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Engaging older people through community dance | interview with Moving Memory

Words by Katie Hagan.

Organisations based in local and regional communities are true agents of change. Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company, a north Kent based dance organisation established in 2010, is one such example, using movement or dance to challenge the stereotypes surrounding older people.

Led by director Sian Stevenson, a choreographer who’s been working in physical-based storytelling and community dance for over 30 years, Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company has had a demonstrable impact in its community and beyond, creating connections between dancers and audiences in Kent and overturning ageist perceptions around what a dancing body is.

We caught up with Moving Memory to chat about why community dance is vital in the UK, Moving Memory’s latest project DamnitDanceit! and how they are dismantling numerous geographical and social barriers to the arts.

Q: Thanks for chatting to us, Sian! When and why was Moving Memory established?

Sian: When we first set up the company there was little opportunity for older women’s voices and bodies to be heard and seen in a performance space. There were lots of problematic stereotypes.

It took time to convince venues that older women can and do get bums on seats, which is one of the reasons we took to the streets, as well as mainstream venues, to reach a non-traditional theatre audience. This wish – to offer opportunities to new audiences – has remained central to our vision and became manifest in our participatory programme, ‘Moving Well’.

Moving Memory started in 2010 as the result of a commission from the University of Kent Creative Campus initiative. We worked with older people in a care home and then found a group of older women (we invited all genders, but it was the women that came forward) to carry those stories about friendship and love into a performance space. Following this event, the group of women involved said that they didn’t want to stop moving, so the core company was born, and began to train and devise work as an ensemble of seven women, 50+ who have stayed together (with one or two changes) ever since.

Q: In your experience, how does community dance benefit older people?

A: The work we produce, and the way it is produced, addresses the ageism which “leads to poorer health, social isolation, earlier deaths and cost economies billions”. By showing that getting older can be liberating and life enhancing, and through working intergenerationally, we demonstrate the richness, value and importance of older people’s lives and contributions to local communities.

Moving Memory has a strong track-record of making a significant difference to the health and activity levels of the people we work with. The way we do this is described in feedback from the commissioners of Moving Minds – a project for adults with enduring mental health issues in Medway.

Q: Why is it important for dance to have this community presence in regional areas where access to art is very limited?

A: Traditionally, dance and movement-based performance opportunities have been concentrated in cultural meccas – the major cities in the UK. Access to the creative spaces and training opportunities have been the domain of those who are privileged. We need to establish a presence in places that are deprived of such resources, harnessing the diverse experiences of different communities, celebrating those people and offering new ways of putting their stories into the spotlight.

This feeds individuals’ and communities’ heart and soul, with knock on benefits in terms of health and well being socially, economically, culturally – in all ways.

Q: What’s the story of the Damnit!Danceit! project so far?

A: DamnitDanceit! was conceived as a result of a conversation I had with one of my daughters during lockdown about mental health and the need for a place and space to dance out sadness, anger, the heebie-jeebies, the stuff that pulls us down at times.

Moving Memory has done a lot of work in shopping centres and, in doing so, met and worked with a really diverse mix of people. So for DamnitDanceit! the basic idea was to take over a space in a shopping centre and explore the idea of establishing a flash mob company, investigating the benefits for participants, the community and the centre. It’s about empowering people to become the movers and makers of dances that tell their stories and experiences, and in doing so encouraging people to become the founders of a distinctive creative community.

We’ve piloted the project at two centres; the Pentagon in Chatham, and Royal Victoria in Tunbridge Wells. The response has been fabulous. Some people join us for the whole run of six weeks for the full two hour sessions, others pop in for a quick 10 minute groove and leave us feeling lighter. Both groups have subsequently been invited to be part of other performance events so, fingers crossed, we can really build on these successes in the next run.

Q: What has the reaction or feedback been when audiences watch the flash mob style performances?

A: Quite fabulous! Lots of passers-by stop to take part in the dance, lots of people filming and sharing the work on social media. It’s creating a sense of buzz and momentum around not only the participants but the wider community using the centres.

Q: What’s next for Moving Memory?

A: We’re at a really exciting time in our development. We are expanding our programme of work in various different localities, offering a comprehensive package which includes DamnitDanceit! groups and ‘Groovin Well’ groups which will take place in community settings run on similar principles to DamnitDanceit! but approaching the work at a slightly deeper level. The aim is to work towards creating an ongoing committed creative company which devises performances. These initiatives would be run by local facilitators who have been trained in Moving Memory practice, but who, in turn, would look to train others ensuring sustainability, led by locals, for locals.

We’re building partnerships with theatre venues in the localities to embed performances by older people in their programmes. This is kick started by our professional core company and their new piece, ‘The Devil’s Doorbell’ which goes into R&D this autumn. We hope to work with local groups to create ‘Openers’ for the venues’ shows.

And lastly, in collaboration with People Dancing, we’re in the process of creating an accredited Facilitator Training course which will be a mix of online and in person learning.

DamnIt!DanceIt! sessions run across Kent in Chatham: Pentagon Shopping Centre Wednesdays at 1.15-3.15pm until 26th October.

Tunbridge Wells: Royal Victoria Place Fridays at 1.15-3.15pm until 28th October.

kid subjunctive by Funsch Dance | Review

Words by Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Things began before beginning…dancers danced behind oblivious raised programs…house lights buzzed. Was the dance in the adjusting curtains and the diagonal warm-up jogs? Was the dance in the placement of the microphone or in its rendezvous with a dancer’s pair of lips? When folks finally muted their chitchat, hovering over the sound of bare feet brushing against marley…was it also the dance?

The words “don’t say anything” raised ears, as if directed outwards, eerily accusing us of daydreaming with the start of the dance. And suddenly the stage resembled an invisible jungle gym, its kid players taste-testing its structures in randomised motions. The movement of the four dancers (including choreographer Christy Funsch) appeared compartmentalised, like the organized rooms and hallways of a building but at times rogue, unexplained runaways.

The dance itself described creation, the incomprehensible blurbs of the performers bleeding into the mic – “me me me me” – a gestural glossary referenced by an occasional synchronisation but otherwise abandoned in roundabout, lackadaisical sequences.

As in an improvisational score, the dance demanded attention, to the body’s pathways with and without others, and its ticks front and back. Before beginning, things began. The dance, both in and outside itself, reminded me about how makers loop-de-loop through decisions like rollercoaster routes, unsure of which and whose take priority over another. A choreographer might string beads like they do dances, selecting and de-selecting, sorting and tossing, accepting what doesn’t make it in exchange for what does.

kid subjunctive twisted and turned, a piece to sit and wonder about the why and the what of it. Dancers in day-to-day clothes, constructing themselves through linear sets of gesture and into an organism with a mind of its own.

kid subjunctive premiered 08-10 September 2022 in a double bill with Nol Simonse and Jim Cave at CounterPulse in San Francisco, California.

Performance, conversation, movement and sound generation: Christy Funsch, Emily Hansel, Zoe Huey, Peiling Kao, Jenna Marie, and Phoenicia Pettyjohn

Music: Lou Reed

Lighting Design: Jim Cave.

The Wedding by Gecko a mastery in physical theatre | review

Words by Bengi-Sue Şirin

Wednesday 8th June 2022 is the day that Paula Rego died. I love her work; its cynical slant on society; the cartwheels it dances over norms and expectations; the incorporation of humour in unexpected ways, in the darkest of places. So to end Wednesday 8th June seeing Gecko Theatre’s show The Wedding feels like an apt homage to ideas that fascinated Paula Rego. Gecko’s programme notes describe the piece thus:

The Wedding is inspired by the complexities of human nature: the struggle between love and anger, creation and destruction, community and isolation. In a blur of wedding dresses and contractual obligations, our extraordinary ensemble of international performers will guide audiences through a dystopian world in which we are all brides, wedded to society.

I can’t help but think of Rego’s magnificent 1994 painting ‘Bride’, an arresting part of her Dog Women series. It strikes me because the bride, attired in white for what society tells us is ‘the best day of our lives,’ looks so remote, so inexplicable. So much the figure of the complexities of human nature. I find it a compellingly jarring reframing, when the wedding becomes a symbol of struggle, discontent or oppression.

This theme is in keeping with Gecko’s artistic vision. They are an Ipswich-based physical theatre company who, in their words, ‘create performance that explore contemporary themes relevant to the society in which we live, performance that is inspiring and provocative.’ Under the leadership of Artistic Director Amit Lahav, Gecko have performed their 7 shows and 2 films at venues all across the world, from the Fringe to the stage to the GCSE Dance syllabus. I have not come across any of their work before tonight but I see that Gecko have a buzz about them – the audience at Barbican Theatre are for the most part a young, hip, Peckham Levels crowd. And with disco music in the background and smoke filling the auditorium, it almost feels like I am at a bar. The Wedding is back by popular demand after a highly popular 2019 run. How many non-establishment stage shows can say that?

The lights dim. When they come back on, we see a white dress hanging centre-stage, and what looks like the end of a giant cylinder slide pouring onto some cushions downstage left. Kind of Louise Bourgeois meets Tracey Emin? Out of silence we hear rapid gleeful cries, cleverly ricocheting from side to side – and then I realise, it is somebody whizzing down the giant slide! Moments later, a man shoots out of the chute. Other dancers enter this way, too. The audience are delighted, I can feel the thrill in the air. Tonally, it is playful, madcap, avant-garde. I am hooked.

The Wedding to me is a series of vignettes linked by an overriding theme, ricocheting from side to side like echoes from a giant slide. It is one of those dance shows where I best conceptualise it through moments. One of these moments near the beginning which is etched onto my memory is where a woman is bepuppeted by four male dancers around her. They use sticks and a square of white fabric to ingeniously cover her like those parachute games we used to play at school, lifting and rotating it above her. At points, she stands on top of it, and the men pull at it with sticks to make it appear like she is floating. The fabric alternates between a lightness that floats above her, to an oppression that pulls her down. We hear a riot of Balkan brass, music you would hear in the polka tent. Confetti falls in piñata-fast bursts, like it will do for much of the piece. The fact that she wears a wedding dress sharpens the knives that carve this imagery – of a woman happy, or of a woman trapped.

Another moment I found really engaging was the suitcase scene. The stage was empty apart from a lone suitcase. Just as I was starting to wonder, how do I unpack this image, a real live MAN popped out. The way he did it conveyed that the suitcase was his home, and that we had disturbed him but he would be happy to entertain us for a bit. This man – Mario Patrón – is a master of physical theatre. He moves in the manner of a cartoon lizard (or gecko) with agile, sideways comedy. Patrón retrieves a radio from his suitcase-home and props it up on top, playing a lively track to accompany his dancing. He speaks all the while, a mix of his native Spanish and the kind of English that a street performer uses to tempt tourists into stopping and watching. I realise that that is exactly what he is doing; there is a hat in front of him, he has the charm and the moves… Then out of the suitcase-home pops a woman, danced by Wai Shan Vivian Luk. She chatters lovingly to him, but it is not in English or Spanish… It is in her native language? Despite the different dialects, the two clearly establish a relationship for us all to see. I am amazed that I can form a storyline out of such aural chaos, but the strength of the choreography and the dancers is such. This particular scene is really sweet and personable – perhaps a positive angle on matrimony? But, I later realise, it’s actually setting us up for a harder fall when Patrón undergoes horrific violence at the hands of a violent thug in a bridal dress, unhelped by the state and left nearly for dead. Many interpretations could be made of this storyline, but for me, the institution of marriage is shown to victimise otherwise happy people. It is brutal, but a point very well made.

I realise as I write this that light, comedic moments in The Wedding arc to really dark places. Picture this – three suited and booted men, packing themselves into a very small booth that resembles a room, in the centre of a large stage. The booth has windows and what looks like furniture inside. The scale, the motivation… It is bizarre and funny. But then one of the men out of nowhere cries, “I’m struggling to breathe!” He clambers up, jolting through what would be the roof of the booth in desperate thrusting escape attempts. He begins to choke, strangled by the confines of his tie, again unhelped by the people around him. Voiceover assumes his inner narrative, repeating, “I’m struggling to breathe” over and over until…. Deadpan, droll, and in reference to the metaphorical wedding we find ourselves trapped in with society: “I want a divorce.”

So the parallels with Paula Rego are certainly there. Society, the state… They are portrayed as oppressive, violent, life-ruining things. We see the despair Patrón and Luk are left in after his attack as they hug like they have nothing left but each other. This moment, toward the end of The Wedding, marks a turning point. A single warm pink light illuminates the stage as the rest of the cast, in roles of victims rather than oppressors, wander onstage and form an even bigger hug around them. The damage done by the state is healing through people taking care of one another. After all the show’s fanfare and noise, this scene is stripped back and beautiful; the acoustic album. Even the simplicity of the circle formation suddenly appears transcendental. And now too there is confetti – but much less, and much more gently – soft and wayward, like falling petals. From this point, the pinky lighting toughens to a much more fierce and fiery orange, and the ensemble ride the wave of the collective to take their seats on a horizontal line of chairs. For what I now realise is the first moment of total unity in the piece, they clap their hands, stamp their feet, and chant their newfound group strength in a rousing, upbeat rhythm. It surges, more and more intense – and ends, triumphantly, the kind of ending that you can’t help but love and applaud furiously. All the brutality and darkness was harrowing, but it brought us here.

The Wedding whizzes us down a gigantic emotional slide – starting at silliness, looping through playfulness and charm, taking us to the depths of state brutality and the oppression of the individual, and then giving us a final push down the tunnel of collective healing and catharsis. The interval-less 80 minutes fly by, which for me, is rare (I value my processing time). Indeed, ‘The Wedding’ does not have the ease-to-follow of linear narrative. It is much less like a three course wedding banquet than a lively buffet affair, where you have much more freedom over your helping and you can individually choose which hors you’d most like with which d’oeuvres. And I feel this is extremely pertinent to the idea of the piece. Life, as dictated and interpreted by oneself, as much more affirming than that to which the state would have us wed.

First Love an ode to romance| Marco D’Agostin | Review

Word by Giordana Patumi.

‘First Love’ is like a letter put into an envelope and addressed to your first love. It is the story of a young boy in the 90s who did not like soccer but liked cross-country skiing and dance. But, since he did not know any movement he enjoyed replicating those of skiing, in the living room, in his room, swallowed by the perennial green of a province in Northern Italy.

Marco D’Agostin, winner of the 2018 Ubu Award as best performer under 35, has developed his research since 2010 as a guest choreographer on numerous international projects, presenting his work in many of the main Italian and European festivals.

His work questions the role and function of memory, and focuses on the relationship between performer and spectator: dance, a complex geography in which sounds, words and movements collide continuously, always tends towards the emotional compromise of those who perform it and those who watch it.

Active in the field of dance and performance, Marco D’Agostin is known for his fluid, dynamic poetics. After a disjointed training with masters of international renown (Claudia Castellucci, Yasmeen Godder, Nigel Charnock, Rosemary Butcher), he consolidates his path both as a performer (for the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, Alessandro Sciarroni, Tabea Martin, Liz Santoro among others) and as an author (his works have been touring all over Europe since 2010).

D’Agostin states, “It interests me when I see a body move or I make my body move, that somehow there is a surrender on the part of one’s biography and one’s sentimental posture towards the world and the things of the world. There is the surrender of something, that is, that the gesture is filled with something with a level of self that is not necessarily anatomical, but that has to do with feelings. I would say in the last instance, in order for the feeling to move the body, something must necessarily be surrendered.”

Sometimes we rediscover forgotten drawers where old receipts, photographs, greeting cards and small objects are hidden; preserved and safely stored in distant times.

The memory resurfaces and illuminates a faded past in which those items were precious treasures, untouchable amulets, giving back lifeblood to feelings left to dry like flowers between the pages of lost diaries.

This is the feeling you get when you open, before the beginning of ‘First Love’, the envelope given to each spectator. Inside the envelope, there are no hall sheets, the director’s notes for Marco D’Agostin’s work are a photograph, the words of a song, a pin with the drawing of a mountain and a sticker. They tell through metonymic references, the first love of the dancer: cross-country skiing and the heroine who represents it, the champion Stefania Belmondo, who in the polaroid kept inside the envelope smiles next to a still childish Marco D’Agostin.

‘First Love’ is a cry of revenge, desperate exultation, dismemberment of nostalgia, in a swing between realism and poetry, between body and word, which originates in the reinterpretation of the most famous race of the Piedmontese Stefania Belmondo champion, the 15 km free technique of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, a mythical feat that immediately becomes legend, an incredible epic tale suspended between dream and reality that culminates in a victory so impossible that, as the words of the commentator say, “it seems to be staged”.

D’Agostin builds an intimate plot in which body and voice interact to compose a new and unusual grammar, at the same time pressing and delicately poetic of poignant beauty.

With ski steps morphing into dance steps, onstage we find a boy who has now grown up, no longer a skier but a dancer, no longer on the snow but onstage, able to merge the tumultuous memories of his first falling in love with the competitive atmosphere of sport and the emotions that only the Olympics can give. The imagination of Marco as a child, divided between his passion for dancing and skiing, overlaps with the reconstruction of the original commentary of the race, the dramaturgic score of the entire show.

And it is here that an unexpected short circuit is triggered: the private story, ephemeral and nostalgic, mixes with the heroic narration of the sporting event, giving us an interpretation that leaves us breathless. The public, however, in the dark of the room relives that race on his skin.

The liminal contrast between the extreme autobiographical subjectivity of the narrator’s perspective and the cold chronicle report enhances the intensity of the story: the dimensions of past and present interpenetrate, and before our eyes the dancer becomes, at the same time, object and subject of the narration. Because D’Agostin brings together in a single body-voice the athletic gesture that becomes a spectacle, its narration, and the essence of being a spectator, whether theatrical or athletic.

This double, or rather triple plan of action, is made explicit only in the few moments in which the incitements addressed to the skier turn into exhortations addressed to Marco, to himself, a dancer who is no longer a competitor but still a competitor, because the attitude to competition is never detached from everyday life, the discipline to concentration is never forgotten and is also reflected in the choreography, which thickens the liquidity of nostalgia in a score of movements and contractions that is rigid and meticulous.

D’Agostin meets his myth and onstage rewrites that love letter lying in an envelope of memories in the hands of the spectator. But he does not limit himself to interpreting it in another handwriting – that of the body – transforming it instead into a process of expiation and redemption: Marco didn’t become a cross-country skier but a dancer. “Forgive me my first love” sang Adele (and Marco together with her) at the opening of the show – and in his dance we recognise, in fact, the need to pay off a debt towards an apparently betrayed dream, but also the will to express gratitude towards a possibility, a road, a life that even if not covered, is in another form still present.

Stefania Belmondo, meanwhile, wins the race. She triumphs, despite everything. D’Agostin, once again director of his own memory, calls on the stage the snow, the beginning and the end, the root and the legacy, the boundary where the sense thickens, that begins to fall placid and melancholic on the stage. A stage that few times has been so close to life.

Celebrating the beauty of classical Indian dance styles | Interview

Words by Katie Hagan.

To celebrate its 30^th year, Leicester-based arts organisation Nupur Arts is holding the specially curated Āanartam festival. Taking place on 13^th November 2021 at the Curve Theatre, Leicester, Āanartam will feature work from UK-based classical Indian dance and contemporary dance artists. The in-person showcase will take audiences on a passage from one classical Indian dance style to the next; revering forgotten traditional forms and introducing new hybrids. Dance art journal spoke to three of the programmed artists that are showing work at Āanartam: Anjana Bala, Shalini Shivshankar and Shreya Vadnerkar.

DAJ: Hi all! Thanks for chatting to us. To kick things off, could you explain what your work is about?

Anjana Bala: My piece is about the duality of uncertainty. On the one hand, it cripples and chokes us. On the other, uncertainty is that which is left unfinished, a sense of potential of what is yet to come. I had some images of knots and frayed threads dangling in the wind that I worked with. It was created during the lockdown, so it reflects some of the sentiments of that moment in time. I think art produced in moments of collective catastrophe can become an interesting archive of feelings! I did not research too much, just moved however my body wanted to in that moment, with some structure and revision, almost like a working-through.

Shalini Shivshankar: As far as Mohiniyattam is concerned, my work is primarily focused on establishing the dance style in the UK. It’s such a beautiful and graceful style. Yet unfortunately not a lot of artists out there who perform the style are maintaining its authenticity. Coming from my training with the late Kalamandalam Kalyanikuttyamma, I feel it a responsibility to spread this style.

Shreya Vadnerkar: My work is called ‘Breakin’ Boundaries’. It showcases Bharatanatyam as well as break dance, the latter of which I have explored over the past few years. The work is about identity, being British-Indian and my experiences. It explores the concept of dual identity and what that means to me. My piece explores these labels that society puts on us and how to break free from them. It also looks at what happens after this liberation. It is quite a journey; finding out who I am as a person and where I do and don’t fit in.

DAJ: If your work was a food, what would it taste like?

Anjana Bala: Sweet and sour something!

Shalini Shivshankar: To describe Mohiniyattam as food is a lovely concept, except it is food for the soul and the heart – and of course the body. It’s wholesome, nourishing food that caters to all the senses and aspects of the mind and body. It’s a combination of the right nutrients that one can have. That’s how I would describe Mohiniyattam or classical art forms.

Shreya Vadnerkar: There are so many things! If I had to pick it would be panipuri. Like panipuri, my work is a burst of different flavours… you have sweet and salt. This mirrors the big journey I go on in my world where there are intense moments but also sweet ones.

DAJ: What attracted you to showing your work at Āanartam?

Anjana Bala: I was lucky enough to be part of Project Emerge, which was produced by NAYA. They were kind enough to invite us back to perform at Āanartam.

Shalini Shivshankar: Myself and my school Upahaar School of Dance were invited to this significant festival. It’s only through these occasions that we can share the beauty of this art form. It is very sad for it to be known very little. The more people who watch and enjoy this art form, the more people can benefit from it.

Shreya Vadnerkar: I was lucky enough to be invited! It all stemmed from being selected as a dance artist for Project Emerge as part of Nupur Arts Youth Association. It was a choreographic development project where we worked with Kamala Devam, who is a Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance choreographer. We premiered work created during lockdown and so I am excited to perform in real life and bring this work to classical and non-classical audiences in Leicester.

DAJ: Is it important to represent the diversity within Indian classical dance? Both in terms of the forms and the people working with those forms?

Anjana Bala: That is an interesting question, because often I do not associate diversity in any sense of the word with the Indian classical arts. In India, as is well known, the production of the classical arts is still quite caste-ist, with an aesthetic erasure of other communities that have participated in its creation. Some say this is changing, but I wouldn’t know. I think when these arts are brought outside of their home, to the UK and elsewhere, there can be the possibility of “diversity” because of the minority subject position of its participants. Diversity of voices, of bodily languages, of questions of form. Anusha Kedhar writes about this in her recent book, about the need for “flexible bodies” – how bodies and movements languages are created to mirror the flexible identity of those participating in it.

That being said, I don’t think there should be a “need” or great “importance” to represent diversity in Indian classical arts, as any ethnic minority should not feel pressured to represent their culture in any sort of way. That pressure to represent can become its own form of the commodification of culture (i.e., representing the form in an “exciting way” to obtain funding, ensuring the themes are intelligible to British audiences, etc.)

Shreya Vadnerkar: I think it’s super important to represent the diversity. I feel a lot of the UK audiences are not aware of the different styles within Indian classical dance. It is not known that there are seven and more styles. UK audiences may know Western dance styles, but a lot of people don’t know about the variety of forms within Indian classical dance.

Having showcases like Aanartam bring these styles together. There’s Odissi, Kathak, Mohiniyattam, Kuchipudi. It’s key to showcase these. They can also be danced by anyone with a passion for it, not just south Asians.

L-R: Image of Shreya Vadnerkar and Shalini Shivshankar.

DAJ: As professionals working in Indian classical dance, what is the style’s future? Is the style evolving in any way?

Anjana Bala: I don’t know how the style is evolving, but I think there is a general thread of minimalism and the use of abstract themes, when the form itself is quite ornate and specific. Usually that represents a “Westernisation” of aesthetic forms, but I can’t be sure of this! In any case, I hope however it evolves. It includes new ways of learning and making work together with an attention to safe spaces.

DAJ: DAJ is a magazine that focuses on independent dance artists. As an independent artist, what advice can you give to your peers and those starting out in the industry?

Shreya Vadnerkar: Believe in yourself! It is never too late to start. Regardless of age and ability, anyone can do it. In this country British Asians are separated from their roots but having this connection through classical Indian dance is super important.

Āanartam takes place on 13th November 2021 at the Curve Theatre, Leicester. For tickets book here: https://linktr.ee/NupurArts. Header image is of Anjana Bala, photo credit William Pavli.