For two nights from tomorrow in Rome there is the possibility to attend a most unusual dance gala. While there are only four taking part, their ages combined total 266 years. The dancers are Mats Ek, Ana Laguna, Susanne Linke and Dominique Mercy, Laguna being the youngest of the quartet at just sixty.
Playing on the politically correct term “differently abled”, the programme is called Quartet Gala: Differently Young Stars. In a society where the phrase ‘younger generation' often has the expressions ‘making room' and ‘giving a chance' not far behind, there is a tendency to dismiss the older generation and in the process discard their accumulated knowledge and artistry; nowhere is this more evident than in the world of dance. Once Margot Fonteyn, Alicia Alonso, Carla Fracci et al were dancing the repertoire roles well into their fifties. Now Sylvie Guillem is deemed remarkable because she has gone on until fifty before saying adieux. Baryshnikov is one of the few stars continuing to appear on stage in his dance-theatre pieces.
Daniele Cipriani is proposing this over-60s evening at Rome's Teatro Argentina where Mats Ek, together with his on and off stage partner Ana Laguna, will perform his pieces Potato and Memory. Memory was a work created fifteen years ago for two actors, and Ek has been dancing it with Laguna for the past decade. It's a domestic scene between a long established couple, but he says it isn't autobiographical even if “you use what you have, which is your own life”. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle he said,
It was a big experience for me to return to the stage and I was happy to do it with Ana because I respect her, and she gives a lot on stage. I'm not at all on the same level as her though!
Potato, too, shows the familiar complicity between a couple and, with both pieces, they are pas de deux without sex, without violent passion, but extraordinarily intimate all the same.
Who better than a Pina Bausch dancer to illustrate that there is dance over forty. Dominique Mercy, 65, was with the Tanztheater Wuppertal from its formation. His Tanztheater colleague Pascal Merighi created a solo for him entitled That Paper Boy, of which The Arts Desk stated,
In many ways classic Bausch – rich, strange, immersive, and often obscure.
To complete the quartet is Susanne Linke, 71, the oldest of the group (Ek is 70), with the work A Lost Solo…. With Greeting to Dore. Linke, who with Bausch, was one of the innovators of German Tanztheater, created the piece to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.
As a fan of the ‘older generation' since I was part of the ‘younger generation' – taking every opportunity to drink in the words of theatrical (and not only) dinosaurs – I'm delighted to see that there is space for The Elders. Their ‘memory' can inform and form the youngest of talents… if they have the capacity to understand, watch, listen and learn.
Tickets
24, 25 June 2015 at 9pm
QUARTET GALA: DIVI DIVERSAMENTE GIOVANI
Teatro Argentina
Largo di Torre Argentina, 52 – Rome
Information: 06 684000311
Email: biglietteria@teatrodiroma.net
www.teatrodiroma.net
and buy online through vivaticket.it
26 June 2015 at 7pm
Encounter with Mats Ek
TEATRO DI VILLA TORLONIA
Via Lazzaro Spallanzani, 1a Rome
Free entrance (reserve a place on 06 93663062 or programmazione@danielecipriani.it)
26 and 27 June 2015
WORKSHOP with Ana Laguna, Susanne Linke, Dominique Mercy
TEATRO DI VILLA TORLONIA
Via Lazzaro Spallanzani, 1a Rome
Booking: 06 93663062 – 348 3132438 or info@danzaeffebi.com
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
Utterly delightful, utterly affirming. Unless you are over 50, you cannot realize how much ageism dominates the World–in all fields of endeavor.
Bravo! Well said.