SCRIPT FOR CREATEWORLD POWERPOINT – SONIA YORK-PRYCE PhD February 2015 

 

SLIDE - Title – Valuing the older dancer through digital technology

 

SLIDE – the PhD research - The research project will investigate the role of dancers who extend beyond the industry expectations of acceptable age and analyse the contribution that they are making to current dialogues relating to ageism in the field.

 

SLIDE - Show images of YOU

 

Introduction:  Sonia York-Pryce, PhD Candidate from QCA, Griffith University.

I am a mature dancer.I trained in the UK at Elmhurst Ballet School, the Royal Ballet School, London School of Contemporary Dance, Laban Centre of Movement and Dance. I ceased dance training at 19 and then returned to study at 29 – I felt prejudice at being a mature dancer even then!

 

SLIDE – my work when not studying is dance photography- Time Exposure or slow shutter speeds -  

– I love the depiction of motion, not perfection – or the perfect  pose

 

Why this project?

Today’s focus on a youth-oriented consumer culture also weighs heavily in the current dance world and for some who are approaching forty years of age; retirement is perceived as the legitimate choice. Should this still be the case? Since attending the Elixir Festival at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London 2014 the research indicates there is a renewed interest within the dance world of the value and visibility of the mature dancer, recognising their lived body experience, performativity and inclusion in western dance culture. There has long been prejudice towards the mature dancer but a new shift acknowledging the lifetime of embodied dance experience is slowly being highlighted. Which is the preferred body to perform, the youthful or the mature, or is it inappropriate behaviour of the latter? By investigating through film and photography, from the personal perspective as a mature dancer, I aim to focus on the mature mover and conserve their visibility in the current dance world.

 

Youthful versus ageing:

 

Dance writer Marcia Seigal states

 

 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. [i]

 

 

SLIDE – click TAB VIDEO – Does the dancing have to stop? – this body of work came about because of my investigations into ageism - made for my Honours project – using archive VHS tapes, DVDs, film and lots of editing – the dancer is the younger me, alongside the dancer at 50 and the dancer of 2013

 

AGEISM - Ageing is a Taboo subject & even more so in dance – getting old

The norm 35-40 to retire in dance, many chose to end their careers earlier,

Contemporary dancer 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

 

SLIDE - Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Royal Ballet Company,

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

Here in her 40s - danced till she was 70.

 

SLIDE - Martha Graham, the Mother of American Modern Dance also danced into old age - though modified the choreography to suit her own body, retiring at 80.

Both of these dancers were mavericks – most unusual for the times – 1970s-80s

 

Martha Graham stated:

 

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.[ii]

SLIDE   - Netherlands Dance Theatre NDT3 1991 - 2006

             THE FLUX – 1991- 4 choreographers

• , Mats Ek, Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, Known as The European Quartet, all aged in their 40s, all dancers realising that the end of the road is close but then saw the relevance of using mature dancers, prolonging their careers, their dance by dates were no longer evident. They choreographed specific works for the dancers of NDT3. It was a prolific and highly charged artistic period in all these dancers lives.

 

Choreographer Jiří Kylián created this dance company specifically for his older dancers: Sabine Kupferberg, Alida Chase, Nikolas Ek, and Gerard Lemaitre

This had never been done before – it was new ground -

 

Kylián stated:

“These mature dancers that fantastic physicality and physical presense, such

history in their bodies”

 

Dutch dance critic Eva van Schaik stated at the time:

 

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 – Sabine and Gèrard – January 2015

This image was taken during an interview with them at The Hague in Holland

 

SLIDE    Interview with Sabine and Gerard recorded at Korzo Theatre The Hague Holland

 

SLIDE --KONTAKTHOF – Pina Bausch – explain – Tanztheater Wuppertal

First created in 1978 – re-staged in 2000 with a cast all over 65 years of age – she forced the audience face up to their ageist thoughts and watch these mature dancers perform – in the performance they are provocative, moving and gestural as never been seen before.

 

Dance critic Judith Mackrell noted:

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   - EMBODIMENT – explain -

Dance writer 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 mature dancer’s body is the instrument of their physicality.

 

SLIDE   - THE QUESTIONNAIRE – The Primary Research

10 questions were emailed to dancers I know and who I know by reputation

 

SLIDE   - The DANCERS  - LIST

Images of some of the dancers involved in the primary research

 

SLIDE    - 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.[iii]

 

SLIDE   - Louise Lecavalier – Lalala Human Steps, Fou Glorieux, 55, part of Hons too, recently performed in London. I interviewed her during the 2013 Adelaide Festival where I was invited to watch rehearsals, and attend the performance. Very generous with her time and answers

 

SLIDE    - Lucinda Dunn – 41 prima Ballerina Australian Ballet

 

SLIDE   - Ross Philip – 57, Sydney Dance Co & Australian Dance Artists

 

SLIDE    - Liz Lea, 43 Liz Lea Dance and Canberra Dance Co & Patrick Harding-Irmer 68 former LCDT and Australian Dance Artists,

 

SLIDE     - Nicholas Minns – 62 Rambert, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, London Dance Critic and dance artist + Others

 

SLIDE – TAB VIDEO - link to Louise Lecavalier film

 

SLIDE    - CORPOREAL VALUE

 

Dancers and educators: 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. They celebrate the experienced mature dancers embodied “corporeal difference”[iv] as a welcome difference when compared to the youthful “other.”

They go on to say: a dancer’s body is

 

a phenomenological breathing curriculum vitae,[v]

 

stating the mature dancer’s body has a lifetime of corporeal experience that should be utilised, celebrated and not discarded because the youthful dancer is considered the preferred form.

 

 SLIDE    The Ballet Class – my twice-weekly investigations into muscle memory, endurance and physicality – its personal

 

SLIDE    The film: INTERPRÈTE

 

The Motif – what is it?   It is a group of steps, movements that I choreographed when a student at Laban 1987/ which I have used many times in my choreography and videos.

French historian and critic Laurence Louppe – The Poetics of Contemporary Dance –

Her thinking has influenced me creatively. She considers dance as the body’s poetry.

intreprète can mean a dancer - using this expression as the title for the film – interprète, means a dancer when moving is experimenting as well as experiencing the movement – so very apt for my project.

 

The opportunity to capture these moments through video footage and the digital camera is the creative element of my PhD investigation into exhibiting the embodiment of the mature dancer in motion. I am currently working with 2 groups of mature dancers, the Australian Dance Artists who are based in Sydney and four British dancers based in London, whose ages range from 57 – 68 years of age. All are either professional classical or contemporary dancers.

 

SLIDE    - Concept,

Sophie Calle’s work Take care of yourself

Read the words

https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/sophie-calle-take-care-of-yourself/press-release

 

 

An Appropriation of her work – in that the idea to have 4 Australian and 4 British dancers interpret my choreography, their experience and experimenting with the motif – each dancer bringing a different interpretation to the table.

 

SLIDE  - THE COLLABORATORS – Australian Dance Artists, Sydney

 

Discuss COLLABORATION WITH Australian Dance Artists – who they are?

Names + Ken Unsworth

They have taken part in the questionnaire

Now they will interpret the motif in APRIL of this year

 

SLIDE –  TAB – VIDEO Soiree Sforza – film footage

 

SLIDE – Ross Philip image

 

SLIDE – Anca Frankenhaeuser image

 

SLIDE – Anca & Patrick Harding-Irmer - image

 

SLIDE – Anca Frankenhaeuser and Patrick Harding –Irmer - image

 

SLIDE – The British Collaborators, London

           Jennifer Jackson, Ann Dickie, Nicholas Minns & Susie Crow

 

SLIDE – Jennifer Jackson - Photos of shoot with Jennifer Jackson, part of the Primary Research, former RBC and Dancing the Invisible taken at the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.

Jennifer Jackson observes:

 

As an old practitioner I observe profound shifts in the balance between the athletic and artistic dimensions of my own dance. I am interested in how this plays out in the choreography, plus how mature dance challenges the aesthetics of established dance performance, especially in ballet, which is closely associated with youthful beauty and athletic virtuosity and as a means of purely technical rather than creative development.”[vi]

 

SLIDE – Jennifer Jackson and Nicholas Minns

 

SLIDE – January 2015 Filming in London

For this process I use two cameras, a Nikon D5100, which shoots film footage via a tripod, whilst I use a JVC video camera for zooming in on headshots and close-ups. I filmed the British dancers in London during January 2015.  The dancers first improvise to capture their chosen mode of movement, which I then filmed, one dancer at a time, allowing them only one performance, keeping the work raw and original. I also photographed the dancers as they ‘warmed up’ and experimented with the choreography, using time exposure settings allowed me to experiment and seize imagery as Walter Benjamin describes:

 

through photography the lens is able to employ such techniques as enlargement or slow motion to capture images that are quite simply beyond natural optics.

 

SLIDE – The Motif film demo – me demonstrating the motif – uploaded for the dancers onto www.vimeo.com  so they could view the work as geographically impossible to show the movements literally in person.

 

SLIDE – TAB – vimeo – INTERPRÈTE part one

 

SLIDE – images of improvisation – Brit dancers

 

It could be argued that the images procured will confuse the viewer as to the age or even gender of the dancer as this is obscured. The slow shutter speed settings allow for a greater depth of imagery in this context whereas the film will display the mature dancers more obviously, highlighting their embodied dance experience, the gestural and corporeal is documented through their danced movements.

 

SLIDE – image - Brit dancers

 

SLIDE – image - Brit dancers –

 

Nicholas Minns dance critic:

 

These are not older dancers strutting their stuff past their virtuosic prime – as some older dancers have been know to do – but offering us the rich territory of individual and shared dance experience.[vii]

 

 

SLIDE – Ann Dickie – part of the primary and creative research

 

SLIDE – Dancing your PhD?

 

 

Using digital technology to portray my arts practice is a means to exhibit these extraordinary mature dancers but it can never replace the immediacy or intimacy of a live performance in the theatre but for many it is the only way to view the craft of great dance artists.

 

 

 

 

[i] Marcia Seigal, Watching the dance go by. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1977. 233

[ii] Martha Graham, Blood Memory: An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 238.

[iii] Leanne Benjamin, interviewed by the author, March 20, 2014.

[iv] Mark Edward and Helen Newell, “Temporality of the Dancing Body: Tears, Fears and Ageing Dears, “ 2011.

(http://www.academia.edu/1699141/Temporality_of_the_dancing_body_Tears_Fears_and_Ageing_Dears

[v] Mark Edward and Helen Newell, ‘Temporality of the Dancing Body: Tears, Fears and Ageing Dears,’ Paper presented at the ‘Making Sense of Pain’ conference, Warsaw, Poland, May 2011, http://www.academia.edu/ 1699141/Temporality_of_ the_dancing_body_Tears_Fears_and_Ageing_Dears.

[vi] Jennifer Jackson, ‘Dancing the Invisible – Late Work,’ University of Surrey, accessed April 4, 2013, http://www.surrey.ac.uk/arts/dance/ events/dancing_the_invisible.htm.

[vii] Nicholas Minns, ‘Dancing the Invisible,’ Writing about Dance (blog), May 5, 2012, accessed March 25, 2013, http://writingaboutdance.com/?s=invisible.