 | This article contains text that is written in a promotional tone .(November 2023) |
| Formation | 1988 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Bob Rowe |
| Purpose | Therapeutic entertainment |
| Location |
Renaissance Enterprises is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to increase the quality of life for elderly people in long term care facilities and senior centers by providing regular interaction with creative arts, artists, artisans, and performers.
Renaissance Enterprises was founded in 1988 by Bob Rowe to reach out to elderly members of the community. The organization operates in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee and New York as well as some neighboring states.
The goal of Renaissance Enterprises is to provide the highest quality arts and music programs to nursing homes and related care facilities utilizing the services of the highest quality artists, artisans and performers whose vision matches our own, to love and serve the elderly through the arts. [1]
What we do:
Renaissance Enterprises brings the live arts to residents. They strive to bring comfort, reassurance, respect, and love (and some fun too) for residents of long term care facilities and senior centers. [1]
The type of creative arts they provide include music, dance, puppetry, live art*, and others. [1]
Why:
It is well known that music, and other live arts*, can assist healing and ease suffering. [1]
This is confirmed in respected professional publications. It is noted that arts can provide a soothing effect on agitated patients, serve as diversion from sadness or anger, can positively effect moods, and touch multi levels of consciousness. [1]
Renaissance produced a booklet for artists to guide them in performances for these special audiences. Therein they also note that often they experience small wonders where an audience member had been silent for months or years but the music awakened something in them and prompted them to speech. [2]
Renaissance uses a staff of 25 volunteer artists for this purpose and typically delivers over 100 performances per year to audiences that are confined.
Renaissance Enterprises provides artists. Artists who then provide entertainment. Entertainment intended to bring comfort, fun, reassurance, love and respect to those living in care facilities or attending senior centers. Audience members may find the entertainment / activities therapeutic in some way.
However, Renaissance Enterprises does NOT provide Art Therapy, Music Therapy, or Dance and Movement Therapy. [2] Art Therapists, Music Therapists, Dance Therapists, and Creative Arts Therapists are allied and/or mental health care professionals who go through a lengthy educational and training process, complete supervised fieldwork, and pass board exams. [3] [4] [5] [6] In the US, they are licensed or registered in some states. They also refer to the people they work with as clients or patients, not audience members. Renaissance Enterprises' artists do not seek to provide therapy, as they are not trained to do so. They do recognize, though, that music is very powerful and many of them have witnessed amazing moments during their work. [2]
*Live art (1) Creative art, such as a music performance, that is experienced live, in person, in real-time, rather than watching and/or listening to the performance on an electronic device. (2) "Live Art is when an artist chooses to make work directly in front of the audience in space and time. So instead of making an object, or an environment (a painting for example) and leaving it for the audience to encounter in their own time, Live Art comes into being at the actual moment of encounter between artist and spectator. Or at least even if they are not physically present, the artist sets up a situation in which the audience experience [sic] the work in a particular space and time, and the notion of ‘presence’ is key to the concerns of the work." [7] 
In 2006 the executive director was presented with the Mother Teresa Award for this work.
In 1992, Mother Teresa wrote: "Your work of love in nursing homes, hospitals and for the aged, the neglected and the forgotten is truly the work of peace, for the fruit of love is service and the fruit of service is peace. Works of love like yours bring one face to face with God. Continue to use music to make the presence of God - His love and compassion better known to those in need - His little ones who have forgotten to smile. My prayer is with you in a special way and with all connected with Renaissance Enterprises." [8]
The organization's work has been featured in several newspapers and magazine, including Time Magazine, USA Today, Catholic Digest, [9] Cover, Mature Years, Daily Word, National Enquirer and Detroit News.
Renaissance is also included in CNN's iReport web presence, with a video and writeup about the organization. [10]
See the article on Bob Rowe for description of awards and recognition.
Renaissance is supported by charitable foundations, individual donations, corporate donations and support from the care facilities where they work and from sales of artist's CDs.
Foundations that have supported Renaissance Enterprises include:
Occupational therapists (OTs) are health care professionals specializing in occupational therapy and occupational science. OTs and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs) use scientific bases and a holistic perspective to promote a person's ability to fulfill their daily routines and roles. OTs have training in the physical, psychological, and social aspects of human functioning deriving from an education grounded in anatomical and physiological concepts, and psychological perspectives. They enable individuals across the lifespan by optimizing their abilities to perform activities that are meaningful to them ("occupations"). Human occupations include activities of daily living, work/vocation, play, education, leisure, rest and sleep, and social participation.
Music therapy, an allied health profession, "is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program." It is also a vocation, involving a deep commitment to music and the desire to use it as a medium to help others. Although music therapy has only been established as a profession relatively recently, the connection between music and therapy is not new.
Occupational therapy (OT) is a healthcare profession that involves the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or occupations, of individuals, groups, or communities. The field of OT consists of health care practitioners trained and educated to improve mental and physical performance. Occupational therapists specialize in teaching, educating, and supporting participation in any activity that occupies an individual's time. It is an independent health profession sometimes categorized as an allied health profession and consists of occupational therapists (OTs) and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs). While OTs and OTAs have different roles, they both work with people who want to improve their mental and or physical health, disabilities, injuries, or impairments.
Dance/movement therapy (DMT) in USA and Australia or dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) in the UK is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body. As a modality of the creative arts therapies, DMT looks at the correlation between movement and emotion.
Drama therapy is the use of theatre techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote mental health. Drama therapy is used in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, mental health centers, prisons, and businesses. Drama therapy, as a modality of the creative arts therapies, exists in many forms and can apply to individuals, couples, families, and various groups.
The expressive therapies are the use of the creative arts as a form of therapy, including the distinct disciplines expressive arts therapy and the creative arts therapies. The expressive therapies are based on the assumption that people can heal through the various forms of creative expression. Expressive therapists share the belief that through creative expression and the tapping of the imagination, people can examine their body, feelings, emotions, and thought process.
Art therapy is a distinct discipline that incorporates creative methods of expression through visual art media. Art therapy, as a creative arts therapy profession, originated in the fields of art and psychotherapy and may vary in definition. Art therapy encourages creative expression through painting, drawing, or modelling. It may work by providing a person with a safe space to express their feelings and allow them to feel more in control over their life.
Dance in Singapore has been an integral part of its culture despite having a relatively short history of creative, artistic and professional dance. The range of dance reflects the cultural diversity of Singapore, from traditional dance forms to contemporary genres.
Robert J. "Bob" Rowe is an American musical performer and recording artist. He is well known for bringing music to residents of long term care facilities. Rowe founded the nonprofit Renaissance Enterprises in 1988 for the benefit of residents of nursing homes, VA hospitals, and similar facilities. Since then, he has devoted much of his life to bringing live music to the residents.
AS220 is a non-profit community arts center located in Downtown, Providence, Rhode Island, United States. AS220 maintains four dozen artist live/work studios, around a dozen individual work studios, six rotating exhibition spaces, a main stage, a black box theater, a dance studio, a print shop, a community darkroom, a digital media lab, a fabrication lab, an organization-run bar and restaurant, a youth recording studio, and a youth program. AS220 is an unjuried and uncensored forum for the arts, open to all ages.
Wonderbound is a contemporary ballet company based in Denver, Colorado. It is the second largest ballet company in the state.
The use case of art in dementia care is a valuable tool in enriching and enhancing the lives of people with dementia.
Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, part of Jefferson Health, founded in 1958, is a 96-bed specialty medical rehabilitation hospital providing physical and cognitive rehabilitation services. Magee's flagship facility is located in Center City Philadelphia. In addition to the main campus that offers comprehensive services for spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, orthopaedic replacement, amputation, pain management and work injury, Magee provides an expanding outpatient network serving the surrounding communities.
The Society for the Arts in Dementia Care is a non-profit organisation, with branches in Canada and Australia, dedicated to knowledge dissemination and education that focuses on improving the quality of lives of seniors living with dementia by using the visual and performing arts.
Bruce L. Moon is an American art therapist, educator, artist, and author. He is also a singer/songwriter who has recorded several albums. He is an Honorary Life Member (HLM) of the American Art Therapy Association (AATA), their most prestigious honor in the field of Art Therapy.
Mike Greene, also known as Charles Michael Greene, is an American arts executive who served as head of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) from 1988 to 2002, and the president and CEO of Artist Tribe and myMuse.
Risë Wilson is a community organizer, activist, strategic planner, curriculum developer, non-profit consultant, and the current director of philanthropy at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, who lives and works in New York City. Founder of the Laundromat Project, she has been named one of the "worlds best emerging social entrepreneurs" in 2004. In 2015, she moderated the Creative Time Summit round table, entitled "My Brooklyn."
Frances Moran Rutherford was an artist, an occupational therapist and educator who was instrumental in gaining recognition for occupational therapy in New Zealand.
The Institute for Therapy through the Art is a non-profit creative arts therapy organization in Evanston, Illinois, in the United States. It was founded in 1975 by Marilyn Richman, a drama therapist and co-founder of the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA), as a division of the Music Institute of Chicago, with the help of Frank Little, the director at the time. In 2015, the ITA's 40th anniversary, ITA became its own independent non-profit organization. ITA provides therapeutical services in art, drama, dance/movement and music therapy.
Natalie Rogers (1928–2015) was an early contributor to the field of humanistic psychology, person centered psychology, expressive arts therapy, and the founder of Person-Centered Expressive Arts. This combination of the arts with psychotherapy is sometimes referred to by Rogers as The Creative Connection. The daughter of Carl Rogers, one of the founders of humanistic psychology, she established her own center, the Person-Centered Expressive Therapy Institute. Her writings, teachings, and practice introduced many to the power of creative arts for healing both within and outside the therapeutic setting.