22 July 2021

Update Summer 21: Celebrating Age vs. Ageism

July 22, 2021:
An article posted on Facebook that originally appreared in The Observer (https://observer.com/2021/07/ageism-dance-older-dancers/) writes about ageism and dance. My comment to that post, followed by a selection of links to recent videos:

These articles drive me nuts. At 70 and still an active mover for the camera and maker of screendances featuring an aging but defiant and increasingly expressive body, I'm so over this New York-centric definition of legitimate dancers and dancing, as if major media and arts writers have any idea what goes on outside their narrow confines. Ageism is only one aspect of this myopic and exclusionary mindset that is blind to dance artists outside the exclusive cache of dance artists in major metropolitan areas who give arts writers their cachet. I like what Parul Sehgal wrote in today's N Y Times in a review of a new biography of the elusive, reclusive Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa: On Adrienne Rich: "She held that Emily Dickinson chose seclusion not out of eccentricity but as a practical measure: to fasten her concentration and keep distraction at bay. As an artist, Dickinson "was determined to survive," Rich wrote, "to use her powers, to practice necessary economies." These articles have been seeping into media during the pandemic, as writers and critics have so few performances to write about... as if their desperation to find material is allowing them to discover and stake their claim to previously unexplored aspects of our field. I suppose it is useful in elevating the awareness of the general reader to these aspects. I find most of these writings tedious and self-righteous, old hat... irrelevant to the matters of survival and creative inspiration in my daily practice.

Recent Videos:
Late Quartet: https://youtu.be/i4t3rEml-n0
The F**king Bach Chaconne: https://vimeo.com/567853460
Likewise: https://vimeo.com/567951732
Let Evening Come: https://vimeo.com/563955932
Conversation (for Bill): https://vimeo.com/562963905 
Notations at 70: https://vimeo.com/546944331
Mikey Can’t Sleep: https://vimeo.com/558539844 
A cappella: https://vimeo.com/543345968
Boomer Trinity: https://vimeo.com/539113150