Project History

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Remember This? is a multidisciplinary project originally presented as a live, evening-length theatrical performance designed to facilitate conversations about and transform perceptions of dementia. The current iteration of the project features a short film based on the original evening-length performance. The project’s directors, Rachel Hirshorn-Johnston and Genevieve Durham DeCesaro, made the decision to explore a filmed version of the live performance in 2021 when live performances were made impossible due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  
 
The purpose of the project’s components — the film, titled Remember This; a post-viewing “attitudes” survey developed by a cognitive psychologist; and an analysis of survey findings synthesized with data obtained from cast members and other project participants — is to disrupt and change cultural narratives about dementia.  
 
To execute this project, faculty members from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Texas Tech University’s Department of Psychological Sciences worked with faculty members from Texas Tech University’s School of Theatre and Dance to chart new paths in cultural and community approaches to and attitudes toward terminal memory disease.   
 
Remember This? has been and continues to be invited for presentation locally, regionally, and internationally in Memory Care facilities, at national foundational fundraisers, in juried performance festivals, and on university campuses. Its unique performance approach and subject cater to a diverse and growing audience population who are invited to contribute quantitatively to an audience attitudes survey, which is statistically capturing the direct effect this performance has on general perceptions of dementia.  You can learn more about the development of the Remember This? project by watching a short documentary about the process below: 

 

Remember This is grateful to the following organizations for past and ongoing support: 

 

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Questions

Please contact Rachel Hirshorn-Johnston