David Savill
Artist
David Savill is the Artistic Director of the Reminiscence Arts charity Age Exchange based in the UK. Age Exchange specialises in working with older people and intergenerational groups to produce visual and performance arts devised and created from reminiscence. In the 1980s and 90s he worked as a professional actor, having trained at Drama Centre London under Yat Malmgren and Christopher Fettes. This period was when he began to explore the role of lived experience through devised theatre. David joined Age Exchange in 1998 and has over 20 years’ experience of working in care and community settings to develop practice which enables isolated older people to be empowered through creating theatre and art from their own life experience. His passion and expertise is in the performance of memory. He has worked regionally, nationally and internationally, alongside many arts professionals, and partner organisations in arts, heritage and education with the aim of giving older people and neglected communities a voice through reminiscence arts. His work with older people and with intergenerational groups has resulted in many theatre productions, exhibitions, and documentary film. Among other projects and productions David created: the theatre model “Creative Ageing” (2003-2006) with older people in residential and day care in London, Dorset, Yorkshire and Norfolk, he created “Cruel Sea” a national programme of reminiscence interviews, theatre, exhibition and film documentary with veterans from the Wartime Merchant Navy (2004-2006), “RADIQL” (2013-ongoing) a new approach to supporting older people with dementia and their carers. Between 2014 and 2017 he created and directed major First World War commemorative programmes in London and in Germany, notably “Meeting in No Man’s Land” Munich 2016. David is currently working with the military mental health charity Combat Stress to deliver its Centenary project with veterans and families across the UK, “Combat Stress 100”. David has lectured and presented on the work of Age Exchange at universities, drama schools, and conferences. He has also worked with partner NGOs and universities in Germany, Poland, Ireland, Australia, and Canada.
