Host by DanceEast
Move Be Moved Festival 2016
Jerwood DanceHouse, Ipswich, UK. 1 - 6 July 2016 Invited Speaker
SCRIPT FOR HOST – DANCE EAST 2016 Invited Speaker
SLIDE 1 – HOST – Dance East
SLIDE 2 – INTRO - Ageism and the mature dancer
SLIDE 3 – The Research question
The research investigates ageism and longevity of performance in today’s contemporary ballet culture and seeks to explore perceived taboos in and around the question of retirement. There is a need for the mature dancer to be acknowledged not only for their corporeal difference but also, for how their practice rather than their age defines them.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 - Decrepitude
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. 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, Lyn Seymour, witnessing her incredible performance 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. 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 dancers 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 being questioned.
So Why should all that dance knowledge and lived body experience be shelved?
Why is ageing taboo in dance?
Showing what mature dance looks like
IMAGE??
SLIDE 5 - ME aged 30 at Laban
The return to study at 29
SLIDE 6 ME the mature dancer at Laban
Went back to study at 29 – felt prejudice at being a mature dancer even then
Probably the oldest dancer to audition for Transitions Company 1989
SLIDE 7 – me NOW - the older dancer
SLIDE 8 – Does the dancing have to stop?
SLIDE 9 – The two dancers who assisted me in the beginnings of the research in 2013
Canadian contemporary dancer, Louise Lecavalier, 54 years old, of Fou Glorieux and La La La Human Steps. In 2013 whilst performing at the Adelaide Festival 2013, I secured an interview with Lecavalier, plus 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 were so in depth and insightful.
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 10 - Jennifer Jackson British dancer, former soloist with the Royal Ballet Company, Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, Choreographer,
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.
Ageing is a Taboo subject in the dance world– getting old
The normal age for dancers to retire has been between 35 - 40 with many choosing 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
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 11 - 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 till she was 70.
SLIDE 12 - Martha Graham, The Mother of American Modern dance also danced into old age - though she cannily modified the choreography to suit her own body, 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 13 - THE FLUX – In 1991- 4 choreographers known as The European Quartet, JiÅ™í Kylián, Mats Ek, Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, all in their 40s, dancers and choreographers. They were questioning why this still be so – and naturally it held a personal element as they were at this time of life. Kylián created a dance company specifically for his older dancers:
Netherlands Dance Theatre NDT3 1991 – 2006 Known as NDT3
His four dancers: Sabine Kupferberg, Alida Chase, Nikolas Ek, Gerard Lemaitre
This had never been done before – new ground
Kylián stated:
These mature dancers hold that fantastic physicality and physical presence -
They have History in their bodies
When I interviewed dancer Sabine Kupferberg in 2015 she remarked:
“They thought we would come out in wheelchairs – but people can be very unkind….. but she felt they were dancing incredibly well and had nothing to fear
Dutch dance critic Eva van Schaik discussed 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 14 Sabine Kupferberg and Gerard Lemaitre NDT3
SLIDE 15 - KONTAKTHOF – Created in 1978 by Pina Bausch, from 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 full gestural movements that spoke volumes
SHOW pictures of both older and younger dancers performing in Kontakthof
SLIDE 15 the younger cast
SLIDE 16 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 17 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 18 - QUESTIONNAIRE
Sent to over 35 dancers, some I know and others whom I know by reputation,
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?
Their fitness regimes
has the approach to performing changed?
Staying a dancer or wanting to create or perform?
How difficult to keep going?
How do you cope mentally to push the body to its extremes, does maturity help?
SLIDE 19 - The DANCERS - LIST
Images of 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 20 Naomi Sorkin –
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 21 Debbie Lee Anthony -
Belief in what I can do, my bodily-lived expression, drawing on 35 year’s 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 22– Susie Crow
But I have realised how important it is to keep dancing and feeling it in the body, to feed one’s practice and understanding;
SLIDE 23 Mark Edward - refers to valuing the lived process and the body as a phenomenological breathing Curriculum Vitae. WE ‘should celebrate the experienced mature dancer’s embodied corporeal difference.’ He 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 24 - Liz Lea , Liz Lea Dance and Canberra Dance Co 43
& Patrick Harding-Irmer former LCDT and Australian Dance Artists, 68
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 25 -Wendy Houstoun UK – Dance performance of 2015
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 26 - Charlotta Öfverholm 51 former DV8, Jus de la Vie Stockholm
Explain about Charlotta Öfverholm AGE ON STAGE the forming of DANCE ON Berlin/ government backing as well as Sadler’s Wells
SLIDE 27 - Claire Whistler
I think people can feel that I am still a dancer, but it is only a part of what I offer as an older artist, in fact I rarely say dancer, I use the word movement, performance, event.
SLIDE 28 - Nicholas Minns former les Grands Ballets de Canadiens –
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 29 Liz Aggiss UK 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 30 Pat Catterson – Judson Dance, Yvonne Rainer
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 31 Eileen Kramer 101-year-old former Bodenweiser dancer and still moving!
I interviewed Eileen last year – she said when discussing age:
I thought I was 35!! (Eileen)
Well what is my age – (if asked) – I don’t know!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, usually I wake up wanting coffee or croissant, then I exercise and completely forget about the coffee and enjoy myself! Then I get up and do a few barre exercises …it’s so good for the feet, such wonderful exercise.
SLIDE 32 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: 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[ii] as a welcome difference when compared to the youthful other 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 33 – The Inaugural Elixir Festival, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London,
Knowbody – featuring older experienced dancers: Mats Ek, Ana Laguna, Dominique Mercy of Pina Bausch’s Wuppertal, A.D. Sadler’s Wells Alistair Spalding stated:
Elixir is really about the question, (you know), why should people stop dancing?
This festival has highlighted the value and interest in the mature dancer!
Choreographer Maks Ek 69 and dancer Ana Laguna
SLIDE 34 – The Art of Age Conference –Charlotta Ofverholm
The AGE ON STAGE PROJECT Stockholm 2015 -
SLIDE 35 Dance On Ensemble Berlin – first mature dancer company formed 2015 since NDT3 1991 – all dancers over 40
SLIDE 36 THE COLLABORATORS
INTERPRÈTE
The Motif – what is it? a group of steps, movements – dance/Laban 1987/ used many times in my choreography and videos
Concept,
Sophie Calle’s work Take care of Yourself (Prenez soin de vois)
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/venice-biennale-sophie-calle
Appropriation of idea to have 4 Australian and 4 British dancers
interpret my choreography, to experience and experiment – as theorist Laurence Louppe discusses in her book The Poetics of Contemporary Dance. Each will re-interpret the motif as they personally feel, relate to…
SLIDE 37 -- Quote by dancer Ann Dickie
READ: Nicholas Minns dance blogger:
These are not older dancers strutting their stuff past their virtuosic prime – as some older dancers have been known to do – but offering us the rich territory of individual and shared dance experience.[iii]
SLIDE 38 interprète/Inappropriate Behaviour – Gold Award winner of the inaugural Joie de Vivre competition hosted by Pavilion Dance South West UK featuring older dancers – SHOW FILM
[i] Leanne Benjamin, interviewed by the author, March 20, 2014.
[ii] 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
[iii] Nicholas Minns, ‘Dancing the Invisible,’ Writing about Dance (blog), May 5, 2012, accessed March 25, 2013, http://writingaboutdance.com/?s=invisible.
