The Kenneth A. Picerne Foundation has provided EngAGE with facilitator/artist, Jo McLachlan for the 2012 year. Jo invites residents to have some fun with improv and creative thinking. The seven-minute video below shows members of the Improv RAP Group performing last month at The Jasmine Senior Apartments in Fountain Valley. Jo brought folks together from Jasmine, Dorado, and Villa Anaheim and the groups each developed their own lyrics to a hip, rap-style background beat. A DVD of their performances has been shared with the residents at the properties. Great job, rappers!
Artist Channa Horwitz, 80, is the oldest “emerging” artist included in the bienniel exhibit, “Made in L.A. 2012,” currently at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, CA. She’s spent the last five decades making her geometric abstract drawings in relative obscurity. Read more 
A second study, just published, “confirms and refines findings from an original study published in Neuropsychology in 2011 that revealed that musicians with at least 10 years of instrumental musical training remained cognitively sharp in advanced age…Sustained musical activity over the age of 60 was associated with other nonverbal cognitive benefits, and appeared to compensate for low educational attainment, which is possibly the 
greatest protection against age-related cognitive declines. This suggests that musical training should be considered an alternative form of education.” Read more 
“Worth Repeating” is a new weekly feature on the EngAGE Blog that will bring you previous posts that we think are still timely, interesting, or just plain fun!
