The fantastic conversation with the wonderful Magdalena. A Scotland based Creative Collaborator, Director, Consultant, Teacher, and Honorary Professor at the School of Health Sciences at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. Magdalena has been working creatively with people living with dementia for over 20 years. She uses physical theatre and a cross-arts approach to create highly visual performances, which are equally enjoyable, stimulating and beautiful. Magdalena is committed to meaningfully engage with theatres and communities by offering training to organisations, theatre staff and artists of all art forms.
Magdalena's site...
https://www.magdalenaschamberger.com
BOLD Scotland
https://bold-scotland.org/find-out-about-bold/
Magdalena's Projects...
https://www.magdalenaschamberger.com/projects/
ECRED
Edinburgh Centre for Research on the Experience of Dementia
School of Health in Social Science
https://www.ed.ac.uk/health/research/centres/ecred
Queen Margaret University
https://www.qmu.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh
https://www.ed.ac.uk
Bruce:
So, what would you like to get across to people today say, when we connect? So, people that are listening to the podcast, what sort of the focus that you would like them to take away.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I guess that people living with dementia are just like you and I, and they don't need to be treated differently and that if you are doing creative and arts projects that they should be involved from the very beginning, rather than some sort of afterthought. And I do think there is a change, definitely in Scotland and I think across the world. Also, with Reimagining Dementia Coalition, I think people want to see things differently and there is lot of dementia activist right now in Scotland who are shouting loud and clear, and I guess also the big impact creativity makes for people.
Bruce:
Welcome to The Creatively Engaging, with my guest, a creative collaborator, director, a consultant and a teacher, Magdalena Schamberger. Magdalena and I first met in 2018 in Milwaukee during Anne Basting's Create Change Institute, and have been friend since and really her biography describes beautifully her work.
Bruce:
She's been working creatively with people living with dementia for over 20 years. She uses physical theater and across arts approach to create highly visual performance which are equally enjoyable, stimulating and beautiful. Magdalena, did you have a moment sort of a defining experience or moment in your creative work when you realized that you wanted to focus and to be co-creating with those that have dementia?
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think it really truly happened during some of the sessions of the Elderflowers program. Bruce, you know that I am former artistic director of Hearts and Minds, which runs Clowndoctors and Elderflowers here in Edinburgh. We created the Elderflowers Clown Family Program for people with advance dementia. I think it was when I saw how much life and light people showed, and how much they were capable of doing and giving if they were presented with a chance to do so, rather than just receiving the cup of tea, receiving the clothes, receiving the food. But given the opportunity with an invitation, and I always think that the pose is the greatest invitation for somebody to give the ability to join and not stuffing the pose full with things with demands, with task with skills but it was some interactions I did when I was working as an elderflower myself and being people who are not expected to contribute anything, not a word, not a gesture.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Given the opportunity and seeing the belief of myself and the other people within the program, the other artists, how much people would contribute and start off with things, then I just thought it was amazing to go with whatever their suggestion was. So, it became really through giving and receiving, and I think for me, it's really ... Humanity and human being is all about giving and receiving, if you're no longer allowed to give, you kind of cease to exist. So, it was some of those interactions. I mean, I can give you an example of one gentleman who was, very advanced dementia on the lounge chair and not looking up at all. I was doing something, kind of a movement with some scarves at his feet and nothing happened for a very long time, but something inside me kept to believe that something was going to happen.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Suddenly the person moved and picked up a scarf from the air, held it triumphantly, and started speaking to me. I guess those kinds of things were out of nothing something comes and then you can develop it further, but I think if you're too stuck with your own ideas of where you think it should be going, you actually close all these doors. I think those would be some of the defining moments for me.
Bruce:
What year would that have been when you started the elderflower?
Magdalena Schamberger:
Well, we started Elderflowers in 2001, which was a couple of years after we started Clowndoctors and we've done some projects obviously with children, and children with complex needs and we're then encouraged by the Dementia Services Development Center to look at working with people living with dementia. I had really wanted to work with seniors anyway, because I grew up ... I've lived in Scotland now for 25 years, but I grew up in a small town in Austria, in Grieskirchen, in a house with lots of different generations and I've always loved old people. So working with old people was something that was completely on my radar, and working with people living with dementia was suggested and I was just curious and said, "Why not?" And the rest is history, I guess.
Bruce:
Well, it seems like a natural fit. I was going to ask you that question, where you grew up, and sort of your family and the dynamics of your parents and grandparents in a multi-generational family, would that have impact your decision of where you are today, right?
Magdalena Schamberger:
I'd think so, I grew up, as I said, in a small town, Grieskirchen, 7000 inhabitants perhaps, in a house that had maybe three bedrooms, and where kids had to share bedrooms, and bedrooms that were so small that later they became bathrooms. My grandparents lived upstairs and I just always loved engaging with them, and I just grew up without any fear, but with the curiosity about their lives, and their celebrations and whatever was important to them. I found that very intriguing. So, I have two brothers and two sisters, we're a family of five, and still in touch with all my siblings, my parents have both passed away. I think it's just that feeling of ongoing family.
Magdalena Schamberger:
They've all got kids and nieces and nephews, and they've got kids. It's an ongoing, Schamberger clan, that I guess the boundaries between ages just start going away. My nephew is seven years younger than I, and he grew up like my little brothers. There was a continuum of where everybody had their place. It just seemed very normal.
Bruce:
That's such a healthy environment to grow up in, especially as like we always talk about is, if you're middle aged, it's really important to have people that are older than you as friends, and really important to have people that are younger than you as friends. It just creates that smooth transition and environment for support too.
Magdalena Schamberger: Absolutely.
Bruce:
And it seems like you really had that with your family.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah. I did.
Bruce:
And it started to frame you in that capacity of working in this area.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Yeah. I guess, one other thing I was going to mention is that my mother had an accident. She fell off a tree when I was 10, and she was in hospital for a very long time. So, I spent a lot of time sitting in her bed at 10, for three months, or something, every day. I think that has also had an impact on how I feel about healthcare and how comfortable I am around in healthcare environment, and the smells and the sounds, and just being there. I believe that that has had a huge impact, actually.
Bruce:
That's interesting that you say that, because it makes me think back, my dad was a doctor and what he used to do is take me, I used to love going to visit the patients with him at the hospital, as a little boy. I mean, I think, I look at it now because we do intergenerational programming in this framework, but back then, my dad was doing it, I guess with myself, as I was just going around, and he'd be with his patients, and I'd be talking to the patients in the acute care hospital. So yeah, I guess these early experiences that we have sort of direct us down this pathway in some ways.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
I didn't think of that until right now, actually. So Magdalena, seeing you build your caring nature with your mother, and the sense of community, you were building with your family, it becomes pretty clear how your path was starting to form for you, as you move along.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
In 2015, you did Clean Sweep, and I noted that you had mentioned in the description of that production that it was sort of one of the first moves that you had taken to look at an existing theater production and make it more accessible for people living with a dementia.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
So how did you do that? What did you learn from that process?
Magdalena Schamberger:
Well, firstly, I had embarked already a move away from Hearts and Minds in 2014. I was given a big Paul Hamlyn breakthrough ground to explore my work in a different way, to look much more at theater environments, dance and music, rather than hospital clowning or theater clowning with people living with dementia. Interesting in Laff, there was think something that coincide with that, which was that one of the Main Theaters venues here in Edinburgh Festival Theater, Edinburgh also started doing or considering dementia friendly events.
Magdalena Schamberger:
They came to us to, Bluteau Levi. The show, Clean Sweep, which I directed and asked if we could do it in a dementia friendly way. Now, I don't want to focus on this right now. I have a problem with the word dementia friendly, actually. We can talk about that a little later, but let's just say, that's the expression that people use and they mean, very well and that's very well understood.
Magdalena Schamberger:
So, I think let's just continue on that path right now. I really wanted to not just do things like change, light and sound. I mean, that was the obvious things to do anyway, but also really look at the clarity of the action. Look at some of the colors that were being used. Within the show it's all about brooms and brushes and two people trying to clean up, but doing everything else but with a huge amount of equipment.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Considering, for example, how surprise would work, let's say if things would be flung across the stage, how much time people would need to actually accept that something was coming, and also the sound it would make if it had to fall on the floor. So things like that, or also playing directly with the audience at times that otherwise we wouldn't just to be able to incorporate them.
Magdalena Schamberger:
We also in advance had never done this show with a live band, but we had a live band on the day and we learned a lot. But I think the venue learned a lot as well, as in, they had ricked sitting, which was an interesting thing. I think they had planned ahead very well, but they had the city council as a partner. I'm not sure how the communication flow happened completely, but I think it had been announced that there would be out of 100 people wheelchair users and maybe a few walkers.
Magdalena Schamberger:
At the end of the day, I think there were 29 wheelchairs, some of the really big heavy beds that people lie in. I think the entrance, which was the usual entrance was not completely suitable, but they managed to work that. The show went ahead with I think 18, or 19 wheelchairs on the stage, including the beds. So, part of the rig seating was quite empty. They were almost performing among the wheelchair users, which they were fine with, because they were prepared. They had also coincidentally worked as Elderflower in hospital environment. So, they were completely fine, and there were fantastic plans, but it really needs that level of flexibility, and being comfortable with that closeness to being with a person.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Then also, and I think that is what I have continued in other productions that I've done later is that you need a structure, but within the structure you need to have space for improvisation. So, you can incorporate audiences responses, or their reaction to what is going on. Those actually were the jammed seats, and so you have to have the right kind of structure that allows for those improvisation bits in between, and they can catch the play where they've left if off so to say, and you need the right type of performers to feel comfortable with that.
Bruce:
It's interesting hearing you describe the production, and your first experiences with that, because the next big production you did was in 2017 with Curious Shoes, right?
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
I remember in 2018 when we were in Milwaukee, and there and Curious Shoes was front, and center for you. I remember the booklet that you had, and the imagery, and the light, and the engagement that the theater performers had, and your team with the people with the lived experience. It seems like you carried a lot from Clean Sweep into Curious Shoes, in the way that you handled, and delivered the performance. Would that be correct?
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think that's absolutely right. I mean, I had the luxury of really thinking about that project very well, before we even started. We had a focus group of people living with dementia working with us from the onset, and that was not a tokenistic thing to do. They were incorporated in the rehearsal. So, we would work for a week, for three, or four days, present what we'd done to the focus groups, and then we would discuss what they had come up with, and then rework.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I guess what came out of that was really that I needed to have an artistic vision, but some of the things that I had envisaged would work really well, just people were not interested. People with lived experiences were not curious about. So, I decided to follow their curiosity. Again, you will remember, in terms of Curious Shoes, the starting point is really from the world of a person with advanced dementia, who may be sitting bend over, who may be in a bed, whose first encounter is with your shoes or feet, rather than with your face. That was the starting point. I think that even as an image was a fantastic starting point for us.
The other things that I found very, very important was thinking about challenges that have to do with age, like eyesight, and hearing. The colors were very bright, and simple, having learned from all of that. Also, particularly thinking that I wanted to focus on beauty, and imagination, and creativity, rather than something to be done for people living with demential. I guess the other thing was that following from my Paul Hamlyn breakthrough ground, I created a training called Artful Minds, which is an experiential training for artists of all art forms to engage with people living with demential. All of the performers that were part of Curious Shoes, including actually the technicians, and the lighting designer, had to undergo some of that training.
Bruce: Brilliant.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think that also made for an insight within the collaboration that really paid off from beginning to end. I also have to say, I'm still working with some of the collaboratives, because obviously it created an understanding that is just very hard to reproduce if you don't have the time to go through that training process.
Bruce:
Can you take me to the moment when you've gone through the process working with the artist, and the moment when you first opened, and you've completed ... Say, when you had the opening, and you completed the first show. What did it feel like for you, and for the team?
Magdalena Schamberger:
It felt amazing, and fantastic, because it had truly become what I had envisaged, and it had been in my head for so long, and it's not very often that you can actually say you've really achieved what you set out to achieve. I really think it was this mixture of rehearsed routines, rehearsed vignettes with space to interact, and participate in between. The vignettes were not all too long, and they had an emotive content. For some people, they would follow the whole storyline, from here to there. Others would just tune into little bits of it, but at the end of it, most everybody got up to dance with each other. It ended with a big dance.
Magdalena Schamberger:
It was just a big party, I'm getting goosebumps right now as I'm talking about it. People just didn't want to leave afterwards. They had felt it was a special occasion. I mean, somebody said, "This is better than Prozac." One of my all time favorite quotes was, "I feel like I'm shining inside." Which was a gentleman when he was leaving.
Magdalena Schamberger:
The team, we bought into this, and the team was fabulous, and we were on tour a little bit. We retoured later in the year. I think it was so satisfying to be with these special human beings, because they're all expert of their own lives. They all have likes, dislikes, abilities. We just disbanded all of the label, the diagnosis. It was all just about them. The most important thing was ... I think that will mean something to you as well ... There were people coming with loved ones, and family cares, and some with professional carers.
Magdalena Schamberger:
To make the professional carers comfortable enough to say, "It's okay if somebody gets up to help with a suitcase. It's okay if somebody shouts out. They don't have to be "Psssshed, and quiet." It's okay, whatever happens. We've got this." We have a structure that we can return to, and we have a lot of experience in engaging with people living with dementia. So, we're not worried, please don't be either.
Bruce:
That's so beautiful, right? I remember with Raising the Curtain, our project that we currently have on the go. The team of people with a lived experience, and when a lot of the theater people and the clowns that are part of the production, and musicians, and such first got involved, you could tell that as they moved through the process, and when we had our first performance, the expressions on their faces, and the energy that they had after that performance, I can see it in your description of how your team felt. Because it felt like there was an opening, that the work they had done, the value of the work that they had created just created this whole new environment. It was a whole new learning process for them where they could take their craft, and move forward with it. It's so powerful. It's just, so, so powerful.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think you hit the nail on the head, that being in the moment, which is obviously a thing that comes from clowning, or from improvisation. The enjoying the moment, and the not looking back, but the being in the moment with the absence of the looking back opens up the future.
Magdalena Schamberger:
For me that is the bit that interests me. It's not about, life doesn't end here, it's to the future. Even if it's hard to imagine, but believing in that, and believing in the beauty, and the emotion that can take us forward.
Bruce:
Yeah, and that vision, when we had the longer project, it's not just say the one off. They know that it's going to carry on, and it keeps us pushing to do new things, to learn new things, to make this happen. Right?
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
After Curious Shoes, that was 2017, 2018ish, you moved into your next production, which was In the Light of Day.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Well, actually Curious Shoes, we retoured, we did a big, big tour of Curious Shoes in 2019. So I shouldn't have not said 18, we did a big tour which was I think 46 performances in 27 venues, and locations, which was quite something, because it was all the main theaters here in Scotland. Some of them, let's say at the Dundee Rep, and Brier Theater we performed on stage, with the audience sitting with us on the big performance stage, and others we performed in studios. But we also went to a great number of care homes.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Again, it was quite amazing that the production worked extremely well with the beautiful set, and the beautiful lighting at the Festival Theater Studio, but equally at the smallest care home with no set ... I mean, basically we performed in one care home that I think was smaller than my living room. It's still worked equally. I think this is probably interesting, because that is why I started on In the Light of Day, which we've done the research, and development, and I'm just working on the Creative Scotland application for full production for 2022.
Magdalena Schamberger:
That was influenced really, obviously by the fact that COVID hit, I had to abandon another project, which was called Dreamcatchers, to perform with people living with dementia, and professional performance in the care home, which obviously during COVID was not possible. So, that is currently parked. Not abandoned, but parked. Then, I thought it would be interesting to respond to the situation with COVID by creating something that would be so flexible that it almost could be uncancelable.
Bruce:
Very good saying that word. I was going to say that word, but then I figured, I'm not gonna [crosstalk 00:23:32]. I tried about seven times.
Magdalena Schamberger: You're not going to attempt.
Bruce:
Yeah. I couldn't say it, I was like, "I hope she says it."
Magdalena Schamberger:
In the Light of Day focuses on hands, and gloves, and beauty, and touch in times of PPE, and distancing. So, that was the starting point. I have a feeling it may all become a trilogy. So if Curious Shoes was the feet, the first one, and In the Light of Day is hands, the second one. Maybe the next one is about head and hats. That might be the third one. We'll see about that.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I was working, obviously a little bit by myself, and we were working online together, but had a chance even during restrictions to get into a studio I think one day last November, and we were all so excited about being able to get in the studio that we almost created a show in a day, because we were just so psyched.
Magdalena Schamberger:
We managed to perform twice. It's about 25 minutes long. We performed it at Festival Theater courtyard, and in a care home, in the garden of the care home. It's meant to be scalable to a degree that it can be performed with performers, and audience outside, performers, and audience inside, audience inside, indoors with the performers, outdoors with windows open, or close. So, really, wherever we are, with whatever restriction.
Bruce:
You're not taking any chances.
Magdalena Schamberger:
And also, it could be scalable from an audience of I'll say 25 to an audience of one. I don't like bigger audience sizes, because I'm all about direct engagement, and I think once you go beyond 20 or 25 it becomes a mass of audience with, for people living with dementia, we know that each of them is very different, and not just because of the background, because which type of dementia they have, and how they experience it, and what their needs are because of that.
Magdalena Schamberger:
That's In the Light of Day. I think we've come up with ... It's more of a love story this one. There were some love story elements in the other one, but this is definitely, always I love mistakes, and I love failure, and I love celebrating failure. It's people trying to get through life, and succeed, and they don't quite get there, or they need support.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think if you ask the audience to support what is going on, there is something I think innate about us wanting people to succeed. So, if we give the audience the opportunity to want that from the performance, they will try and help, and that works for me.
Bruce:
It's interesting watching your face. People won't see your face, because we're audio only, but as you started to speak about In the Light of Day your body and your energy started to increase, and there was a different radiance to you as you're thinking about this new project, and potentially where it can go.
Magdalena Schamberger: Thank you.
Bruce:
That'll be exciting.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
So, just looking at a couple that you've done, Clean Sweep, Curious Shoes, you parked Dreamcatchers, In the Light of Day, when people hear of your amazing work, and I think of people listening to the podcast, and they go, "I could never do projects like Magdalena is doing." What would you say to them?
Magdalena Schamberger:
Anybody can do a project, it just needs to get going. If you don't have an idea for a project get together in a room, and collaborate. If you get together with artists, and you still don't come up with a project, sit down with people living with dementia, and ask them what they're curious about. Follow their knows, and your knows. I have to admit, I see a project pretty much everywhere, I just look at something, and I just have to hold my reins, and my horses, because otherwise-
Bruce:
You'll have too many things on the go.
Magdalena Schamberger: I do. Yeah.
Bruce:
Looking at that area of your life, and the work that you're doing. You also have another expression of creativity, but in a different direction with bold.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
The bold project. You're the creative director, and lead facilitator of bold.
Magdalena Schamberger: I am.
Bruce:
Which is Bringing Out Leaders in Dementia.
Magdalena Schamberger: You say that very well.
Bruce:
Can you speak a bit to that?
Magdalena Schamberger:
Yeah. Bold is a project funded by the Life Changers trust. It's a five project, and it sits in a really interesting space, between Queen Margaret University, and the Edinburgh University. It's not an academic project, but it really focuses on social leadership. So, where everybody can make a difference to people's lives, and using creativity to do so.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Initially it was a residential program, again, because of COVID we had to go online. We've just finished our third online cohort. It's fascinating, and fantastic to see how if you allow people to be your partners, and to consider them as leaders already, to amplify the leadership potential for themselves. If you think about out participants, they are really from all walks of life.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Some have a dementia diagnosis, some are artists. Some are people who work in theater venues, local authorities, some work for the NHS. So, it's richness of those backgrounds, and the richness of those experience where people don't just learn from us. So, we're not the experts, we are let's say the expert in connecting those experiences, and also in terms of connecting all partners to a bold community, and then enabling them to ripple out change into the world, so it becomes a big wave.
Bruce:
So it sounds like it's really about agency, and contribution, and purpose?
Magdalena Schamberger: Yes.
Bruce:
What would be an example of something that you would be working on right now?
Magdalena Schamberger:
Having just finished the cohort, we're right now working on an event that we're doing on the 3rd of December, which is for the first time bringing all of our cohorts together. So, we have got a bold website, but we've got a bold community website, with a huge amount of resources, where also when people go through the program, and it's a seven week online program where they have films, and things to do as part of this process.
Magdalena Schamberger:
For this event on the 3rd of December, we're talking about speed flourishing, we're talking people with a demential diagnosis actually running workshops for other people. We're talking about almost doing an open house where people can show each other the art that they have created throughout the program.
Magdalena Schamberger:
But it also is about ... Let's say there are people interested in working as part of, I don't want to say focus groups. We also have a sister project, which is a policy project called About Dementia. They always need input for their projects, as does Scottish government. Some people are interested in contributing like this.
Magdalena Schamberger:
For example, one of the things that I do with them is trying to strengthen the voice. It's all about stories, and telling stories, and having a voice to do so. So, I run a lot of the, let's say grounding, breathing, voice exercises, the physical body exercise even online. It's to be able to encourage people to go out, and make that change that they already have in themselves, but obviously focus on the demential world here in Scotland.
Bruce:
What do you think it is about Scotland that has made them take pick on such a focus of the awareness of demential development programs? I mean, you have the University of Stirling that has a world recognized dementia program. What else about the energy of Scotland do you feel that is making them a leader? When I hear people talk in North America about innovative projects with dementia, Scotland always comes up.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think it has to do with the size of the country. Interesting enough, Scotland is very similar in size, and inhabitants as Austria. So it's interesting that I settled here 25 years ago. It's about the type of people that are here. I think people really care, and they're quite open minded, and they're quite curious. It often has to do like with everything, with specific people who are forerunners on certain things.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think it's a combination of, as you said for example, the Dementia Services Development Center, University of Stirling, E-CRED, at The Edinburgh University, but also some people within the Scottish government, who as far as they know, they wrote the first dementia strategy that happened across the world.
Bruce:
In the world. Okay.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think it was the very first. I knew a couple of the people who were part of this, and it was very interesting, because instead of almost throwing money at this, they somehow managed to fire people up to contribute, and to try and look for change. There was also very early on, and I'm really lucky within bold I work with a team of fantastic partners, one of them is Professor Heather Wilkinson who is the director for E-CRED.
Magdalena Schamberger:
She is the director for E-CRED, and she was very involved in setting up the first dementia working group, which were people living with demential actually talking about what they really wanted from government, from healthcare, and so forth. Those are still working as the dementia alumni, and they have been almost, not replaced, or not superseded, but there is now quite a group of dementia activists in Scotland who are taking the work forward, but the dementia alumni in this first dementia working group, Agnes Houston, and Nancy McAdam, and James McCaleb for example, they're still around, and they're still helping to write manuals books with others for people living with dementia.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Then also, I'm lucky enough to work a lot Professor Brendan McCormack, who is the head of nursing at Queen Margaret University. He's just really a visionary in person centered care, talking about flourishing, where everybody should be living the best life that they can, even those who have a dementia. Looking beyond those labels. I think it has to do with maybe the size, it has to do with the right type of people, and maybe the right type of people at the right time.
Bruce:
What you're saying too, you made a really interesting point, is that, it wasn't about throwing money at it.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
It came from a grassroots growth, and belief, and strength, and it was able to draw in the skills, and the abilities of obviously a rich culture.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
And an area that wants to give, and engage.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
You're seeing, and I'm seeing creative engagement, the creative care movement is really gaining traction.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
In the areas of creating with those who have a dementia. What do you feel is oversimplified about the approach?
Magdalena Schamberger:
About the approach of using creativity for people living dementia?
Bruce: Yeah.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think that sometimes creativity is used as an activity to keep people busy, and giving them a one stop approach of here is a book of activities, you do the activities, and then people will be creative. I firstly think that each one of us if we have a dementia or not, have certain preferences about what we like to do, and what we don't like to do. The challenge I guess is that if you're working in a care home environment, to be able to facilitate, let's say a person who would like to pain in certain ways, at the same time while somebody else would like to make music in certain ways.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think it's very easy to again become the creativity label, let's do some creative activity for people. Again, it's about every single person, and it's about challenging them, and ourselves, and aiming high, and the aiming high bit is the one that I will never let go, and the aiming high has to do also with my own perceptions, and my own plans, to be able to be open that there is something beyond of what I can imagine if I look at a person.
Bruce:
Very much so, and not diversionary, we're not looking at the creative arts, but that really is collaborative, and within these things saying, "I remember her really focusing on the work." You're looking at it with artistic rigor.
Magdalena Schamberger: Yeah.
Bruce:
Quality of the work that you push forward as a team.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Absolutely. I completely agree. You is my fellow time slips master trainer, you know what we're about.
Bruce:
I knew when I threw that oversimplified out, I knew you'd go, "What's he talking about? Where is he going with this thing?" That's exactly the same answer. I know I would have done this. If somebody asked me that question, I would go, "Oversimplified, what the hell is he talking about?"
Bruce:
I think we can agree on, definitely we're not going back to where we were. Things have changed, COVID has changed everything. You're based in Scotland, you work through Europe, and your work could easily translate to a global audience. Can you envision some type of collaborative, and creative information network, exchange network with other teams around the world?
Magdalena Schamberger:
Sure.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Let's do it.
Firstly, you're right. I do work across Europe. I mean, I have been very lucky. I still run compassionate clown workshops. So, I deliver them. That's very germanic of me. I deliver a compassionate clowning workshop across the globe, including places like Palestine, and Dallas. To go from one to the other.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I also had plans to take some of my projects, and some of my trainings to Canada, except Toronto, which was planned during COVID, which is slightly paused. There was the possibility of maybe franchising one, or two of my projects. There was also a plan of doing a project in Taiwan with looking at their cultural preferences, and stories. As you know, my biggest strength, and my biggest downfall, I'm permanently curious. So, if there is something about an international network, I'll be there.
Bruce:
Well, I could see it happening. As we look, and we see amazing pockets of work that are happening all across our country and through Europe, and North America, around the world. I think we're leading ourselves towards some kind of connection, where we can share resources, and share experiences.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Yeah. I guess that was the upside of COVID, that we've learned to connect online, to collaborate online, to have to do less travel both for the environment, and our own wellbeing, and families, and so forth. There is still a bit of collaboration, and co-creation that happens in a room together that is very special, but I think you can find these splendid methods of collecting.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I think, or I guess, and I think this is what you've said just now is that, it's given us the possibility of actually going through with these type of networks, and learning from each other, and the just doing it really. Not saying, "I have to raise 20,000 pounds to be able to visit Canada." But to just ring up on Zoom, or-
Bruce: Riverside.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Whatever we're now on right now. Riverside.
Bruce:
I know, sounds like a Las Vegas show. I don't know why they called it Riverside. I'll have to ask that actually. As we draw to a close, Magdalena, can you tell me of about somebody who has had a big influence in your life, or career?
Magdalena Schamberger:
Now you're putting me on the spot. This is always the bit where people ask me, who is ... Because I'm not easily impressed. (laughter)
Bruce:
I'll remember that while I'm editing the episode. I got to make this sound good. She's not easily impressed. For all your future co-collaborators. Now, I'm asking it in the sense that I'm not asking you to pick one person that you think is your best. It could be a range of people, right?
Magdalena Schamberger: Okay.
Bruce:
Tell me about somebody who has just had a big influence on your career.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Firstly, I used to think my mother had a big influence on my career. She was a very caring person, and I think it's not for nothing that one of my brothers is a local chippy, one of my sisters has become, she's now retired, she's a teacher for special needs in terms of behavioral problems with kids, one of my sisters was working in a nursing home, and one of my brothers is probably the odd one out, he was a tennis trainer, but also teaching kids how to play tennis. She was a very accepting, a very optimistic person, and she didn't mind a pose. I think that is maybe something.
Magdalena Schamberger:
Another person would then be, now as they're streaming, would be a teacher of mine Philip Golyei who opened my mind towards clowning, and buffo, and to play, and the importance of play, and playfulness. I mean, as we know, creativity, rhythm, humor and playfulness are really the things that stay the longest, together with emotional memory for a person with demential. So, I take playfulness very seriously, and I take the pleasure of making mistakes, and celebrating them very seriously.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I always use it when I train anybody, when I run workshops. I also would include Anne Basting in it. Her book, Forget Memory, was all about looking beyond people's memory, and forgetfulness, but focusing on the things that still exist, and focus on the abilities, and the imagination, and the mind. I would also include Brendan McCormack, who I'm working with now, about his approach of person centered care, and human flourishing, but also his energy, and drive, and even driving me on to be crazier, and more creative. That's probably the one thing that we haven't touched on yet that he's responsible for me becoming an honorary professor at the school of Nursing, a Queen Margaret University.
Magdalena Schamberger:
For quite a while I had the pleasure of saying, I'm in charge of a bunch of clowns, but I'm honorary professor of Nursing at Queen ... I'm no longer in charge of a bunch of clowns, I still quite like the line though. I've been very lucky, but I guess you can find almost something to learn from anybody that you encounter. When I said, I'm not easily impressed, it's because I was thinking about when people say, "Oh, he was my mentor." I learned so much from some of the people that I worked with, as part of the Elderflowers' program.
Magdalena Schamberger:
That really changed my mind. There is also a lady who is one of our board partners, Nancy McAdam, who is just fabulous. Some of the people within Scotland who're part of the dementia working group, or demential alumni, they just keep going, and they keep being fabulous, and they keep not giving up. I guess once you keep going you can think of a lot of people, Bruce.
Bruce:
So very true, Magdalena. And now, for the most difficult question that you have to answer today. Are you ready?
Magdalena Schamberger: All right.
Bruce:
When are we going to have the chance to get together again in person, and belly laugh like we did in Milwaukee with the crew?
Magdalena Schamberger:
2022.
Bruce:
I hope so.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I do really hope. I believe.
Bruce: Yeah.
Magdalena Schamberger:
I believe until proven otherwise.
Bruce:
Thanks very much for joining Magdalena, and I on the podcast, which you can hear on all the major podcast platforms, and if you go to the website www.thecreativelyengaging.com. You can find the links to the resources we spoke about today, and also a transcript of our interview. Until next time, thanks again for listening, and thanks very much, Magdalena, in Scotland, and I do hope we see each other in 2022.