Isabel Cerda, Sydney Fetterer, Cassie Grande, Caroline Judnic, and Rayne O'Muineachan collaborated in a semester-long project as part of a course called IDEAS Project Block. In the class, students have the opportunity to design original projects in disciplines of their choice, in this case students interpret research on Alzheimer's Disease through contemporary dance. While they are supported through instruction designed to facilitate the creative process, this project demonstrates the high level of professionalism and thought capable by some of our youngest students.  The following are selections from the academic writing that each group member completed as part of the process. 

"How does Alzheimer's affect a relationship?"

PROPOSAL

"We found out that almost everyone in the group had someone in their family who was affected by Alzheimer’s, and then we kind of brainstormed how people feel about having someone in their families with Alzheimer’s... It kind of hurts to see them slowly lose their memory and that it's kind of scary."  - Isabel

"For our final project, we want it to be a contemporary dance piece. We’re choosing to show our topic through dance, because we are all pretty involved in dance. We picked contemporary style because we felt it would help us describe the process and story. To learn more about our topic we are stepping out and participating in a Walk to End Alzheimer’s on October 4th, 2014 in Fond du lac. This is basically where my group and I walk about 2-3 miles, all just to support Alzheimer illness. We’re also hoping to volunteer for the SPARK! program at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, date has not been decided. Here we would be participating in a conference to learn how to successfully provide for people with memory loss. Getting involved with all these different programs will help us meet people with Alzheimer’s or people with love ones with it. This will also help us learn about alzheimer’s hands on, and give us primary and secondary sources." - Cassie

"For this project, I have a vision of it becoming more than just a dance. I know that there are a lot of organizations in Sheboygan and different things that my group and I can get involved in, and I am looking forward to doing different things in the community and finding more about this topic. My group and I hope to bring a better understanding about Alzheimer's to the audience and show them that Alzheimer’s is a mental illness and needs more recognition. And hopefully our dance will inspire the audience to maybe do something to help Alzheimer’s become more recognized." - Caroline

RESEARCH

"We were able to go to the Alzheimer’s walk in Fond Du Lac on October 4th and get more first hand information about the disease from there.  We were able to hear people’s stories who are caring for people with Alzheimer’s and have a better understanding of what it’s really like and how challenging it can really be."  - Sydney

"As [Alzheimer's] got more recognized, scientists learned that it was a build up of these sticky proteins that made the neutrons to misfire, which lead to mixed signals in the brain (Small, Gary, and Gigi Vorgan). This means that someone with mild Alzheimer's may remember his/her friends from high school but forget what he/she had for lunch. As the disease builds up the person  may start to forget the names of close relatives. So the ability to reason and make good decisions will begin to fade. Eventually, the person  will not be able to manage his/her finances or even find the way from the store to home. The personality will also begin to shift from whom he/she once was, to a new person in a sense."  - Rayne

"Learning how to care for someone with this fast growing illness, will help you to connect with that person, but a common problem in people with Alzheimer’s is denying having the disease. Not only do they not believe they have it, but some of their friends and distant relatives don’t think they do either. Even though researchers suggest that as many as five million Americans age 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease...Alzheimer’s doesn’t have the same amount of recognition as cancers of any sort, we want to work together to give it more recognition - even if its just five people it will still help in raising awareness." - Caroline

ARTIST STATEMENT

"Alzheimer’s requires intensive care, strong relationships, lifestyle changes, and it needs more recognition. To show how Alzheimer’s affects relationships, my group and I chose the art form of contemporary dance. We show the effects with our roles and storyline. Starting off as people that know that Alzheimer's exists but have not experienced it. That is showed by the wandering and the insync movement. Then, leading into one of us getting Alzheimer’s, causing the rest of us to react trying to comfort her. Unfortunately, another one of us gets it. From there were trying to move on and be the best we can for them. Eventually, yet again, another person gets it. Leaving the last two people as caregivers, they try to support them and struggle. To make our dance more informational, we made sure we showed the struggles between the people with Alzheimer's and their caregivers. We would like our audience to remember that it needs more recognition so that fewer families need to go through the struggle." - Cassie

"Our dance shows not only how hard it is to have Alzheimer’s, but also how difficult it is to care for someone with the disease." - Sydney

"One of the movements is putting your hand straight up in the air, and then one of our dancers doesn't do it because they start to get Alzheimer's. That shows how they are starting to forget things and what to do next."  - Rayne

EXHIBITION

Original Exhibition of Learning took place at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. This video was shot by Étude Studios interns in the dance studio.