Dance On Ensemble (Presented at Opera and Theatre Madlenianum as part of 58th BITEF)
In an ageist society where prejudices towards older people lead to systemic discrimination, the answer to the question of when we get old can significantly influence someone’s personal and professional life. In the world of dance, it was long common that performers around the age of 40 were expected to retire or gradually reduce their professional engagement. Although the situation is not as harsh as it was before, at every progressing age above 40, there are fewer working professional dancers.
Artistic initiatives that spotlight the work of mature and older dancers are of great importance not only because they’re offering work to those performers, but also because they are proving that aging people are integral part of society and can be vital subjects in the creative process. At last year’s 57th edition of BITEF, the audience had a chance to see Igor Koruga’s performance Desire to make a solid history will end up in failure where only dancers aged 60 and above performed. This production by Stanica – Servis for Contemporary Dance from Belgrade not only gave a chance to older-generation dancers to express themselves artistically but created a subjective, non-systematic history of the independent dance scene in the last thirty years.
Mellowing, a hypnotizing minimalist one-hour dance piece that opened this year’s BITEF, continued the dialogue about the relationship between age and dance. Its production company, Dance On Ensemble from Berlin which was founded in 2015, creates performances in which only dancers above 40 take part. They aim to present ageing as a process of constant motion, growth and development through productions that are no less artistically relevant than shows where younger dancers perform.
Dance On – Mellowing. Photos: Jubal Battisti
Mellowing doesn’t particularly thematize age in an explicit way. The closest that the choreographer Christos Papadopoulos comes to that is at the beginning of the performance when a dancer picks up a small object from the floor – could it be a hearing aid, one wonders – and as she brings it closer to her ear, music starts playing on the stage. She moves the object away and the music stops, only to bring it back again to her ear when the music starts playing again and doesn’t stop until the end of the performance. The stage gradually fills with 10 dancers who perform Papadopoulos’ choreography.
The aesthetics of Mellowing are coherently minimalist throughout the performance, as all elements of the show, not just the choreography and the dance but the music, lights and costume, work in a symbiosis to create a mesmerizing composition. The choreography is mostly based on a few simple repetitive movements, particularly a two-step march intertwined with gentile swaying of hips and shoulders. No matter how the dancers group themselves on stage, they get around using variations of this movement. It’s only during the crescendo near the end of the show when the dancers engage in bolder, sweeping movements, their bodies moving faster and their arms swinging in dramatic gestures. The lights (designed by Eliza Alexandropoulou), which were mostly stable throughout the show, further underline this point of culmination by becoming alternately weaker, allowing the play of performers’ shadows, and more intense in different colours.
Mellowing would not be the hypnotic piece it is without the electro-minimal music by Coti K, a composer and musician who has collaborated with numerous Greek artists including Yorgos Lanthimos. His composition for Mellowing simultaneously brings to mind the work of Philip Glass, with its repetition of simple melodic structures, and the sounds of the electronic dance scene of Berlin. The score’s use of repetition is a suitable base for the choreography that’s limited in the use of types of movement, but its occasional slow beats can remind us of people having wild fun while dancing in an underground club.
It’s playful and intriguing to consider which value system a performance such as Mellowing represents. On one hand, collectivism takes a front-row seat in that system, as dancers engage in synchronized movements almost throughout the whole show. Thanks to the costumes created by Werkstattkollektiv, they are dressed similarly, in shades of gray and in relaxed everyday clothes in which it is easy to move. But unlike many traditional forms of mass dance where an accent on uniformity can lead to extremes, and even be associated with totalitarianism, Christos Papadopoulos also nurtures individuality as each dancer adds their own small but significant twist to their movement. This comes on top of the fact that the performers, although all above 40, are of different ages. Mellowing is a choreographic piece that proves that aging can be a thrilling experience and that, along the road, both collectivity and individuality can be sustained in a healthy balance.
Credits:
Choreography: Christos Papadopoulos// Artistic Director of the Dance On Ensemble: Ty Boomershine// Choreographic Assistant: Georgios Kotsifakis// Music: Coti K
Dancers: Ty Boomershine, Javier Arozena, Alba Barral Fernández, Emma Lewis, Gesine Moog, Miki Orihara, Tim Persent, Jone San Martin, Marco Volta, Lia Witjes Poole
For further information, visit: festival.bitef.rs
Borisav Matić is a critic and dramaturg from Serbia. He is the Regional Managing Editor at The Theatre Times. He regularly writes about theatre for a range of publications and media.
He’s a member of the feminist collective Rebel Readers with whom he co-edits Bookvica, their platform for literary criticism, and produces literary shows and podcasts. He occasionally works as a dramaturg or a scriptwriter for theatre, TV, radio and other media. He's the administrator of IDEA - the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association.
