Beatie Wolfe

So I was thinking, I mean, of course I'll do it, but it's probably not going to do any good.

And, you know, before I started, most people were asleep.

And it really suddenly felt like, oh.

I was looking around the room and people were sort of clapping and singing along at all stuff that they were hearing for the first time.

And at the end of the performance, the director comes up and says, you know, the 10 years I've been here, this is the best I've ever seen the group.

So I thought, well, you know, maybe I'll go ahead and do a project around this.

So with dementia, it would be that that person was then brought back into themselves.

There were some very powerful examples using music that had a strong memory component to it, where that was a kind of cornerstone piece of music for that person.

But there was also nervousness because of that.

Because what if I played a song that had a negative charge or it wasn't the perfect song for that loved one?

There was a guy called David.

It was the first performance I gave in the UK.

And his family had stopped visiting because they thought it was hopeless, really.

He was asleep all the time.

And when the carers heard that we were having this performance, they were hoping to get a smile or something, just a sign of engagement to send to the family to say, David's still here.

And within the first 20 seconds of the first song, David had woken up and he started to move his arm in perfect time back and forth with the music.

Like a kind of wave, you know, and his eyes were wide.

He was moving in his chair.

By track four, he was getting up and one of the carers went over to help him.

And he was dancing.