Not to be confused with the other Elixir Festival, which celebrates Arabic culture, Sadler’s Wells Elixir Festival showcases older dancers alongside older non-professional dancers to demonstrate that dance really is for anyone. The festival opens with a mixed bill and the highlights of the somewhat random programme are two septuagenarian dancers and an elusive tortoise.
The pairing of Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo in common ground [s] is a joy. Acogny is best known for being the founder of the École des Sables in Senegal whose Rites of Spring, choreographed by Pina Bausch, must be up there as one of the best dances this century. Acogny is also 79 but you wouldn’t know it by the way she moves. Celebrating her 76th birthday at Sadler’s Wells, Airaudo, who performed in many of Bausch’s shows, is equally as impressive.
Despite appearing to feel the music differently – Acogny picks up the beat in her shoulders while Airaudo channels the rhythm in her long and graceful extensions of the arms – they both, as the title of their piece suggests, share common ground. And when they finally match each other’s movements, the result is magical, almost exhilarating. Although serious in tone, there is comedy too such as when they sing, excellently in the case of Airaudo, Que Sera, Sera.
They remember old times in Senegal, but it’s at the end when they look to the future. Acogny walks solidly in its direction as Airaudo shuffle-runs back and forth. Their 40-minute dance speaks of mortality and, paradoxically, survival as the stamping of their feet continues as the light falls. Fabrice Bouillon LaForest’s exciting and sweeping score accentuates the quiet drama. It’s the perfect opener to a festival that refuses to see youth as a requirement for dance.
Their pairing is a hard act to follow but the next two dances are so different that comparisons are impossible. Louise Lecavalier’s piece may be called Minutes around late afternoon but dressed in an oversized kagoul, she looks like the last one standing at an outdoor rave as dawn breaks. The music pumps continually and for most of the first section, Lecavalier, sprightly at 65, dances on her toes, constantly bouncing, her head and hands twitching and jolting to the incessant beat in a fearless display of energy.
The start of Ben Duke’s White Hare implies that it will be a story about the titular animal who lives on the moon and whose job it is to collect the powder that is used to create the elixir of life. Instead, it’s the tale of a tortoise, the hare’s rival as chronicled by Aesop. But then again it could be an examination of the end of the world as the universe shrinks sending time in a backward motion. Dancers Christopher Akrill and Valentina Formenti narrate the story in words more than they dance out its events, but it’s still captivating nevertheless. If time does indeed flow backwards in the future then we will all have second chances like the dancers at the Elixir Festival.
Reviewed on 10 April 2024. The Elixir Festival runs until 17 April 2024
