arts & health panel talk

June 3, 2026 | 1:30 - 2:30pm
Roundhouse Theatre
PWYC

Please register here: RSVP 

Panel:
Dr. Grace Park
Dr. Stefanie Blain-Moraes
Cynthia Friesen
Lesley Telford
​
Moderated by Alisa Hashimoto, Panelists Dr. Grace Park, Dr. Stefanie Blain-Moraes, Cynthia Friesen, and Lesley Telford come together to explore the powerful intersection of arts and health and the transformative potential of creative practice in enhancing the lives of older adults. As our population ages, the need for holistic approaches to well-being has never been more urgent. This conversation celebrates the arts as a vital force for resilience, connection, and healing, while examining how lasting, sustainable partnerships between arts organizations and the health system can be built and sustained.

Creative aging reminds us that aging is not simply a biological process but a deeply human one. Research has shown that participation in the arts can improve mental health, reduce isolation, and even slow cognitive decline. Integrating creative practice into care models offers innovative ways to address challenges like loneliness, depression, and physical limitations, while fostering dignity, autonomy, and joy. Our conversation will touch on social prescribing, emerging research on arts interventions in care settings, and the personal stories of those who have experienced firsthand the impact of bringing creativity into health and care environments.

Our panelists bring diverse expertise to this discussion, sharing insights, real-world examples, research, and strategies for integrating the arts into community programs and care homes. Together, we will explore the opportunities and challenges in advancing creative aging initiatives, the role of the arts in health promotion and holistic wellness, and how meaningful collaboration between the arts and health sectors can be fostered so that the transformative potential of creativity is truly recognized and put into practise.

Join us as we reimagine what it means to age creatively, and discover how the arts can empower, connect, and bring joy to older adults.

Biographies:

Dr. Grace Park

Dr Grace Park is a Family Physician with research interest focused on frailty prevention and healthy aging. She is the co founder and physician lead for the Pacific Regional Network for Healthy and is a geroscience investigator at Edwin Leung Center for Healthy Aging (UBC), the Canadian Frailty Network and Age-Well.  She is a clinical assistant professor in the department of family practice at the faculty of medicine at UBC.

She is a passionate supporter of aging in place and has co-developed the social prescribing scheme in FH with United Way and worked to embed it into practice throughout the region. She remains committed to social prescribing as a way to bridge the health sector with community based seniors' services and is working with United Way BC to scale and spread social prescribing to other health regions in the province.
  

 ​Dr. Stefanie Blain-Moraes
​
Stefanie Blain-Moraes is an Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Occupational Sciences and Occupational Therapy at the University of British Columbia.  She leads the Biosignal Interaction and Personhood Technology (BIAPT) Lab, which aims to develop technologies to assess consciousness and sustain relationships with minimally communicative persons. Broadly, her research focuses on: 1) developing tools to detect levels of and capacity for consciousness across altered states of consciousness (e.g., anesthesia, disorders of consciousness); and 2) creating technologies to support arts-based interactions (e.g., music, dance, therapeutic clowning) that build relationship and connection with minimally communitive persons

Cynthia Friesen
​
Cynthia has been facilitating the Virtually Together in Song online music collective in recent years for the BC Brain Wellness Program where she is the team lead for their creative expression classes. This spring she is directing the relaunched Health Arts BC Helena Choir, practices music as care in an outreach teaching role atan inner city school for Vancouver’s St. James Music Academy, and sits on the board for Room 217 Music Care as well as the Community Programming Advisory Committee for UBC’s Chan Centre for the Arts. She holds a Master of Music Education from UBC and a Bachelor of Arts from Western University. She pursued her Associate Diploma (ARCT) at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, with studies in both piano and voice.

Lesley Telford

Lesley Telford is a choreographer, producer and the Executive Artistic Director of Inverso Productions based in Vancouver on Coast Salish Territory. Her international dance career spans more than 3 decades and she continues to choreograph work in companies in Canada and across Europe. Lesley's mother, Sandy Telford, was an incredible example of bringing a culture of care to the health care environment.  Life events and her mother's Parkinson's brought her to study gerontology, connect with Dance With Parkinson's and explore themes of care, aging, and family in her choreographic work. She values intergenerational projects and highlights the beautiful life experience of older movers. She founded the LIFT Festival in 2025, celebrating sharing dance across generations with a mission of “lifting each other up”. 

She has a Master of Arts in Cultural Production from the University of Salzburg and the Mozarteum and has furthered her studies in the field of Gerontology at SFU.
(Photo by Maxim Shapovalov)