Keep dancing!

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We live in difficult times – increasingly divided by age, race, income, gender, sexuality, political affiliation, education, religion and region. You name it, we are separated by it, and, as a result we are becoming a mystery to each other, to be feared, envied or pitied rather than appreciated, valued and understood.

I have worked in adult and higher education for more than 40 years and have always tried to bridge these barriers, encouraging people to work together and focus on the things that unite rather than divide. I would like to share one example taken from the end of my working life that focuses on the age barrier, and the power of dance as a connecting thread.

The last formal role I held was not a paid job at all. It was as a dancer and chair of the trustees of the Sage Dance Company, a ballet-based performance company for the over 55s. Sage aims to nurture the health and wellbeing of older people by keeping their minds and bodies active through dance. As a result, they feel younger, happier and more connected to a shared community

My involvement with Sage was definitely work, although no money changed hands! It takes hard work to persuade a paying audience that it is worth coming to see older dancers. It takes hard work to persuade the dancers themselves that they are worth coming to see. And it takes tact and diplomacy to work alongside an artistic director who was a former soloist of the Royal Ballet.

Courage and choreography

A number of us in the company did have dance training in our youth, some to quite a high level, but performing at this age takes real courage and requires effective choreography to make the older dancer look good. But, above all, it takes a willingness to work across the age barrier.

In many societies, to be an elder confers a certain distinction and an acknowledgement that the wisdom acquired over a long life may be useful to the young. However, in our society, older people are living increasingly isolated lives. When they can no longer care for themselves, they are segregated in care homes to often lead lives of unbelievable boredom and futility.

This is not the fault of those looking after them but of a society that treats ageing as a medical condition rather than a natural stage in the life cycle. If given the opportunity, older people retain many of the skills, talents, aptitudes, wishes, hopes and fears that they have carried throughout their lives, and each and every one of them possesses a rich and unique personal history.

Breaking down the age barrier

When I took on the chairmanship of Sage, my one aim was to break down this age barrier and to create performance opportunities featuring dancers of all ages working together. I wanted the audience to simply see dancers, not older or younger dancers, just dancers, performing to the best of their ability. And that is exactly what happened.

On 10 April 2018 at the Arts Educational Schools Theatre in West London we achieved our long-held ambition of hosting an evening of dance for all. We called it EVERY BODY DANCE! After four months of very hard work, we created a programme that featured dancers of all ages and showcased a wide variety of dance styles from classical ballet to contemporary, from tap to hip-hop. The majority of the performers were not professional dancers, but together we showed that everybody can and should dance throughout their whole lives.

These are some of the words that the audience used in their feedback to us after the show:

“Life-affirming, beautiful, creative, fun, graceful, exciting, fluid, inspirational, joyful, uplifting, emotional, thought-provoking, delightful, stimulating, well-chosen, happy, imaginative, moving, moments of unbearable tenderness, truly fabulous!”

Looking back this was undoubtedly a significant milestone for Sage. We had always been more than a dance class. We had always wanted to knock stereotypes on their heads, to show what people can achieve when they work together. It confirmed that the creative life can and should be kept alive for as long as possible, and showed younger dancers that older people do not lose the passions they had in their youth; they just learn to express them differently.

Every Body Dance

Fourteen years after it was created under the original artistic direction of ex-Royal Ballet dancer Simon Rice, Sage is still going strong. In the six years since our original event, we have continued to work with dancers of all ages and created many performances that celebrate the ‘Every Body Dance’ theme.

We are now a self-running company working with different choreographers each year. Fortunately, they tend not to have preconceived notions of what older dancers can and can’t do, and work with us in very positive ways to help us experiment and keep on learning. We are currently working on a lyrical ballet piece, an Irish reel, a jazz number and a contemporary piece danced to poetry rather than music. 

And our next performance (Life Lines) takes place in London very soon. We have been part of the Bloomsbury Festival for many years now and are delighted to be doing so again in the company of the Rack Press poets, and Alice Mary Jelaska, a British-Croatian musician.

You can join us for a celebration of poetry, music and dance or, better still, come and dance with us. We are always looking for new members. As RSA CEO Andy Haldane said in a recent Fellowship newsletter, there has never been a more important time for us all to recognise the power of our cultural life in keeping us connected.

Barbara Berkeley-Hill is an adult learning and development specialist.