Kelly Barr, Arts and Creativity Programme Manager at Age Cymru, gives her take on the role does creativity and culture can play in helping talk about death, dying and bereavement.

Dance away the heartache

"Leah and Georgina from Grief Disco believe that music and dance hold the power to allow us to feel joy within grief, and their audiences attest to the depth of the conversations their events enable. 

As part of Wales’ creative ageing festival Gwanwyn, Age Cymru was able to bring the very first Over 50’s Grief Disco to the Paget Rooms in Penarth in May 2025.  A sober boogie on a Thursday afternoon bought like-minded people together into a safe and nurturing space. The Grief Disco team made sure that everyone understood that all emotions are welcome, they can handle you. 

Alongside music and dancing, they offered the opportunity to dedicate your dance or remember your loved one on their memorial tree, and to write down something you wanted to let go of – which they burn after the event. "I felt free to let go of being strong for others. It was wonderful," said one participant.

A picture says a thousand words

Through working with Compassionate Cymru, I was introduced to Ceridwen Hughes and her team at Same But Different. They use film and photography, and people's real life experiences, to encourage us to open up and have some of the most difficult discussions we might ever have with our loved ones. Their project 'What Matters Most', a collaboration with Hospice UK, was inspired by the photographer's own experience of end-of-life care, when her mother died in 2020. Photography allows for multiple interpretations, and the viewer's own experiences inform their response and make us question our assumptions about what we’re seeing. 

Facing the inevitable

As a nation, what is our relationship with death? We have some very specific rituals for grieving that are a combination of cultural, religious and ceremonial. But there seems to be little within our national culture around that time before death – where compassionate conversations could provide mutual benefit to all involved.  

Age Cymru are the secretariat for Compassionate Cymru, a group of individuals and organisations committed to improving and supporting everyone’s experience of end of life care and bereavement in Wales. Our thoughts and wishes about the end of our lives are important; not only for us, but for those we leave behind. There's possibly more that we can control than we think, and there are people who want to listen. I would love to see more of these conversations happening; a normalisation of what has been taboo, or previously deemed to be too morbid. 

I have been contemplating how the arts can provide an opportunity to open the door to conversation – many Creative Lives readers will know the power of sitting side by side, focusing on an activity, and how much easier it is to open up about the hard stuff. Creativity brings us peace, encourages reflection and brings connection. Let's use it."

[Pictured: Over 50s Grief Disco. Credit Jon Pountney]