Abstract
In focusing on the rare examples of ageing in performance, I provide an overview of practice work within the fields of ageing and performance. To contextualise the discussion of the visibility of mature movers, I discuss the complexities of sourcing practice-based evidence, as the process of performance documentation is often varied and inconsistent. Such subjective processing means that a ‘one design fits all’ approach cannot be adopted. In providing examples of mature movers, I look at two particular areas: firstly, mature movers who do not necessarily explore the theme of ageing in their work; and secondly performers who actively address the theme of ageing who are actually ageing, using their own experience as a source for creating performance. Attention is also given to performance-based works which address the theme of ageing from a non-ageing perspective, exploring the inevitable debility of the performing body from a youthful lens.
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Notes
- 1.
Reasons for why mature professional dancers would return to perform in such works are merely speculative. Aside from possible remunerations, there could also be a desire to explore what the body remembers.
- 2.
This advert (for face cream) could also be reinforcing negativities towards age(ing) by advocating a need for ‘anti-age(ing)’ facial products.
- 3.
Programme for Elixir Festival, Sadler’s Wells, September 2014.
- 4.
Jerome Bel. 2004. JeromeBel. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.jeromebel.fr/textsandinterviews/detail?textInter=veronique%20doisneau%20%20paris%20national%20opera. [Accessed 11 April 2016].
- 5.
Available at: http://www.ultimavez.com/en/productions/what-body-does-not-remember. [Accessed 11 April 2016].
- 6.
Further reading on my process with June can be read in Edward, M. and Newall, H. (2012) ‘Temporality of the Performing Body: Tears, Fears and Ageing Dears’. Management, Expression, Interpretation Edited by: Andrze, j Dańcza, k. ID Press.
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/making-sense-of/pain/project-archives/2n/.
- 7.
Holt et al. note ‘By the mid-1970s, when dance as a discipline entered higher education in the UK, the impact of American postmodern dance and British New Dance had been developing for a decade or more. This combined new trend in dance began to have a significant influence on many practitioners across the UK, as a source of innovation. Many of these practitioners were appointed to work as dance “animateurs” or community dance artists in arts venues and community settings as the driving force in the significant development of community dance programmes across the UK’. http://ausdance.org.au/articles/details/dance-in-higher-education-in-the-uk. [Accessed 19 February 2016.]
- 8.
In one personal example of this, in 1998 I was awarded a bursary from Liverpool’s Merseyside Dance Initiative to attend a residency in dance improvisation. Here I met (and shared dance experiences) with Mary Prestidge a former Ballet Rambert dancer, British Olympic gold medallist winner and one of the X6 British new dance pioneers. Mary was much older than I was and she danced with a real sense of autonomy coupled with a physical and conceptual intelligence.
- 9.
http://www.danceuk.org/news/article/whats-age-got-do-it/. [Accessed 29 August 2015.]
- 10.
http://www.communitydance.org.uk/DB/publications/ageing-artfully-the-baring-foundation.html. [Accessed 29 August 2015.]
- 11.
http://www.agewatch.org.uk/fitness/dance-and-lifelong-well-being/. [Accessed 29 August 2015.]
- 12.
http://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/2014/Elixir-Festival-The-Art-of-Age-Conference/. [Accessed 29 August 2015.]
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Edward, M. (2018). Mature Movers. In: Mesearch and the Performing Body. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69998-1_3
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