CCI Presenter Profiles

July 27, 2020

At TimeSlips we are constantly humbled and inspired by the amazing artists, caregivers, community organizers, and creative aging advocates that take part in our work. An amazing example of that is our group of presenters at our recent Creative Care Institute. We would like to take an opportunity to highlight them and their work as well as a few resources you may be looking for if you attended their presentations.

Melita Belgrave, PhD, MT-BC, Associate Professor of Music Therapy and Area Coordinator for Music Therapy at Arizona State University
Melita is the program director of music therapy at Arizona State University. Belgrave has worked as a music therapist in special education, mental health, rehabilitation, hospice, geriatric, and intergenerational settings throughout Texas, Florida, Kansas, and Missouri. Her research interests include intergenerational programming and wellness-based music therapy programming. She has presented at regional, national, and international conferences, and her research has been published in the Journal of Music Therapy and Music Therapy Perspectives. She co-authored the text “Music Therapy and Geriatric Populations: A Handbook for Practicing Music Therapists.” Belgrave has also been appointed as a research affiliate at The Mayo Clinic in Arizona and conducts creative aging music groups in the community.
Read more about Melita’s recent work here AND here.

Gabri Christa, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, Barnard College of Columbia University, 
Department of Dance, Faculty Filmstudies and Director Movement Lab; Guggenheim Fellow
Gabri is a renowned  dance and filmmaker, curator, and educator. Her unique, integrative approach to dance blends film, music, and movement. Her award winning films have screened in museums and festivals across the world and some can also be seen on www. kweli.tv. She is the founder and director of the Moving Body Moving Image festival based at Barnard, where she teaches, that in its first year explored race, and in its second year, explored aging. Christa’s personal experience with her mother’s dementia led her to apply for and be recognized as an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health for the Global Brain Health Institute, an international and cross-disciplinary program developing leaders to transform the way we understand and care for brain health across the world. The work she prodocuced, Magdalena, is an intimate multimedia solo work that utilizes storytelling, film, and dance to reveal a deeply personal account of experiencing her mother’s dementia, and an effort to piece together her past, marked by struggles with war, interracial marriage and unconventional motherhood. Click here to learn about her piece.

Nicole Garneau, Artist & Author: Performing Revolutionary: Art, Action, Activism
Nicole Garneau is an interdisciplinary artist making site-specific performance and project art. Her book Performing Revolutionary: Art, Action, Activism was published in 2018 by Intellect Books and released at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Her work has been supported by the Living Copenhagen Artist Residency, Live Art Development Agency of the UK, Alternate ROOTS, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. She is a Certified Trainer with TimeSlips Creative Storytelling, manifesting wildly creative projects in rural Kentucky nursing homes in collaboration with staff and residents. She is an active member of Alternate ROOTS, an organization of artists and activists dedicated to social and racial justice. Originally from Chicago, she was semi-nomadic from 2012-2020, and now resides in Rockcastle County, Kentucky, where she nurtures a multi-year collaboration with Clear Creek Creative. In 2019-2020, Nicole spent 4 months in Russia as an artist in residence with CEC ArtsLink in four separate locations, and also presented her work in Berlin, Copenhagen, and London. She teaches, makes ceremonies, facilitates meetings, throws parties, and does healing work.
Visit her website to learn more. 
See the Creative Asset Mapping Activity from her CCI workshop here.

Emily S. Ihara, Ph.D., M.S.W., Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at George Mason University
Emily’s research focuses on interventions, policies, and system changes necessary to eliminate health inequities for older adults and marginalized populations. Current projects include examining the effects of TimeSlips, a creative storytelling method for individuals living with dementia, the scaling up of a Music and Memory intervention for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, and using agent-based modeling to address the complexity of dementia caregiving.

Katie Avila Loughmiller, Artist, Co-Founder of LUNA and Adjunct Professor at UWM 
Katie is an interdisciplinary social practice artist exploring her own cultural complexity and female identity while also deeply involved in the work of strengthening and building community. She received her undergraduate degree at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University and completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in the Public Practice program at Otis College of Art & Design. Katie has been an artist-in-residence at Santa Fe Art Institute, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Little House Gallery, Vermont Studio Center, Wildacres Residency Program and MKE<->LAX. She is the co-founder of LUNA (Latinas Unidas eN las Artes), a Latinx artist collective, a founding member of Heard Space, a women of color led and focused performance arts collective, and co-host of the comedic radio show, We Heard We’re Funny, all based in Milwaukee, WI. In addition to her art practice, Katie has a strong commitment to education and has taught in various educational settings in South Africa, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston and Milwaukee. She currently teaches in the theatre department at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Click here to view a Legacy Letter instructional video created by one of Katie’s students.

Michael Snowden, Co Founder of Legacy Home Health Service and Executive Director of Evelyn’s Angels
Michael is the Co Founder of Legacy Home Health Service and Executive Director of Evelyn’s Angels. Both organizations focused on caring for the elderly, more specifically, those with Alzheimer’s and Dementia. His mother was diagnosed with early onset Dementia at the age of 50 and presented him the role of caregiver at the age of 12. Through his personal experience, Michael has created programs and services that assist family caregivers, those with memory impairments and organizations become more dementia friendly.

AND – learn more about our Day One Plenary Panelists
Anne Basting PhD, President/Founder of TimeSlips; UWM Faculty; MacArthur Fellow
Lisa Cooper MD; PhD Public Health; MacArthurFellow
Vijay Gupta, Los Angeles Philharmonic; TED Senior Fellow; 2017 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow; Co-Founder, Street Symphony
Carmelita Karhoff, Project Director, Dementia Inclusive Durham
Liz Lerman, Founder, Dance Exchange; MacArthur Fellow