THE TOWN SQUARE

As AlzheimUr is gaining body one starts to realise how rich in complexities and possibilities the centre is evolving. Apart from its function of being a day-care and a centre of investigation that even includes a bank of brains, its research also situates itself in the art of the theatre. But how is that possible? Can a theatre performance really form part of the treatment, or help in understanding the Alzheimer illness?
The theatre has had an important role in society right from the days of the Greeks when it formed part of people’s lives, both general public and the politicians and not merely as a form of entertainment. In Greek theatre an Athenian dramatist was expected to be the teacher of the citizens, to have a message. It was equally his duty to entertain the masses and to provide men of his own mental level with food for thought. Political, religious and social issues were raised and discussed, things that concerned the citizens. In the context of AlzheimUr, it would therefore be interesting to see how play writers can entwine social and cultural issues into the narrative and thus give the patient an opportunity to make associations and recognise moments from his own memory. Committed to the manifold problems of the Alzheimer illness, theatre performances can surely support scientific research in looking for means to help the patient in confronting the changes in his life, and to guide families and doctors in solving moral problems. This would, however, be a great challenge recalling arguments from art therapies suggesting that when memory starts to fail, the Alzheimer patient can react easier to a painting that describes particular scenery as opposed to a film due to the time span that occurs in the narrative from the beginning to the end.
The situation of the theatre within the complex of AlzheimUr in the hills of Montecantalar is also important. Walking in the mountain recalls a number of characteristics from the city; of finding things, of sharing things. The warm climate of the Mediterranean encourages people to make social life in the squares; they organise y bump into lectures, informal talks, cinema, music and dance, exhibitions and workshops... Found along one of the pathways that embrace the mountain, the theatre is like the town square, a place one can pass through and go to. It is a complex place; culture is fostered, communication encouraged, knowledge and technology is set on display. The town square is a heterogeneous place and open, it welcomes changes and is, in that sense, optimistic. It is full of possibilities.
Going to the theatre and summer cinema is a social act that is called back in AlzheimUr, drawn from far back in memory. It is food for thought, as much as those baguettes with jamón and tortilla during the summer nights, when the patients went to watch a film which was interrupted by the sound of crickets and where the flowers of the bougainvilleas covered the walls of the open air cinema. They are memories that cannot be forgotten.

IN WHAT WAY COULD "REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST" BE IMPORTANT FOR AlzheimUr?

In Proust’s novel, Remembrance of Things Past, the primary act of experiencing the environment and absorbing those thoughts in one's memory creates a play of recognition. Only by experiencing, one can remember things past; as Proust wrote "reality takes shape in the memory alone."1 Corporeal and incorporeal substances evoke man's memory as man takes notice of his environment.
Remembering the things past in the context of Murcia, not merely folkloric traditions or even the blue of the Mediterranean Sea come to mind. Experiences associated to the way the fragrance of the orange blossom fills the air, the orange sunlight embracing the mountains in the afternoons, the hot breeze stroking one’s cheeks in the midnight summers, the peculiar grey colour and texture of the olive tree, the different typologies of patios offering shades as the day goes by or even the people taking their chairs to the street in order to converse with their neighbours reach as deep into the memory.
They are impressions of a sensitive relationship between the subject and the object. In terms of the design of AlzheimUr CENTRE, it could therefore be argued that creativity is influenced by the dialectical relationship between two opposite aspects of memory. That is, what creates the new is the relationship between conscious and subconscious 'nutrition' already consumed by experience. In the new lays the ghost of ancestral memories, of preservation and reflection. An elaboration of already existing things continues to exist within us and establishes a tradition.

1. Proust M. (1982) Remembrance of Things Past, Volume 1, Swann's Way, Within a Bidding Grove. Vintage Books, New York, p. 201.

NATURE OF COLOURS

It would be interesting to look at the relationship between perception, colours and culture in the architectonic context of AlzheimUr. What do colours do for people? How do they affect the spirit? In a number of references for colour-energy, red signifies vitality, courage, self confidence; orange implies happiness, confidence, resourcefulness; yellow embodies wisdom, clarity, self-esteem; green illustrates balance, love, self-control; blue expresses knowledge, health, decisiveness while indigo conveys intuition, mysticism, understanding and violet suggests beauty, creativity and inspiration. But can the question be taken a step further? Can Alzheimer patients make intuitive associations with colours; recall memories of past events, places, experiences, just as smells have different associations? Could colours of the building materials add to the list of active elements used in memory workshops? Would it be reasonable to think that a certain composition of colours can help patients to orientate when they start to wander?
The world of colours is highly complex not least because it depends on contextual factors like perception and light. They cannot stand alone by themselves. They respond to each other, create a harmony or disharmony depending on the situation against each other. They are part of nature and cultural sensitivity. Saying that one recalls Wassily Kandinsky’s ideas where he argues in Concerning the Spiritual in Art (first published in 1911) that colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Who hasn’t described colours as warm or cold, sticky or sweet, smooth or rough under certain circumstances?
Kandinsky describes colours in terms of movement and musical rhythm. He even goes so far as to say that he paints music, thus he breaks down the barrier between music and painting and isolates, in that way, pure emotion. The movement in colours was for him a horizontal one, the warm colours approaching the spectator, the cold ones retreating from him. Generally speaking, warmth or cold in a colour means an approach respectively to yellow or to blue. While green, yellow, and blue were potentially active, in grey there was no possibility of movement, because grey consisted of two colours that had no active force. For Kandinsky, yellow was the typically earthly colour. Yet, if steadily gazed at in any geometrical form, it had a disturbing influence and revealed in the colour an insistent aggressive character. This would therefore mean that an intensification of the yellow colour increased the painful shrillness of its note. Blue, on the other hand, was the typical heavenly colour. A well-balanced mixture of blue and yellow produced green. The horizontal movement ceased. The effect on the soul through the eye was therefore motionless and the mind rested. The glow of red is within itself but its deepness towards cool or warmth depends on the colour it combines with - yellow or blue. White embodied the harmony of silence, which, according to Kandinsky, works upon us negatively, like many pauses in music that break temporarily the melody. It is, however, not a dead silence, but one pregnant with possibilities. A totally dead silence, with no possibilities, has the inner harmony of black.
One wonders if the music of the artist palette can play part in the memory game that is exercised by Alzheimer patients, not as a play of showing different colours cards but acutally in the built environment. Building materials embody true colours that can interconnect with spaces created both by the natural environment of the place and that of its architecture. Colours are not reduced to express a state of mind but could, I want to belief, equally recall the memory of picking grapes, reading under an olive trees or strolling in an orange orchard, ... That is, recalling Murcia’s tones of colours as a living culture can nurture the inner self of the patients.