Travelling intimacies, translation and betrayal in a creative geography

Caleb Johnston,Geraldine Pratt

doi:10.1177/1474474021993416

Caleb Johnston, Geraldine Pratt

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474021993416

Copy DOI

Abstract

In 2019, we collaborated with German theatre artists to co-create Between Worlds: Outsourcing Dementia Care, an immersive, multi-media piece performed in Newcastle and Berlin. This performance work animated and staged our interviews conducted with the owners of and caregivers working in private care facilities recently built in northern Thailand to provide dementia care for overseas guests from across the Global North. This creation process also drew from interviews we conducted with the family members who had chosen this option for their loved ones with dementia. Incorporating elements of documentary theatre, movement and cinematic projection, Between Worlds was designed to bring audiences into an intimate space, drawing them close to the complexities of the outsourcing of dementia care in order to prompt public conversation and reflection on dementia care in both Thailand and the Global North. Here, we consider the performance of the play and the method that our theatre collaborators used to render transparent the process of translation within performance. We critically assess the outcome to question the possible betrayals implicit in creative and social science work and in the doing of cultural geography.

Highlights

In 2019, we collaborated with German theatre artists to co-create Between Worlds: Outsourcing Dementia Care, an immersive, multi-media piece performed in Newcastle and Berlin
The audience was watching Between Worlds: Outsourcing Dementia Care in its debut in Berlin, Germany, in November 2019 before the show travelled to Newcastle in the UK
In 2017, we sought out Costa Compagnie, a Berlin-based theatre company, to collaborate on a research-performance process that would lead to a work of cinematic theatre examining dementia facilities that are being created in Chiang Mai, Thailand, by British and Swiss entrepreneurs, to provide care for persons with dementia coming mostly from Switzerland, England, the United States and Germany

Summary

Introduction

In 2019, we collaborated with German theatre artists to co-create Between Worlds: Outsourcing Dementia Care, an immersive, multi-media piece performed in Newcastle and Berlin. Dementia care, documentary theatre, Thailand, transnational eldercare The audience was watching Between Worlds: Outsourcing Dementia Care in its debut in Berlin, Germany, in November 2019 before the show travelled to Newcastle in the UK.

Results

Conclusion