Script for BOLD Festival 2019 Sonia York-Pryce

 

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today and to pay my respects to the Elders, past present and emerging.

 

SLIDE 1 Corporeal Politics

 

My research centres on the under-valued and under-represented older experienced dancer, the professional older dancer – it investigates ageism, aesthetics and longevity in today’s ballet and contemporary dance culture.

 

These dancers are redefining what the “older dancing body” can do.

 

I want to know why the older trained body, is not valued in the current Western dance culture. So,  I am seeking the cultural value, validation and visibility for the older experienced dancer.

 

Dance as we know is ephemeral, but through the performance we observe their danced history through their bodies – they are bodies of knowledge.

 

They may appear to have the “default body” but they are rebelling against the usual aesthetics that dance aspires too, and I celebrate their corporeal difference.

 

The research has gathered voices through a survey from 37 dancers in Europe, USA, Canada, Israel and Australia.

We know dancers talk with their bodies – that’s a given, but to actually hear them discuss their process, their bodies, performances, is unusual and deeply relevant.

 

My research has aimed to give a voice to these dancers, and to display visually through film and word the corporeality and danced histories of these senior artists.

 

We are talking AESTHETICS and POLITICS

 

It is time to see them dance, hear these voices, and value them for what they are,

 

 a living archive!

 

SLIDE 2 Yvonne Rainer QUOTE When is it time to farewell dance?

As Kathleen White acknowledges,

 

“ageism saturates dance culture in which the dancer has to accept the undefended aspects of age.”

 

In fact, it appears to be a profession that just as you are beginning to grow up, it is then deemed appropriate for you to retire.

 

SLIDE 3 Sonia York-Pryce – LABAN

As a younger dancer I too participated in that unwritten sanction of ageism, aimed towards older dancers, and not really knowing why. The “why aren’t you dead yet?” mutter at auditions.

It wasn’t until I enrolled at Laban in the late 1980s that I too became the discriminated one, at the tender age of 29 – I was known as Miss P – P for Pensioner.

 

SLIDE 4 As dance scholar and older experienced dancer Mark Edward remarked:

 

 “ I had become a trespasser  on a dance territory that no longer belonged to me, and that if I were to participate, I would at worst be a dancing parody of my former self”

 

 

SLIDE 5 Pat Catterson 75

Yvonne Rainer collaborators and fellow founder of Judson Theatre Pat Catterson told me:

 

“I am not happy unless I can dance so I plan to do it until I die.” But she is mindful to stating,

“Dancing is not a problem – surviving in the dance profession is!”

 

 

SLIDE 6 Mark Edward continues

 

“The idea of a professional dancer continuing to dance above and beyond a certain age I Western Culture is somehow deemed a social faux pas”

 

SLIDE 7 MARTHA GRAHAM

Graham was adamant that she was going to keep dancing until she died, she had no intention of conforming to the ageism or the usual aesthetics,

 

“ A dancer more than any other human being dies two deaths – the first the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond … I only wanted to dance .. without dancing I wished to die”

 

Mortality is something that keeps cropping up, many dancers in the research claim that dance for them will continue until that time.

 

 It is a calling that is that Steven Wainwright and Bryan Turner state:

 

“Being a dancer is not something that you do, it is something that you are.”

 

SLIDE 8 KONTAKTHOF

Pina Bausch created Kotakthof in 1978 but reimagined the work with an older cast in 2010 - fully aware of the history these bodies conveyed, as they cavorted and confronted the ageist viewer.  She expanded their visibility by drawing attention to the lived experience of these dancers and how history could be displayed positively through the body.

 

 

 

SLIDE 9 Siobhan Davies’s Bridge the Distance – with Patrick Harding-Irmer

 

Davies could see the gifts imbued through the bodies of older professional dancers. She saw his lived-experience of dance as an absolute asset to the work, she stated:

 

“That dance then was seen as physical manifestation of youth, vibrancy, high jumps and technical expertise, and I loved it when I see something that is as thoughtful as Patrick’s one simple move”

 

I asked Patrick to tell me how he felt being giving this opportunity at the time, I actually saw this performance!

 

“It was 1985 and I had just turned forty .. the oldest member of the company and along with Anca also the longest standing. But I was still able to dance at a very high level. … I knew that my technique was refined, and I was confident that I was able to bring meaningfulness to any physical choreography.”

 

SLIDE 10 – NDT 3 the internationally renowned company, formed by Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian’s in 1991 for dancers between the age of forty and death. Kylian states:

 

“They bring their pride, their skills, their talents, their fantasy. You know they live here. That’s how the performance becomes so powerful.”

 

I spoke to Sabine Kupferberg in an interview in 2015,

 

“I think the audience was not believing it would happen because it was a very courageous thing to do. When I look back at the performance now, I think we were amazingly physical, we were not 40 or 50 we were looking like dancers of a normal mature age – absolutely not in an age when you would think they should do something else.”

 

SLIDE 11 – 2nd Kylian quote

 

SLIDE 12 dance critic Eva van Schaik backed up Kylian’s venture saying:

 

“That mention 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 13 – MY research has taken me to London, Stockholm, The Hague, Berlin and  all over Australia to gather voices of older experienced dancers.

Here are some of the amazing dancer’s voices who feature in my research

 

Elizabeth Cameron Dalman

The Mother of Australian Modern dance she states the dancer’s mantra

 

“You are not trying to make your body like this perfect ‘other’. It’s about going inside, working from the inside, acknowledging and respecting your own body as it is now in the moment.”

 

 

SLIDE 14 Eileen Kramer 104

 

“I thought I was 35, Well what is my age?

 

SLIDE 15 – Louise Lecavalier

In an interview with Louise in 2013 she stressed:

 

“People are surprised when associating the kind of dancing I do with age I have as if someone at 54 should be handicapped. The dance I create is for everyone, not just older people, and goodbye to all the simplistic notions we make about getting older. I do not feel old and do feel so mature either.”

 

SLIDE 16 SIV ANDERS 79

States:

“Don’t over dance that you can’t dance.”

 

Seen here performing in Hege Haargenrud’s “use my Body while it is still young”

Haargenrud wanted to choreograph this because she saw there was a lack of older dancers, “we just don’t see them.”

 

 

SLIDE 17 CHARLOTTA OFVERHOLM the only dancer I know who had a new hip replacement and a recent total ankle reconstruction and dances on …

Charlotta mentioned to me that a recent press release this had been stated:

 

“I have no idea how old she is … but you can see that she has some wrinkles and things, but, when she dances, she is forever young.”

 

SLIDE 18 SUSIE CROW former soloist with the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet states,

 

“I‘m not sure that the establishment knows yet where to place mature professionals.”

 

SLIDE 19 LEANNE BENJAMIN former prima ballerina with the Royal Ballet company,

Known in her late forties as ‘Benjamin Button’ by the press, she states:

 

“the press always mentioned her age, she felt she was GOOD not because she was 47”

 

SLIDE 20 BRIAN LUCAS states:

 

“I think I am aware that pushing myself doesn’t just apply physically but pushing myself is to do with the performance and the physicality is part of that.”

 

SLIDE 21 GLEN MURRAY Invisible Practice

 

“I have to walk the talk, This is my body now, it still serves me well,

I am quite confident of my instrument and I think now that I am working perhaps a little more intellectually than my instrument will perform.”

 

SLIDE 22 THE AUSTRALIAN DANCE ARTISTS

Four exemplary dancers, who hold a life time of lived dance experience, former members of London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Sydney Dance Company who have been producing work in Sydney with Ken Unsworth for over 20 years. And who have been part of the creative and primary research. You will see Anca performing here at BOLD.

 

SLIDE 23 MOMENTUM DANCE WA

Liz Cornish’s company created in 2017 is making waves in Perth, WA. It is an ensemble featuring dancers aged over 50. A company that considers history, memories and artistry are treasures that an older dancer brings to the stage.

Bravo Liz!

 

SLIDE 24 DANCE ON BERLIN

is an initiative created by Diehl & Ritter, that focuses on the artistic excellence of dancers aged 40+ whose experience, charisma and dramatic power – in fact their entire dance life – is present on stage. Funded by the German Government and producing work with eminent choreographers and showing who are changing the usual face of dance.

Since its inception in 2015 they are now moving to the 2nd edition of the company, it was announced in June 2018 that their funding of 1.8 million Euros will continue for a further 5 years.

 

They form part of the EU Project, DANCE ON PASS ON DREAM ON comprised of nine companies which aims al generating a European strategy for a sustainable dance praxis valuing age and embodied knowledge on stage and in society!! It is a project to honour the value of embodied knowledge and to counteract preconceived notions of what it means to be old.

 

SLIDE 25 – Betsy Gregory former AD of DANCE UMBRELLA LONDON and part of the Elders Project based at Sadler’s Wells theatre London, states:

 

“In recent years we have been living in a culture that is so youth orientated that people have forgotten that older people can dance, or maybe they thought they never could!”

 

PAUSE

 

I know there is a shift, in Europe that is beginning to acknowledge that older experienced dancers are integral with creativity, life experience ad corporeal difference, thus enriching the cultural landscape by keeping these mature movers visible.

But is this sentiment shared here in Australia and how can we mirror what appears to be a Corporeal Movement by acknowledging our senior artists??

 

Kathleen White argues, and I of course agree:

 

“TO DENY THE OLDER DANCER PARTICIPATION IS TO DENY AUDIENCES THE FULL POWER AND PLEASURE OF ARTISTS WHO HAVE RIPENED AND FULLY DEVELOPED THEIR EXPERIENCE AND GRACE.”

 

PAUSE

 

SLIDE 26 I will close with this quote by Christopher Roman former artistic director of DANCE ON Berlin, who is currently performing in Africa, in William Forsythe’s A Quiet Evening of Dance”

 

“dance is a language we speak fluently!”

 

 

SLIDE 27 email address

 

Thank you