballet and the Edinburgh International Festival, the partners helping to shape the week include Luminate, Health and Social Care Alliance (ALLIANCE), Intercultural Youth Scotland, Scottish Opera, Sistema Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland, International Teaching Artists Collaborative, Open Mind Project, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Imaginate, Indepen-dance, Mental Health Foundation Scotland, Tonic Arts, The University of Edinburgh and Arts Culture Health & Wellbeing Scotland.

Image credit: SB HAS Hospital Film - Image by Mihaela Bodlovic

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