Seniors to get SM(ART)S

“Seniors don’t just want to play bingo and dance anymore,” said City Councilmember Domenic Recchia at Manhattan’s Rubin Museum after a crowd of senior citizens swept past him to take in the exhibitions upstairs.
Recchia had just finished announcing the launch of SM(ART)S: Seniors Meet the Arts – along with Department for the Aging Commissioner Edwin Méndez-Santiago, Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin and fellow councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo.
The $1 million city-funded initiative has cultivated a partnership between 57 cultural institutions and over 150 senior centers across the five boroughs. The goal, explained Méndez-Santiago, is to get seniors – a population that will outnumber school children in NYC by the year 2030, Levin noted – “involved with city life on all levels.”
Méndez-Santiago, a proponent of “vital and healthy aging,” explained that the engineers of SM(ART)S do not harbor a one-size-fits-all mentality with regard to creating relationships between senior centers and cultural institutions. Instead, they encourage innovative collaborations.
The Queens Botanical Garden (QBC), for instance, offers tai chi classes every morning as a way to immerse seniors in other cultures, explained Executive Director Susan Lacerte. QBC will partner with the United Hindu Cultural Council Senior Center to present Seeds for Seniors, a series of hands-on horticulture workshops.
Keith Nelson, a founder of Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, originators of a blend of vaudeville theater and circus, explained that his organization would offer skills training and performing exercises to seniors.
“We work on juggling and balancing, which is amazing work on a cognitive level,” Nelson explained.
“Seniors are a group that actually remembers the traditions we do,” he said of the group’s vaudeville components.
Inside Broadway, veterans at introducing children to musical theater, have partnered with 17 senior centers under the new SM(ART)S initiative. Seniors from centers such as Steinway Senior Services, Young Israel of Queens Valley and the Florence E. Smith Senior Center will have the opportunity to participate in weekly one-hour workshops with an end-goal of a jointly created musical.
“Everyone loves Broadway,” exclaimed Inside Broadway Executive Director Michael Presser, who noted the transition from working in classrooms to working with seniors would be a smooth one since most seniors grew up with musical theater.
Julio Montero of Queens Theater in the Park explained that his organization would offer seniors a “field day” complete with transportation to and from a show of their choice as well as lunch. Montero explained that “teaching artists” would travel to senior centers before the show to get seniors “riled up” and would return to the centers afterward for a discussion.
Levin, who called the initiative a “mating of the minds,” regarded the new collaboration as progress toward a much-needed transformation in seniors’ community involvement.
While a transformation is certainly in order with SM(ART)S, it seems the initiative also does its part in cultivating a bit of nostalgia among participants.
“We wanted to reach out to a community that doesn’t think what we do is new,” explained Nelson.
“You see their eyes light up,” he said, smiling.