How long is the life of a dancer? Until what age can a dancer be on stage? Is there life in dance beyond 40, 50 and even 60? The stereotype linked to this discipline, which also has to do with age and the prevalence of certain physical canons, causes these questions to be repeated frequently. But more and more artists are rebelling against this social and cultural prejudice. In the next few days, the Spanish program will feature several shows that put the elderly at the center of dance.
“From forty onwards we don’t deteriorate, but we dance and recover our body from another place,” explains Jordi Vilaseca (Barcelona, 43 years old) on the other end of the phone. Together with Aritz López (Vitoria, 37 years old), he directs the Larrua Project, a company based in Vitoria which, after ten years of activity, is branching out into a new group, La Senior de Larrua, which will welcome artists over the age of 40 into its ranks. The show with which they begin their journey, You have an inner world, so what? (You have an inner world, so what?), It premiered at the Teatros del Canal in Madrid and will have its premiere this Thursday at the Félix Petite Antzokia theatre, as part of the Vitoria-Gasteiz International Theater Festival.
Vilaseca and López say that at the end of the show in Madrid some people were surprised “because they danced a lot.” “There is a lot of ageism in dance and situations that shouldn’t be normalized. That’s why we felt it was necessary to create this new company where dancers over forty can continue to celebrate the body and, in the process, reclaim visibility,” says Vilaseca. The choreography is by Dimo Kirilov Milev, dancer of the National Dance Company from 2001 to 2009, under the direction of Nacho Duato. You have an inner world, so what? This is a work for four dancers, including Melania Olcina (Barcelona, 43 years old), winner of the 2023 National Dance Award in the performance category. “We understand the importance of emerging people in dance, but we are slaves to public calls and in many of them youth is rewarded. What happens to those of us who no longer emerge but continue to dance?” asks Aritz López. “With gray hair and wrinkles you might not fit in with the young cast anymore, but we can do it,” adds Vilaseca. After the premiere, La Senior de Larrua will travel to eight other theaters, all in Euskadi.
The concern about age in the dance world can be seen in its more recent history. Already in 1991 Jirí Kylián founded the Nederlands Dans Theater III, which operated until 2006 and counted dancers over the age of 40 among its ranks. Other examples include fabulous initiatives such as opera place (2009), played by Mijaíl Barishnikov and Ana Laguna, aged over 60. Currently, the German company Dance On Ensemble, directed by Ty Boomershine, has also been trying to answer questions about age since its founding in 2015 and welcomes dancers over forty into its cast. “When will we grow old? How can experience and knowledge of the body be integrated into creative play?” reads their website.
“With the young dancers the questions are born, with the older dancers up there the answers are born,” Ed Kortlandt, a former dancer at the Tanztheater Wuppertal, told this newspaper in 2009 about the revision of the classic. Kontakthofthat its creator, the legendary Pina Bausch, put together with a cast of over 65s, including non-dance professionals. Last year, among other things, the original version of this work, presented for the first time in 1978 with professionals, was revived with nine members of the original cast, now over eighty.
Bausch was also a pioneer in placing older, non-professional dancers in the heart of dance. Certainly because it raised questions about the passage of time and the human being that have always interested him. But also because it offered him the possibility of continuing to investigate the gesture starting from places as beautiful as they are uncomfortable. This line of work frames the discourse that the choreographer Mariantónia Oliver (São Paulo, 66 years old) has been pursuing since 2012. “At this point I think I could make anyone dance,” she tells this newspaper.
In 2012, Oliver recorded women over the age of 70 and put them on stage in the montage The Many. In 2018 he presented The Many, expansion of that. And it will be premiered on November 28th The Many at the Teatro Principal in Palma, which co-produces the opera. “Since I started The Many He tried to valorise people who are as good as twenty-year-olds and have bodies as alive and vibrant as everyone else”, he explains.
With The Many The question of masculinity comes into play, along with age. Six men (“among whom there are, for example, a university professor and a man from my country who intrigued me”, he says) who expose themselves starting from their own fragilities, trying to transcend gender. And what difference did you find between working with the many and the very many? “Humor and the toilet seat,” she replies amused. “Men need humor to give themselves, women are more open and generous”.
“It’s curious how dance becomes the link that older women find to continue to be happy and be part of society,” explains Eva Guerrero (Bilbao, 43 years old), choreographer and dancer who directs the Doos Colectivo company in Bilbao together with Jemima Cano, over the phone. This Thursday they will also present the premiere of the work, Until the last danceat the Arriaga Theater. A choreography resulting from a study on dance and health commissioned by the EUNEIZ University and the KSI (Cultural and Creative Industries of Euskadi) in which they worked with women over the age of 65. “After two months with them, once a week, they gained mobility, especially in the torso and shoulders. But also listening to their stories, about that loneliness they felt and how they overcame it through movement and bodies, I found it very interesting and we started the show.”
Their voices will be on stage, collected through numerous interviews, crystallized in the bodies of the dancer Aiala Etxegarai and in the music and live performance of Yolanda Bustillo and Amaia Santamaría. And how did you manage to land it off the stage? “From a collective point of view and questioning ourselves, as I usually do. I invited the choreographer Andrés Corchero to work with us and asked questions. For example, how does the absence of others shape our body?” And how do you see yourself in thirty years? “How do I see myself? For me dance is very important, the less I dance the worse I feel. But I’m so tired of the institutional game in which you are scheduled for premieres every two years, when it’s so important to investigate and search… I hope I can continue to move and create.”
Also on December 6, at the Center de Creació d’Arts Escèniques (Salt), as part of the programming of the Montaña Alta festival, the historic Mal Pelo company will bring memory and the future to the stage. It’s about the work We: Nosaltres i els temps with which the company directed by María Muñoz and Pep Ramis will bring together a total of twelve performers of different ages and generations, to tackle the work on heritage and identity through the bodily transmission of that dance so characteristic of the Catalan collective.
