Legacy For Young Performing Artists

By on May 16, 2012 in Entertainment

Photo Credit: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

I read with interest an article from The New York Times on the renowned Lincoln Center Theater opening a new stage that will feature work by emerging playwrights, directors and designers. The 112-seat theatre called Claire Tow, home to Lincoln Center’s latest program, LCT3, will just charge US$20 for every ticket. The new theatre aims to develop new talent, feed the company’s two larger theatres – the Vivian Beaumont and the Mitzi E. Newhouse – and attract younger, more diverse audiences. Drinks at intermission will also be cheaper.

I’ve often posted on this blog that Canada’s performing arts organizations also need to have a succession plan and lure younger audiences and patrons. When you attend arts and cultural events in Ontario nowadays, whether it’s the opera, the ballet, the symphony, the Mirvish big-ticket musicals and plays, or The Stratford Sakespeare Festival and the Shaw Festival in the summer, audiences are primarily comprised of boomers, seniors and mature tourists. Each of these esteemed performing arts organizations has training schools for young talents and upper mezzanine seats for students at a less-prohibitive price. But do we ever see new public performances entirely produced by a group of budding artists and ticketed at $20 each? If there is any, I certainly wasn’t aware of it.

At a time when Broadway is increasingly costly, Lincoln Center joins non-profit companies all over the U.S. that are creating less expensive theatres to present scaled-down productions by rising artists and to build a new generation of patrons. There is a ton of such examples in New York – in September the Brooklyn Academy of Music will open a 250-seat theare with $20 tickets. In February, the Signature Theater Company opened its new complex that includes a theatre with 190 seats and a price of $25 a ticket.

According to André Bishop, Lincoln Center Theater’s artistic director, the thinking behind the new stage is meant to be a legacy – nurturing young writers, directors, designers under the Theater’s own roof. Lincoln Center wants the theatre to be un-Lincoln-Center-like, even though it’s on Lincoln Center grounds. Drinks and snacks will be less expensive at a bar that stays open well after a performance with an informal atmosphere.

Our youngsters need to appreciate arts and culture as they grow up and mature. Our performing arts need a new generation of patrons. Lincoln Center’s LCT3 initiative is a good role model for arts organizations in Canada and around the world.

 

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Battle Against Cancer Making Progress

By on May 10, 2012 in Health

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times/Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg

According to new data from the Canadian Cancer Society, the cancer death rate in Canada dropped 21 percent in men and nine percent in women between 1988 and 2007.

Cancer is principally a disease of aging, with two-thirds of cancer deaths occurring in people over the age of 50. In spite of the improvements in the reduction of cancer mortality rates, the overall number of cancer cases diagnosed and number of cancer deaths are rising steadily due to population growth and aging.

Lung cancer is, by far, the biggest cancer killer, with 20,100 deaths, followed by colorectal cancer, 9,200; breast cancer, 5,200; pancreatic cancer, 4,300; and prostate cancer, 4,000.

The alarming fact is that lung cancer deaths are up 34 percent in women, but down 30 percent in men. Other than a combination of genetics, environmental factors and triggers, smoking is, of course, a lifestyle habit that leads to lung cancer. There are still 4.7 million Canadians who smoke, and while many initiatives have been taken such as banning smoking in workplaces and bars, and graphic illustrations on cigarette packages, more can still be done.

Most of my boomer friends have already quit smoking a while ago. So let’s hope whatever follies we’ve done during our younger days would not come back to haunt us now in our advancing years.

We boomers used to try a cigarette or two when we were at college because we thought it’s cool to smoke. I’m sure our young people nowadays are also taking up smoking because of the same reason. In addition to the big cancer scare, we should perhaps focus on educating the GenXers and Millennials that smoking would age them – adding wrinkles, and weakening their memory and immune systems.

We haven’t found a cure for cancer yet. So, in this case, prevention is always better than treatment.

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Proud GiGi Boomer

By on May 4, 2012 in Family

As a baby boomer, I’m proud to be now officially a GiGi, the modern term for grand godmother. My goddaughter Elisabeth has just given birth to a seven-pound baby girl Lea in a hospital in Paris, France, on May 2.

Many children today have more than one grandmother, and more than one GiGi. I have a soft spot for girls and have, therefore, two goddaughters. Lea will probably not be my only grand-goddaughter, but she certainly is the most beautiful new-born baby girl I’ve ever seen. She is born to a French-Chinese mother and a Spaniard father. But Asian genes seem to be quite dominant here in this case, and Lea looks more Asian now than European.

Being a grand-godmother is one of those watershed moments in my life. There was, of course, a self-denial not to betray my age at the beginning when my goddaughter first became pregnant. But I remember discussing with Elisabeth the traditional names for grandmothers – Grannie, Grandma, Gramma, Nana – and recommended a more modern term of GiGi instead.

Since the 1980s, France has continued being a country of mass immigration. Meanwhile, the national birth rate, after continuing to drop for a time, began to rebound in the 1990s. Currently, the country’s fertility rate is close to the replacement level. According to the 2008 demographic statistics, France’s birth and fertility rates have continued to rise. The fertility rate increased to 2.01 in 2010 and, for the first time, surpasses the fertility rate of the United States.

My goddaughter chose her own birth country to deliver Lea for personal and sentimental reasons. And given the multicultural composition of the family, my grand-goddaughter will probably grow up as a multi-lingual woman speaking French, Spanish, English and Chinese.

As a first-time GiGi, all I can convey to the new-born jewel is the following from Shakespeare’s sonnets, “Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime.” Here’s to a lifetime of beauty, joy, wisdom, adventure and love!

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Growing Importance of Home Care

By on April 25, 2012 in Health

Many boomers belong to the ‘sandwich’ generation – they have elderly parents to take care of as well as children who still stay at home. Lately, I’ve been witnessing more and more of my boomer friends taking on the role of caregivers to ailing parents or spouses. Some rely on the government’s support; others hire private nurses. Compared to other countries, Canada invests more in long-term care facilities than home care. According to a recent report from the Health Council of Canada, governments should, perhaps, need to consider shifting that pattern of spending.

The research shows that supports by provincial governments fall way short of what families require. The more severe the illness, e.g., seniors with dementia, stroke aftermath and other complex medical problems, the less likely that adequate, publicly-provided home care will be supplied. The Health Council’s latest report is based on data from five regions – Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia and Yukon.  In Ontario, most clients can get only 14 hours of home care a week. They are not sufficient for ailing seniors with debilitating illnesses.

The report recommends a system that regularly assesses the needs of seniors and their family caregivers, one that would offer them more support as it is needed. Home care should be more integrated in the healthcare system, the report says, with family physicians taking part in the home-care team.

I also see many of my boomer friends taking on heavier burdens as family caregivers. Some of them have to take a special leave to take on 24/7 caregiving responsibilities for an ailing family member at home. This adds to high levels of stress and depression for the family caregivers themselves.

By considering more investment in providing home-care support, provincial governments could alleviate the occupation of hospital beds or nursing homes which are far expensive alternatives when ailing seniors could still stay at home.

 

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The Business of Aging

By on April 19, 2012 in Education

Photo Credit: Mark Rust

I was one of eight panelists who participated in the first annual Mature Consumer Marketing Symposium organized by The Sheridan College’s Elder Research Centre yesterday. I was glad to see that the business of aging has been increasingly brought into focus and I have to commend The Sheridan College on their vision to dedicate part of their ongoing curriculum to scrutinizing and studying Canada’s aging marketplace.

I speak to the Canadian media quite frequently on boomer issues and marketing trends. What I shared with Sheridan’s students and small business entrepreneurs who attended the symposium yesterday were the following three key messages:

(1) A greying population spells business opportunities for a wide range of industries and baby boomers, as part of the aging population, have been very misunderstood and underserved;

(2) Most people like to focus on the doom and gloom of aging, and the media, in particular, often describe the mature and elderly population as a greying ‘tsunami’. But, in fact, we should all turn a possibly negative phenomenon into a positive marketing approach: Make Grey The New Green!

(3) Marketers should not confuse baby boomers with seniors, although the first batch of leading-edge boomers are all turning 65 this year. Boomers who defy the aging process will permanently change our attitudes towards work and retirement, health and wellness, leisure and travel, finance and technolgy. Marketers should help boomers buy time – time that helps them feel positive and that they’re turning the clock.

There remains, of course, a lot of social, workplace and healthcare issues related to an aging population. And that’s why my fellow panelist, Ross Mayot, VP, Community Development, from CARP was there yesterday addressing those serious issues and how his association could help as an advocacy group.

Apart from Sheridan’s Elder Research Centre, Mount Royal University in Calgary also offers a certificate course for Studies in Aging. In the U.S., MIT’s AgeLab was created in 1999 to invent new ideas and creatively translate technologies into practical solutions that improve the quality of life of older people and those who care for them. More academic insitutions around the world will further contribute to the thinking behind aging as life expectancy continues to increase.

Aging requires new thinking. And the discussions that took place yesterday at Sheridan’s symposium should continue to happen in Canada and around the world.

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