The “why” of what I do is to help people feel seen and heard, find ease in their bodies and live fuller, healthier lives. Put another way, I want to help us feel more connected to ourselves and each other. These goals drive me. So does fun. The bio that follows features a cross-section of practices and projects that reflect my experience as a joy-seeking, creative aging specialist.

In 2018 I was awarded an Atlantic Fellowship for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), at UCSF. The fellowship deepened my commitment to healthy, creative aging, especially around dementia and dementia care. My GBHI experience taught me the importance of exploring playful, non-pharmacological interventions across generations and neurocognitive status. These socially-driven approaches are vital to individual and community wellness.

My teaching life has largely revolved around leading movement practices for older people. These include people living with dementia. I received a Global Brain Health Leader award to produce my GBHI pilot project, For You: Creative Engagement for Dementia Dyads, which is documented here.

In 2016 I co-founded the For You performance group with Erika Chong Shuch and Ryan Tacata. Our mission is to bring strangers together and make performances as gifts. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic we launched Artists & Elders, pairing artists with elders for one-on-one creative exchange. We’ve paired 95 dyads thus far. Case studies from the project are published in the “On Care” issue of Performance Research. My GBHI pilot project is steeped in the For You methodology.

Through Artists & Elders I was selected for the 2020 cohort of CoGenerate Innovation Fellows—a fellowship committed to bridging generational divides. In 2022, CoGenerate and On Being—the organization behind the esteemed podcast On Being with Krista Tippett—chose For You’s audio-driven folk dance, Circle of Chairs, for their Cogenerational Social Healing digital toolkit.

Also in 2022, I co-founded Heart Tank, a new way to care for care partners through holistic, creative, community-building practices.

I am a guest editor for the Bay Area dance publication In Dance, where a number of my essays have appeared over the years. These include a 2021 article about one of the participating pilot dyads—Joyce and Jane—and producing the Creative Engagement pilot study.

I also am a collaborator on a series of short video documentaries about creative aging, including Gertrude and Virginia in San Francisco (2019), which was featured in the Poetics of Aging Film Festival, and Wisdom Weavers (2022), filmed in Peru, which explores the connection between weaving and brain health.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from University of Michigan and California State University, Long Beach (1993). I received a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Inquiry from New College of California (2005).

I am curious about you!

Contact me: rowena.richie@gbhi.org