“Aging gracefully: PALETTE, an intergenerational arts program, pairs VCU students with senior adults to overcome ageism through art”

VCUwebsiteMarch 21, 2016 PALETTE is featured on the homepage for VCU with photos and video from inside our programming. PALETTE became a reality because of the wonderful faculty, staff and students at VCU and we thank you for the support, VCU Department of Gerontology, School of Pharmacy, Department of Physical Therapy, Department of Dance & Choreography, School of Social Work, and Dentistry.

“Music — heavy with drums — booms through the speakers and reverberates off the walls of the spacious dance studio in the Virginia Commonwealth University Depot Annex building on a Sunday afternoon in early February. Inside, 20 VCU students and 10 senior adults are mirroring one another’s motions as they dance to the beat.

“Picture yourself flinging water off the ends of your limbs,” Melanie Richards shouts above the music to the group that ranges in age from 20 to 88 years old. The associate professor in the VCU School of the Arts Department of Dance and Choreography demonstrates by raising her arms above her head and flicking her wrists. The class does the same, with each participant adding their own flair to the movement.

Dance professor Melanie Richards, 69, leads the class in a lesson on expansion and contraction. “I am in awe when we all walk in that door of how completely open and engaged everyone is,” she said. “It’s just pure joy.”
Dance professor Melanie Richards, 69, leads the class in a lesson on expansion and contraction. “I am in awe when we all walk in that door of how completely open and engaged everyone is,” she said. “It’s just pure joy.”

The dancers are participants in PALETTE, an intergenerational arts program that partners VCU students with senior adults in the community to collaborate on creative projects. The PALETTE program launched in January 2014 with visual arts programming and expanded to the dance component, PALETTE in Motion, in August 2015. It is offered to dance majors and to interdisciplinary health profession students who will be working with older adults when they start their careers…”

Read the full article on VCU’s website here.