Let's Talk About Death Stella Duffy, 9 January 2016 Stella Duffy - I called this session because it's something I'm thinking about a lot right now, and calling it was quite edgy for me, so I'm very grateful to the MANY people who came to the session, for some of whom it was also edgy, for some of whom it was not at all. Some of the people who wrote their names down were (apologies for bad transcription) : Jon Holmes, Lucy Williamson, Lou Ratt, Gerard Bell, Rochi Rampal, Pia de Laboide, George Ramsey, Antonia Brook, Tabitha Grove, Orit Azaz, Lucy Nicholls, Lauren Jansen-Parkes, Malaika Cunningham, Lucinka Eisler, Sidie Newman, Nik Poldi, Ali Bellbin, Dawinder Bansal, Sarah-Louise Young, Sarah Booth, Claire Bennett, Amie Taylor, Uzma Kazi, Ellan Parry, Kath Burlinson the discussion was wide-ranging and full. here are some of the thoughts that came up, written as fast & fully as I (Stella) could manage : death conversation = human condition, human-ness & reality are contained in death British culture sees death as a taboo Death Cafe - an open source form for death discussion, tea & cake & death death and grief are intrinsically linked (and that's good) the problems/pain of outliving one's friends the death (daily) of ideas/dreams/projects/hopes kids do death p;lay and play with death all the time we could say to children : “yes, it (pet) has died, and how is that?” different cultures have v different attitudes/responses/to and rituals for death (Maori, Greek, Indian, Ghanaian cited) funerals are really interesting (Muslim, 3 days of mourning/grieving) in deaths and marriages, families come together death shows up in humour and different realities we love death because we ALL have stories about death many people's experience of funerals is quite a lot of bad behaviour to talk about death is opening a passage to vulnerability/shame our aging & how it is fearful, death IS coming how can we talk about death so that it is accessible, so that it is OURS? the question of who a funeral is for, the dead person or the living?, doing “what the dead person would want”, or doing what we want for and of them relating it to theatre - funeral directors as producers producing funerals in theatre (Dank Parish will make your - live - funeral) producing your own funeral We Need To Talk About The Funeral Green Fuse Final Fling MAKE A WILL (approx 25% of the large group have wills, 75% don't - nb, if you are married your spouse is not going to be fine if you don't have a will) how positive it is to say “I might die today” saying to someone else “you might die today” (which we then did) religion was invented (by us) to help us cope with death the difficulty of belief/faith in a culture (theatre/arts) that disparages faith Fevered Sleep making show about grief/mourning the time limits on grief when you grieve you are rejoicing what has gone, because we can't grieve what we don't care about/what doesn't matter grief is also contact with the dead person the living are impatient, wanting ‘business as usual’ and grieving people can get left behind hierarchies of grief, re how much we are ‘meant’ to grieve rehearsal for grief, even with a suicide, when we KNOW they choose to die., we still grieve because it's about our lives/feelings, as much (or more) than about the dead grieving across borders - ie, using grief/mourning patterns from non-Brit culture in Britain, and how that can be difficult, and also useful “are you grieving enough?” grief judgement - too much/not enough is there some value in ‘performing’ emotion, instead of keeping it in? museum of hearses in Barcelona crematorium sin eaters/professional mourners My Name is Sue - “we're all going to die” if we can be closer to death, we can be closer to life we're mourning different people at a funeral - we all have different experiences of the dead, and yet we come together anyway suicide = “the option of death” plenty of other parts of the world where there isn't the luxury of a chat about death, where it is a daily unremitting reality, where death is much more present (as it has been here in other times) Terry Pratchett on death how (in west) we now expect to get better, the difficulties/dirtiness of death being taken away from our daily life makes it (death) harder to understand most in the group had seen a dead body (only a few had not) things WILL NOT carry on as they are now, death and disease and plague and terrorism and sickness and accidents all will come The End IS Nigh meaning-making : making theatre to make meaning out of death every live performance is a little death, it will not come again “one day you'll die, on all the other days you won't” the witnessing of death (esp on a grand/wartime/oppression scale) affects generations to come conversation of when/what age do we want to die? what do we think ‘enough’ life is? how old, how many faculties can we lose before it's too many and we're ‘ready’ to die? the heroics around maintaining life, that sick people should ‘fight’ their illness, that medics should fight to save them/us where does the term “late” come from? absurd euphemisms for death and not knowing which words to use, in order to be kind to the bereaved the story of a woman told she had a few months to live, she surrendered herself completely to death and then LIVED Tibetan Book of the dead recommended twice Irvin Yalom, Staring at tthe Sun also recommended Quaker faith & practice recommended “it was useful that you called a death session, so that people knew it was ok to talk about it” “My world has exploded a little bit” - Bella Heesom Tags: death, Theatre, grief, funerals, mourning, life, THEATRE, living, theatre Comments: 4 Elspeth Murray, 12 January 2016 Stella, thanks for calling this session. I've made a sister report with a few images that I made during the conversation. Images from Let's Talk About Death. Elspeth Murray, 12 January 2016 Stella, thanks for calling this session. I've made a sister report with a few images that I made during the conversation. Images from Let's Talk About Death. Stella Duffy, 12 January 2016 oh Elspeth, I love these. thank you. Elspeth Murray, 12 January 2016 Stella I've worked out how to add more images - and I hope you'll like this too! It's using the Adobe Voice app … http://adobe.ly/1N5pVv2. E xoxo