SCRIPT for AGE ON STAGE, Stockholm Sweden, 2017 Invited Speaker 

 

SLIDE 1 AGEISM AND THE MATURE DANCER

 

SLIDE 2    INTRO:

My name is Sonia York-Pryce, PhD Candidate at the Qld College of Art, Griffith University, Australia

 

I would like to thank Beyond Ballet Why and How? http://rdtheatredance.artez.nl/BEYONDbwh_programme_book.pdf

 

for introducing me to Fay Nenander who also has a vested interest in Extended Careers who insisted I meet Charlotta Öfverholm       https://vimeo.com/100643950

 

the rest is history! Thank you for this wonderful opportunity Charlotta!

 

SLIDE 3 The research examines the role of dancers who extend beyond the paradigm of age and their contribution to current dialogues in the field of dance

 

WHY THIS PROJECT?

We all know that ageing is a Taboo subject – getting old, but it is undoubtedly tolerated far less, if at all in the dance world. The considered norm retire in dance is 35-40, but we know many chose to end their careers earlier.

As an older dancer I am investigating attitudes towards mature dancers and as to why they are not valued more in the current dance world. I am seeking

VALUE – VALIDATION and VISIBILITY of the mature dancer.

 

SLIDE 4 - DECREPTITUDE –

So I begin with this wonderful word – Decreptitude –

It means literally “The quality or condition of being weakened, worn out, impaired, or broken down by old age, illness or hard use”

 

PICK ME!

 

Explain

I started my young life dreaming of becoming a ballerina – I studied classical ballet and contemporary dance extensively in the UK and later progressed to teaching dance for many years when I migrated to Australia in the 1990s. My urge to keep dancing was strong even though opportunities to perform were few almost non-existent. My last performance in 2007 made me wonder what else was there I could achieve and still be within a dance context.

 

HISTORY

 

In the western world it has been culturally understood for a long time that dancers, particularly classically trained were expected to retire around the age of 35 years as their stamina and physique begins to wane. Contemporary dancers too were encouraged to accept the rigors of ageing at around 40 years and to consider teaching or choreography as a new form of expression. There have always been exceptions to the rule, but they were thin on the ground. Margot Fonteyn performing in late life, Witnessing Lynn Seymour’s, incredible performance at 50 in Eugene Onegin with English National Ballet in 1989. That performance was both incredible and inspirational but not without criticism - Merce Cunningham in his 70s and Martha Graham in her 80s. BUT They were mavericks.

 

In the last few years’ dancers have been eschewing these long-held assumptions and are challenging both themselves and audiences to accept that a dancer’s lot is ongoing and that ageing should not determine the end of their careers. You only have to look at the present day with Mikhail Baryshnikov still dancing in his 60s and now Alessandra Ferri dancing Juliet at 53. But they are but a few of the incredible dancers in the research who are bucking the system.

 

There is a flux or shift in western dance culture where perceptions of youth versus mature dancer are seriously being questioned.

 

So Why should all that dance knowledge and lived body experience be shelved?

 

Why is ageing taboo in dance?

 

SLIDE 5 - At 29 years of age I went back to study at Laban– felt prejudice at being a mature dancer even then – I was affectionately known as “P” P for Pensioner!!

 

Me – the younger dancer – I was possibly the oldest dancer to audition for Laban’s Transitions Company 1989 – but I felt I was dancing at my very best and I wanted a chance, an opportunity to visible

 

SLIDE 6 – Me the older dancer

 

SLIDE 7– Does the Dancing have to stop? 2013

 

SLIDE 8 The two dancers who assisted me at the very beginning of this project  are firstly:

Louise Lecavalier, Lalala Human Steps and Fou Glorieux.

In 2013 whilst performing at the Adelaide Festival I secured an interview with her, invited to watch her rehearse and perform. She was both gracious in her answers and mesmerizing to watch in motion. Not forgetting that Lecavlier’s first language is French, her responses for the primary research were so in depth and insightful and important.

She said:

I’m still looking for the dance, the dance that my body hasn’t done or understood yet, not a dance to surprise an audience but one to extend myself, body and mind altogether.

 

For her right now, she feels there is no end to her dancing, she stressed that she feels she is still perfecting and tweaking her craft – she feels in a good place right now but when she senses enough is enough - then let it be so.

 

SLIDE 9 – The second dancer is Jennifer Jackson – former soloist with the Royal Ballet Company, Dancing the Invisible, Images Dance Company/London Studio Centre.

When we reconnected, she was collaborating with other mature dancers and performing under the umbrella of Dancing the Invisible with fellow RBC dancer Susie Crow.

Whilst researching her career I was delighted to discover she had a vested interest is mature dancers and how this is perceived within the youth obsessed western society. Initially it was her visual documentation through film and her writing that encouraged my interest in mature dance and alerted me to the possibilities of other people being interested in documenting these practitioners. It impressed on me the opportunity of opening up a dialogue concerning the established western dance age parameters to question why the dancing should not stop!

Her involvement with the primary and creative component in the PhD has been incredibly valuable.

 

The late Gill Clarke, stated:

 

The premature retirement of dancers was a colossal waste - not only of the dancer but their wealth of experience and knowledge and the futility of terminating their careers so early was an issue that would never happen in other areas of life

 

Youthful versus ageing

 

Marcia Siegel stresses,

Dance is obsessed with youth, like all the narcissistic enclaves of our society. Dance as sport, dance as glamour factory – a passion compounded of physical mastery and an idealisation of the human form.

 

SLIDE 10 - Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Royal Ballet Company,

Margot Fonteyn, shown here with Nureyev, some 20 years her junior,

Here shown in her 40s - she danced on. There is no doubt her lived dance experience positively glowed at this time of her performing life

 

SLIDE 11 - Martha Graham, The Mother of American Modern dance who also danced into old age - though she cannily modified the choreography to suit her own body,  and retiring at 80. Graham lamented:

 

A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical, when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish, but I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance. Without dancing, I wished to die.

 

SLIDE 12 – So that brings us to

THE FLUX – In 1991- 4 choreographers known as The European Quartet, 

Jiří Kylián, Mats Ek, Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, who were

all in their 40s, dancers and choreographers. They were questioning why this STIGMA should still be so – and naturally it held a personal element

 

Kylián created a dance company specifically for his older dancers, Nederlands Dance Theatre or NDT3 1991 – 2006

His four chosen dancers were:

Sabine Kupferberg, Alida Chase, Nikolas Ek, and Gèrard Lemaitre

This had never been done before – totally new ground!

 

Kylián stated:

These mature dancers hold that fantastic physicality and physical presence -

They have History in their bodies

 

SLIDE 13 - Sabine Kupferberg and Gèrard Lemaitre NDT3

When I interviewed them both in The Hague in 2015, dancer Sabine Kupferberg remarked:

I think all the audience was not believing it would happen because it is a very courageous thing to do. We all were all over 40 and people were joking – that what is this, are we coming on in wheel chairs? But of course, these are nasty people and you always have those – but then we had a performance that was actually very physical and when I look back at the performance now, I think we were amazingly physical – we were not at all 40 or 50 we were looking like dancers of a normal mature age – absolutely not physically limited, absolutely not in an age when you would think they should do something else.

 

Gèrard said:

Kylián was a big God, you know, he save our life, and that became the love story with Jiří, with Sabine with all those people because we love to dance and we have so much to say, such experience. Not that we were great dancers, but we have something to say in the dance world still–and those people who help us with NDT3 like Jiří, van Manen and Mats Ek and Willie Forsythe, those four great choreographers, at that time.

 

During that same period dance critic Eva van Schaik stated:

 

That attention for the elder dancer should be seen not as a justified cause for the involved dancer but also as an artistic need for dance in general.

 

SLIDE 14   - KONTAKTHOF - the younger cast

 

SLIDE 15   - KONTAKTHOF – the older

 

Created in 1978 by Pina Bausch, for Tanztheater Wuppertal and re-staged decades later with a cast of dancers all over the age of 65. Bausch wanted to make the audience face up to their ageist thoughts and watch these mature dancers perform – the choreography exposed that older dancers were provocative, overflowing with wit, emotion and performed full gestural movements that spoke volumes,

 

With regard to the older cast Dance critic Judith Mackrell stated:

 

Bausch’s casting exposed the poverty of our ageist culture.

She suggests further:

 

The 65-plus cast not only gave the lie to the notion that we become invisible as we age: they demonstrated that we can look significantly more vital and alive.

 

SLIDE 16 - EMBODIMENT – explain

 

Elizabeth Schwaiger states:

 

That the dancers’ body, at any age, carries a specialised embodiment, their instrument is their physicality. The aged dancer’s body carries such a strong dance vocabulary and should be valued.

 

Schawaiger goes on to challenge:

That the performativity of the dancer could only exist because they hold a lifetime of dance experience within them. This is only possible because they are ageing dancers.

 

The lived body experience of dance and the kinetics of time and space, both inextricably intertwined with dance.

SLIDE 17 – For the primary research there is a QUESTIONNAIRE

Sent to over 35 dancers globally, some I know and others whom I know by reputation, I have asked them:

• How do you find your dancing?

• how do the public view your career as a mature dancer?

• gender prejudice,

• how do you feel as mature dancers?

• Is there prejudice about being and seeing mature dancers?

• What are Their fitness regimes?

• has the approach to performing changed?

• Staying a dancer or wanting to create or teach

• How difficult is it to keep going?

• How do you cope mentally to push the body to its extremes?

• Does maturity help?

SLIDE 18 - The DANCERS 

Here are some of the dancers involved in the primary research

Remember, dancer’s talk with their bodies – that’s a given – BUT to actually hear them speak, discuss their process, their bodies etc., is unusual and deeply relevant.

 

Leanne Benjamin, Prima Ballerina the Royal Ballet Co, 48

She believed her performances were of a high standard, not just performing well for a forty-seven-year old! Benjamin was adamant that audiences kept her wanting to be there – on stage.[i]

 

SLIDE 19 -  Naomi Sorkin. American Ballet Theatre.

Just having performed for the first time in a few years, I was amazed at the peer as well as public appreciation of what I was able to bring to the stage. So much more physical limitation but a kind of emotional freedom.

 

SLIDE 20 - Debbie Lee Anthony -  Belief in what I can do, my bodily-lived expression, drawing on 35 years’ experience of working with amazing teachers, choreographers and fellow dancers etc., all goes towards what I have to say as a performer.  I think it is all ‘written in my body’. 

 

SLIDE  21– Susie Crow Former Soloist with Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, Ballet in Small Spaces

I have realised how important it is to keep dancing and feeling it in the body, to feed one’s practice and understanding;

 

SLIDE 22  – Glen Murray –, Australian Ballet, former Sydney Dance

I was a lucky dancer, but as a dancer I didn’t really understand anything until I was 30 and I retired at 35 from my first career. But the vehicle moved and continued to be trained. But now my physicality is fine, no more technical tricks but artistry is forefront.

 

SLIDE 23 – Charlotta Öfverholm DV8, Compagnie Jus de la Vie Stockholm

I listen more to my body now than I did before. But I have no problem to push myself and I think my performance as a performer - that I am better as an artist on stage now than before.

 

SLIDE 24 – Wendy Houstoun DV8, independent dance artist

I guess more thoughtful. But I also like moving for its own sake. The movement creates the thoughts - in some ways - and turns into a game of moving between thought and move

 

SLIDE 25 -Patrick Harding-Irmer former LCDT and Australian Dance Artists, 68

Patrick says:

Being aware that movement is not particularly interesting unless it is driven by some kind of idea and also relishing in the fact that often slow concentrated and focused movement imprints itself more effectively onto the perception of an audience

SLIDE 26 - Liz Aggiss UK 61 independent dance artist

I know the audience needs time to understand this body is a different kind of a body and this is a solo female body who is inhabiting work in a very different way

 

SLIDE 27 - Nicholas Minns former les Grands Ballets de Canadiens – 63

I don’t consider myself as a dancer foremost, but rather as a human being who dances. The goal is always to develop as a human being and to express that in performance.

SLIDE 28   - Pat Catterson – Judson Dance, Yvonne Rainer 74

I am not happy unless I can dance so I plan to do it until I die. I don’t care if no one ever wants to watch me dance again. I AM GOING TO DANCE BECAUSE I LOVE TO DANCE

 

SLIDE 29 - Eileen Kramer Australia’s 102-year-old former Bodenweiser dancer and still moving!

I interviewed Eileen in 2015 – she said when discussing age:

I thought I was 35!! (Eileen)

Well what is my age – (if asked) – I don’t know!

 

She said there was No age segregation when she choreographed or performed

Nobody said ‘what are you doing in this dance company’ nothing like that.

 

Movement makes you feel so much better – quite recently I started exercising in bed, Then I get up and do a few barre exercises …it’s so good for the feet, such wonderful exercise.

 

SLIDE 30 - CORPOREAL VALUE –

The shift in the western dance world is acknowledging that mature dance is integral with creativity, life experience and corporeal difference, thus enriching the cultural landscape by keeping these mature movers visible.

 

Dancers and educators: Dr Mark Edward and Helen Newell discuss the mature dancers “corporeal ability,” their embodied experience and maturity and state how under-valued their presence is and would be if they were totally alienated. Mark stresses that mature performers become more fascinating as they age, and the work develops more around them, as the individual dancer rather than the actual choreographed work.

 

SLIDE 31 – Also in 2015 Dance On Ensemble, Berlin is formed– the first mature dance company since NDT3 1991 – all of the dancers are over 40

 

SLIDE 32 - Quote by dancer Ann Dickie

 

At last, people are beginning to recognize what some of us have always known – The value of the creativity and experience of older people