Recently I visited one of our programs led by teaching artist Kathy Hankins at Easterseals Adult Day Services in Silver Spring, MD. Afterwards I sat down with Kathy to talk about the workshop and her techniques. I marvel still at all that I learn from our faculty. | |
“I have a lot of training around body and sensory work,” Kathy says. “What I do helps settle the group into the program—to feel comfortable and open.” | |
Participants at Easterseals have a range of developmental abilities in addition to aging-related health conditions, and their caregiving staff join in our workshops too. Kathy’s Yoga Dancing workshop is meant to uncover the connection between the two art forms for joyful aging with grace and independence. Kathy encourages participants to move, stretch, shake, and love our bodies. It’s suitable for diverse abilities and mobilities, from experienced yogis to beginners. | |
We start with Kathy cajoling the group of about 20 of us into making exaggerated gestures with our faces and bodies. We make "blah blah" sounds to encourage movement of the tongue and jaw, we stick out our tongue (some like me rather sheepishly at first) and we add a playful growl—all while Kathy immerses us in her boundless energy and grounds us in dignity tying it to a modified ‘lion’s breath’ in yoga. | |
“It resets the vagus nerve,” explains Kathy, acknowledging her emerging learning about the functions of the parasympathetic nervous system, and validating the child-like and playful nature of the activation too. | |
“It helps the group become more receptive to doing the workshop. The vagus nerve feeds into fight or flight. When it’s off kilter you’re tense, tight, stressed. The nerve runs from the lower part of the brain with tributaries to many internal organs including the jaw, neck, chest, stomach, and intestines. It carries sensory fibers that create a pathway interfacing with the parasympathetic control of the heart, lungs, and digestive tract. In its resetting, it can also reset heart rhythms. The poses are tied to yoga and getting people to make sounds, it’s playful.” | |
Then Kathy tells me, “You missed riddle time". (I had visited her workshop with some generous donors of ours and we left the session early to chat away from where the joyous action took place). “I base it on the season, so this was summer riddles. I give prizes, tiny lace fans, fourth of July paper fans. I’ll tell a riddle. ‘What do you get when you combine an elephant with a fish?’ The group is yelling out answers, ‘what about this?’, ‘what about that?’. Sometimes the quiet one gets the answer. It’s thinking. It’s engagement. I have to connect with them.” So what do you get when you cross an elephant and fish? “Swimming trunks.” Roxy, one of the day center’s longtime staff members apparently gave Kathy a soft and wry look. “Sometimes we stretch, what can I say?” Kathy concedes. | |
“The biggest surprise at Easterseals was Nova, who was more agile and engaged before the pandemic. We were doing the twist and Nova was going down to the floor totally in control and smiling.” | |
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I had seen it happening too as I twisted with another participant in the group. Then Kathy confesses, “Sometimes with certain cognitive capabilities the engagement doesn’t seem to happen. How do you address that?” She trails off, pauses, and considers her question. “The intellectual me knows the answer. The emotional me sometimes feels I can’t slow down to make the connection. It’s a feeling…I am there, I am present, and I don’t know what to do.”
It’s an honest moment, a confession, another riddle.
Kathy’s husband, Turhan Robinson, served as senior assistant attorney general for the State of Maryland Department of Human Resources from 1997-2011. He was diagnosed with dementia in 2017.
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“I’ve been observing and studying it, and him, a lot,” Kathy says. | |
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Witnessing in action this wise, compassionate, and fun-loving teaching artist we have in Kathy, I know emphatically that Arts for the Aging is better for it.
Our hearts beat for all the caregivers and their loved ones out there.
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Wishing you connection, joy, and creativity, | |
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Janine Tursini
Director & CEO
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P.S. – If you’d like to visit one of our programs together, I’d love to accompany you. Reach out and let me know at jtursini@AFTAarts.org. | |
Photos: Kathy in her workshop at Easterseals Adult Day Services; and with her husband Turhan. | |
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Our Mission
Research shows that regular arts engagement has the power to improve physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Since 1988, Arts for the Aging has engaged older adults and caregivers with diverse abilities and backgrounds in health improvement and life enhancement through regular participation in the arts. Our vision is to demonstrate excellence in multidisciplinary, participatory, and inclusive arts programming in collaboration with teaching artists, community and residential care settings, and museums, cultural, and academic institutions. We see first-hand how our programs inspire empathy and respect, foster communication and belonging, and promote social connection.
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