James Clements Named Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA Artist-in-Residence For Third Consecutive Year

James Clements, a Scottish theatremaker and actor based between New York and Glasgow, has been named as a SU-CASA Artist-in-Residence for the Brooklyn Arts Council for the third consecutive year.

Over the course of this upcoming residency, Clements will work with seniors at Williamsburg's Independence Neighbourhood Center through a program entitled "Voices of Brooklyn," an interview-based devising process to create a verbatim audio play, combined with a photography series created in collaboration with frequent collaborator, Puerto Rican photographer Pablo Calderón-Santiago. The documentary play, which will created entirely using the participating senior's own voices and words, will be built through these interviews, devising exercises and testimony, and allows these seniors to reflect on decades of life in Brooklyn. It will be presented at the Center, 114 Taylor Street, Brooklyn, NY 11249, on Friday June 14th at 11am.

Brooklyn Arts Council's SU-CASA Creative Aging program, funded by the New York City Council, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the NYC Department for the Aging, provides opportunities for seniors to actively express themselves creatively, socialise with a culturally engaged collective of senior citizens, engage in cultural performances and master techniques in a variety of arts disciplines. This year, BAC is awarding just over $500,000 through our SU-CASA program which will be awarded to 47 artists for SU-CASA programming at 48 older adult centers throughout Brooklyn. A city-wide program, SU-CASA is the largest Creative Aging program in the country. For each SU-CASA site, artists receive a stipend as well as funding to cover costs for materials. Partnering senior centers will also receive a subsidy to support their participation in the initiative.

"My last two experiences creating documentary theatre with older folks in our borough, principally with fellow immigrants, through this amazing program have been some of the most important and informative creative projects of my life," noted Clements. Of working with Clements' on previous SU-CASA residencies, senior participants stated "[W]e sometimes don't have anyone to talk to, but here we talk about everything," and "[W]e go back to our past and visit memories that let us leave here feeling happy."

For more information on Clements' work, visit www.james-clements.com.

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