Dancing Disruption

photo: Lyon Smith

Limiting notions and perceptions of age, beauty, and technical prowess have dominated Western dance for years. These persistent ideas often drive dancers to seek new careers by the time they are in their 30’s. However, there is a growing movement within the dance world determined to change this. This article highlights one local example. 

Older and Reckless, a performance series created by Moonhorse Dance Theatre, disrupts typical notions of who and what constitutes dance. Claudia Moore founded Older and Reckless to honour and celebrate the older artists in her series and she trusted the audience to find the beauty and meaning that these bodies convey.

As we get older, certain things come up in life and we have to put our creativity, 

both physical and mental, into facing these challenges. It takes a beautiful courage

and bravery for the older artist to do this and I hope audiences see something that 

really resonates with them on their own life journey.

                                                     - Claudia Moore, 2017 

The need for older dancers to be brave may dissipate as audiences grow to expect and embrace difference on our stages. Conceptions of technique are expanding, as non-Western dance forms claim space on our stages and thrill audiences. Delineations of professional and non-professional may become less significant as dance becomes more inclusive and community-minded.  

The Older and Reckless project can be understood as an act of refusal  to limit who can dance, how they dance, and for how long. It is also a provocation, making new demands of an audience to witness and be with the full range of limitations and possibilities offered by these moving bodies. Claudia’s bold vision for Older and Reckless is carried forward by newly appointed Artistic Director Allison Cummings who explained to us:

Moonhorse Dance Theatre’s  mandate is to focus on lifelong dance artists over 

the age of 45. However, our audiences have the opportunity through our 

programming to directly participate in dance making and performing with 

professionals through our Dance Encounters classes and through our annual 

Community Performance Project. This past Older & Reckless, our annual presentation, 

I had the pleasure of creating a new piece with 16 beautiful and enthusiastic mature 

members of the greater MDT community. Choreographing on non-professionals opens 

up doors to ideas and movement language that is nuanced, specific to the participants 

and offers an eye opening invitation to embody my lifelong practice through new 

perspectives. Creating "We will go" was an absolute blast that created a bond that only 

dancing together can do. 

What follows is a collection of reflections by members of the Community Performance Project described above by Allison Cummings. These  reflections are interspersed with anonymous statements by other members of the project explaining why they chose to participate. We invite you to pause and consider the ways in which these dancers disrupt some of our strongly held beliefs, biases, and assumptions about dance. 

We Will Go:  Reflections from Community Dancers 

Dancing on Stage at Harbourfront!

By Jane Deluzio

​​Close your eyes and picture a company of dancers. More likely  than not your image will not include the likes of us…sixteen community dance lovers in our fifties, sixties and seventies and maybe one or two in our eighties as well! Yet… in November 2023, we performed We Will Go on stage at the Harbourfront Theatre Centre in Toronto. Our choreographer Allison Cummings led us step by step through the creative process, repeating endlessly everything we forgot between rehearsals, and gently reminding us when we missed our cues or performed a step incorrectly.

 We opened the show to enthusiastic applause, perhaps because so many of our family members and friends were present. But I know that each and every one of us found the experience transformative. Many of us have continued to sign-up for dance classes for seniors with Moonhorse Dance Theatre. Friendships have evolved and the atmosphere in these classes is one of trust and risk taking. The rest of the program consisted of well-known professional artists in their later years who were mesmerizing to watch. Every one of these outstanding dancers disrupted every stereotype anyone ever had about dance and aging.

photo: Lyon Smith

The Disrupting and Glorious Effects of Theatre and Dance!

By Jody Terio

At 10 years old I started on the ballet path with a friend who was excited about it all. We would drive through the Montreal snow each Saturday morning with a parent who liked to drive on ice in crazy ways.  We would then enjoy an hour with Miss Suzie or her compatriots.  Around 12 years old, Miss Suzie decided that Elizabeth and I needed to start our way onto toe shoes which all seemed terribly exciting except that when I got up on the toes, my back severely ached.  While my friend went on to great things,  I ended up leaving ballet eventually.  The question of why she was able to pass through the eye of a needle and I was not, was a question not to be answered until I was 50.

Around the same time, I discovered a former Shakespearean actor who lived in my Montreal suburb, Mrs. Lowe, who taught drama at a small Unitarian church near me.  She brought monologues to the table every Tuesday at 4 pm and we all improved rapidly under her tutelage.  When she handed me the essay of St. Joan of Arc by George Bernard Shaw I discovered my talents as a thespian.

I decided early on as well, to become a pianist and took another educational route towards my future by following the Royal Conservatory Piano training into a University degree at Acadia. In Nova Scotia I had the good fortune to run into Eva Garbary, yet another British trained Shakespearean actor and founder of Mermaid Theatre who took us all on a very strange but interesting and entertaining journey together.

When I came to Toronto at 20, I rejoined another ballet class just for fun this time. I had a gentle beginner ballet teacher at a Russian dance place in North York and stayed at beginner level with her for over a year, loving every minute of the plies and tendus. She kept urging me to move to intermediate level.

Finally I went into a tougher class and was almost immediately injured. I still couldn’t figure this problem out so I turned my attention to Modern Dance Martha Graham Style and found my place at Pavlychenko Dance Studio on Yonge Street.   I managed to get in a few years of Modern with Nadia before she passed away of cancer and left us all devastated.  I moved over to Belly Dance with Diana Calenti, a beautiful (white) girl who had pushed the frontiers of Belly dance into a fusion of modern and belly dance. This was quite spectacular and less injury producing.   I was however told by a chiropractor who was being very honest with me, that I was not suited to the dance world as a career having not been properly trained in my youth.  I took her advice and went full tilt into the theatre world.

At around 26 years old I discovered theatre again in the form of Clown with Richard Pachinko, setting me on the path of laughter.  Eventually I set up my own shop, Little Red Theatre, and was able to use clown, music, dance and theatre all in one wonderful unit for children.  My lighthearted nature was suited to fairytale themes and uplifting endings which were the prerequisites for stories aimed at young audiences.

The company was to bring in choreographers, dancers, set designers, musicians and composers, writers and puppet makers over our 35 year arc to create beautiful, elegant and significant  magical theatre for audiences mainly ages 3 - 12.  The juxtaposition of dance and theatre showed itself in almost every aspect of our work, breaking up the stories into smaller segments for easy digestion.

At 50, I was told that I had a serious lumbar scoliosis that would leave me in a wheelchair by 80 years old.  Clearly that is not the path I am on.  I have continued to dance, do yoga etc. I am now 68 and highly doubt that I will be wheel chaired at 80.

Moonhorse offers a great opportunity to continue to be active and creative and best of all to learn new choreography.  Because I can manage my lower back issues through osteopathy and lots of remedial work, I celebrate the art of dance along with my peers. How this will all show up in my theatre world is yet to be determined.

The Joy of Moving with Others

By Lisa Harding

One of the biggest things I share with my fellow movers is that I fell in love with dance a long time ago, but my career path gradually led away from it. So it was incredible to first discover MOonhORsE Dance Theatre, and then to be a part of Allison Cummings’ Community Performance Project. It was a pleasure, and a revelation I’ll always be grateful for.

In our first rehearsals, simply the joy of moving with others was everything to me, awesome in itself. As Allison began to introduce movement patterns, and the choreography of “We Will Go” began to take shape, there was more. There were new challenges, like how to convey the mood of the piece and not just execute the steps; how to connect and truly dance with each other, how to be less wooden and more alive to the moment. Suffice it to say, I’d hardly ever performed before an audience before so these new dimensions grabbed my attention. Learning is my favourite!

Our two dance captains, professional artists Julia Sasso and Bonnie Kim, along with Allison, helped us to learn and remember the movement sequences in a sensing, non-judgemental sort of way. And I think this in turn encouraged the unconditional appreciation we all developed for each other. To move and breathe and sometimes laugh without the interference of my inner critic - now that’s a revelation!

It was also my first time to see the Older and Reckless Dances that followed, and I loved them. What struck me was that not only did they show the depth and beauty of several dancers who’ve committed themselves to dance, but also the wisdom in their bodies and way of moving. I think anyone believing that a dancer’s best dancing occurs in their 20s, would have to change their mind after seeing Older and Reckless.  

photo: Lyon Smith

Possibilities through Disruption

By Diane Coutts

Last year I had both my hips replaced. You might think bad hips are an old person problem, but I have had bad hips my whole life. I had hip dysplasia. It gave me incredible hip rotation, which was great for my competitive gymnastics and Cecchetti Ballet studies, but it caught up to me in my late teens/early twenties.

After high school, I began a degree in fine arts and danced with a company. But I quickly realized that dance needed to be a bigger part of my life, so I auditioned for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and was accepted into the professional summer program.

Because I suspected my hips would not tolerate a dancer’s life, I applied to the University of Manitoba for the School Architecture Interior Design Program and was also accepted. I was torn between these two careers. But after only a few weeks into the ballet program, I was barely able to walk up a flight of stairs and the advice I got from the other dancers was, “Take pain killers, ice, bandage and get back on your feet tomorrow”. If I kept up the dance, I envisioned myself disabled by the time I was 30.

DISRUPTION 1: I accepted the placement at the School of Architecture.

Even with taking it easier physically, I was in a great deal of pain and was getting cortisone shots to keep my mobility. Eventually, the pain lessened with the right exercise and me actually listening to my body when it was telling me how far I could push myself. My normal life was no longer disrupted by pain.

However, when I turned 56, my hip pain started again. During the years just prior, I had started to dance again as a Scottish Country Dancer which is a family endeavor. My late husband, two daughters and I all participated in this very social dance.

DISRUPTION 2: Once again I had to stop dancing.

I developed a severe limp and was in constant: pain standing, lying down, walking, sitting…breathing! By this point, my life was reduced to sitting for periods of time, doing some chores and limited walking. I would wake up most nights in severe pain. I had difficulty getting dressed and getting up stairs. I truly felt old. When I had reached the end of all possible treatments, hip replacement was the only option. I knew it was time I chose to be the disrupter.

DISRUPTION 3: I had the first hip replaced in December 2022 and the second in April 2023.

After a few months of focused therapy, I felt better, stronger, and more agile than I had in decades. My new hips aren’t as good as new, they are better than new because the originals were defective. I remember the first time I crossed my legs post surgery.  I was playing scrabble and was concentrating so hard while sitting on the couch that I didn’t notice that I had crossed my legs but something felt different. When I looked down to see how I was sitting, I started shrieking! I had not been able to do that in over 10 years. I honestly never thought I would be able to do that again.

If I could do this, what else could I do?

A friend of mine mentioned Older and Reckless, a group of seniors with varying degrees of dance experience from “in my living room” to “used to dance when I was younger” who get together to dance because they LOVE to dance. I noticed that they were looking for dancers for a fall community dance performance on stage at Harbourfront. I signed up and hoped I could do it.

DISRUPTION 4: I performed on the Harbourfront Stage with 15 other community dancers in a piece choreographed by Older and Reckless after an intensive rehearsal schedule.

I loved this experience. Not only did I dance on stage 6 months after my second surgery, a week later I went to the St. Andrew’s Ball where I danced a ceilidh for the first time in many years. This has re-opened a new creative drive that was there all along.

I want to choreograph and dance. With a new body and lots to express, I can live that career I gave up decades ago.

My goal now is to enjoy and express through dance and other art forms the eternal moments of life. I know I can disrupt as well as be disrupted. At any age, the key is to keep an open mind and heart to the possibilities that disruption lays at your feet.

Something to Dance About!    

By Patty Jarvis 

Although I did not perform in “We Will Go”, I have now joined Moonhorse Dance classes for mature community members!

 When I turned 60 years old (three years ago) – I was completely rattled. My perception of myself has always been as someone who is youthful, playful, and full of energy and optimism. Suddenly I was facing the reality of what the aging process had in store for me. How could I be 60? How was that possible when, most of the time, I felt like I had barely begun, barely experienced all the possibilities and now, the world and my own inner judgements were telling me I had to start thinking differently. I had to slow down. I had to contemplate what being “older” might mean to my work, my relationships and my place in the world.

I always loved to dance. I was always that kid in high school who would run madly onto the dance floor – paying no attention to anyone except Billy Idol as he invited me to join him in “Dancing With Myself”. That dance in high school was a little of my rebellion. I was fortunate to find dance and the arts as a way to step out of the entire conservative, “good girl” rules that I was given. I loved how dancing, drama and singing pulled me out of my inner somewhat insecure self and let me be in the world authentically.

In my mind – I remained that young person jumping on the dance floor. But of course, adulthood and the circumstances of life carry you forward and often away from those past images of yourself. Dance was, however, always somewhere in my mind and heart. I took the occasional dance class, but was still that person at parties who often started the dancing. I will still, forever, have the wonderful memories of all the kitchen “dance breaks” that I had with my son as he grew up. While my body reminded me of its aging, I still found myself moving as if I was in high school.

In the last 4 years, I have become slightly addicted to a form of dance fitness, taking three classes a week. Inspired by the disconnections of the pandemic which for me, a self-proclaimed extravert, were excruciating, those online (God forbid!) movement classes were the only time that I felt full and relaxed. As that 60th milestone approached, I suddenly asked myself, “If this is the thing that brings me the most joy…why aren’t I doing more of it?”

I was shocked to discover that the voices in my head were not mine. I never wanted to be, nor am I, on a trajectory of “slowing down”. Yes, an aging body is not the same. My arthritic joints don’t allow for absolute abandon but there is no way to stop pursuing joy.

When I am dancing, I am being held in space. I am a living, breathing body of power and energy and light. I can only know and feel that now because I am in my 60s. Because everything in my movement, every extension of my limbs, every stretch is full of my 63 years of experience. It feels like a celebration, and I am not ready to stop celebrating. I still feel it as a little bit of my rebellion.

I joined Moonhorse classes because I recognize that maybe somewhere in the world there are still those who believe that as you age you become less, or quiet, or invisible. I was, perhaps, starting to believe those things until I remembered that I am playful, energetic and always optimistic. I am all of those things standing on a foundation of life experience and joy. That’s something to dance about!  

photo: Lyon Smith

Suggestions for Teachers: In Our Dance Classrooms

The canon of dance in our classrooms is expanding to honour diverse dance forms, styles,  traditions and practices. Projects such as Older and Reckless invite us to also highlight dancers of different sizes, shapes,  and ages as well. Here are a few resources that can be used  to spark learning and critical discussion in your classroom: 

These videos feature older dancers:

The Dancers of Older and Reckless Live Up To Their Name

Kontakthof 65+, Pina Bausch Dance Theatre

These short articles address aging and ageism in dance: 

Older dancers, Dance Magazine 

These Powerful Performers Prove It’s Time to End Ageism in Dance

Dancing Down the Years

Here are some prompts to spark classroom discussions and inquiry in your dance program: 

• How might this shift our understanding of what a dancer looks like/physical attributes?

• How might this shift our understanding of what constitutes dance?

• How might we engage our local community in our dance project? 

• What will it take to eradicate ageism and discrimination against different sized bodies in dance? 

• What actions can be taken by choreographers? by dancers? by students?

•  What other organizations could take action and what action might that be?

For more information about Moonhorse Dance Theatre, and their annual series Older and Reckless, please visit https://www.moonhorsedance.com/

References

Koulas, G. (2017, Dec. 19)  Dancing Down the Years. The New York Times. 2017

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/arts/dance/dancing-down-the-years.html

Muzaffar, M. (2014, March 7) . "A Dancer Dies Twice": The Unique, Sad Challenge of Retiring from Ballet.. The Atlantic.

      https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/a-dancer-dies-twice-the-unique-sad-challenge-        of-retiring-from-ballet/284187/