Choreographers/Directors: Tamara McLorg, Villmore James, Lucy Haighton, Jennifer Hale
Yorkshire Dance is presenting a third edition of Ageless, a two-day festival that “invites you to celebrate the richness of human experience, artistry and beauty by reimagining age through dance.” A first reaction is to regard that as an impossible target but after seeing the triple bill that makes up Celebrating Participation, you begin to wonder. In different ways all three pieces have a profound and deeply moving effect.
First up is Footsteps in the Dust by The Performance Ensemble, made up of professional and community dancers aged 60 and over. The largest group of the three covers a wide range of dance ability, but all move, in their own ways, with grace and register with the audience. The mood is elegiac and in truth, except for the early stages of The Fallen, that remains so through the evening.
Choreographed by Tamara McLorg and directed by Villmore James, Footsteps in the Dust highlights migration and initially the 20-ish dancers hug the perimeter of the very large dance space as train whistles sound. Then they pick up their battered suitcases and move slowly in unison. As the piece progresses, sections with all acting together alternate with parts with just two dancers, music is provided by members of the cast singing and by a rich variety of recorded music and eventually journey’s end is reached with a recitation about a perfect peaceful world. Then the dancers fade into the audience.
Third Bite Dance of Sheffield follow with The Fallen, choreographed by Lucy Haighton. A dozen older people (50-plus) are seated on three sides of an open square and come forward individually to tell of what happens when they fall. The mood lightens with hints of comedy in facial expressions and gestures. As the piece goes on, it becomes more sombre, with many of the gestures of the first piece replicated, notably the upward thrust towards God, the sun or whatever.
Men! Dancing! from Liverpool bring the show to a close with Crossing the Bar, directed by Jennifer Hale. Six men in sailors’ uniforms dance skilfully, even athletically, breaking up into twos, coming together again, though the idea of “creation of cells, organs and consciousness” is by no means always apparent. But then a fine musical treatment of Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar combines with their fluently repetitive movements to provide a mesmeric climax to the programme.
Across the two days Ageless offers seven performances, together with films, talks and workshops (plus a two-hour-long Closing Party!) and spotlights ability where it comes, irrespective of age.
Reviewed on 12th July 2024; Ageless continues to 13th July.
The Reviews Hub Score
Potently elegiac
