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Angus MacKechnie, Jacksons Lane’s Creative Director, celebrates creative ways of staying younger!

There was a piece in The Guardian this week about recent research from University College London suggesting that regular engagement with arts and culture may be linked to slower biological ageing [Arts and cultural engagement ‘linked to slower pace of biological ageing’]. Singing, dancing, juggling, making things, watching performances, taking part in creative activities: all apparently rather good for us.

It’s the kind of study that makes you nod a bit if you work in a place like Jacksons Lane; not because we spend our time making grand claims for the arts, but because you see evidence of it every day.

A huge amount of our work in the building and across the borough is about participation. People taking part weekly in youth circus, community choirs, dance workshops, Broadway brunches, light sabre lessons or simply because they’ve found a place they feel comfortable. The immediate results aren’t always dramatic: a young participant becomes a little more confident; someone who arrived with the world on their shoulders leaves with a smile; someone discovers they can juggle at 72.

Circus is our speciality and it is particularly brilliant at making change because it neatly bypasses overthinking – throw yourself into something physical, playful and slightly ridiculous and suddenly you’re talking to strangers, pushing your boundaries and concentrating too hard to worry about the rest of the world for an hour or so.

The UCL research talks about stress reduction, wellbeing and long-term health; oh, how we see that every day at Jacksons Lane, but perhaps what’s most valuable is simply the idea of regular creative activity as part of daily life rather than as a luxury add-on.

At Jacksons Lane, creative engagement sits at the heart of what we do. It isn’t separate from the performances in the theatre or secondary to them. The building works best when it’s full of people making, trying, training, watching, chatting, drinking tea, falling off circus equipment and coming back the next week to try again.

There are certainly worse ways to spend your time, and apparently worse ways to age.

Angus MacKechnie | Creative Director | Jacksons Lane