Welcome runs across the weekend with performances by a total of 20 non-professional older adult dance groups from across the UK and Europe. In our Rosebery room, the Elixir Conference sees international speakers discuss the value of older dancers, the role of heritage in contemporary dance and how we can change people’s perception of age through participation and performance opportunities for older adults. This year’s festival is part of DANCE ON, PASS ON, DREAM ON (DOPODO), a partnership formed by Sadler’s Wells and other dance organisations from eight different European countries, funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme. The initiative aims to Photo: Cameron Slater challenge preconceived notions about age and promote a model of sustainable career and audience participation Welcome to Sadler’s Wells and the second Elixir that values older people on stage and, generally, in Festival. Following the success of our inaugural edition society. Through DOPODO, we are excited to present in 2014, I am delighted to bring back the festival this Berlin-based company Dance On Ensemble, performing year with performances and events taking place 7 Dialogues by Matteo Fargion in the Lilian Baylis Studio throughout the building across four days. on the final two days of the festival. Elixir was born out of the desire to address the false Besides a chance to see great performances, this is perception of dance being the preserve of the young. an opportunity for both dance practitioners and our Irrespective of background and age, everybody can audiences to celebrate the contribution made by older dance – and whatever an older dancer may lack in dance artists, and think together about what more we physical prowess is more than outweighed by the can do to harness their immensely valuable experience interpretive nuance of their performance, acquired and knowledge. through years of experience. The festival is also an embodiment of our belief that every aspect of life I would like to thank The Baring Foundation for their should be reflected on our stage: what truthful ongoing support of Elixir. My thanks also go to the Royal representation of society would we offer our audiences, Victoria Hall Foundation and the Embassy of Sweden. if we weren’t showcasing work by older dancers too? Enjoy the festival! On our main stage, we are presenting KnowBody II, an evening featuring choreography created and danced by older artists. I am delighted that Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, co-directors of Big Dance Theatre in New York, Robert Cohan and Shobana Jeyasingh have created new works for the programme, which also includes short works by internationally renowned choreographers such as Mats Ek, William Forsythe and former Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch Company dancer Pascal Merighi. Alistair Spalding CBE In the Lilian Baylis Studio, the Elixir Extracts programme Artistic Director and Chief Executive Front cover photo: Johan Persson Photo: Johan Persson Introduction According to Age UK’s recently adults to connect with Sadler’s Wells’ The first Elixir Festival in 2014 published Index for Wellbeing in Later artistic programme through regular highlighted this growing interest to take Life, creative and cultural participation talks and workshops. part in dance in later life and also put a makes the highest contribution spotlight on the incredible contribution to wellbeing for older adults. We The Company of Elders has been and value of older professional dancers passionately feel that this is true of pioneering in terms of raising the profile and dance makers. The response to dance and Sadler’s Wells has a long- of dance for older adults. Having once the first festival was incredible and track record of engaging older adults attracted attention for being unique and we hope this second Elixir Festival creative and cultural activity, our on the fringes of what people perceived will be equally inspiring for audiences resident performance group for over dance to be and who it was for, Company of and participants. 60s - the Company of Elders, formed Elders is now part of a growing collection 28 years ago. During this time we have of older adults dance groups nationally Joce Giles also run the Lilian Baylis Arts Club, and internationally, who are bringing Director of Learning & Engagement providing opportunities for older this area of work into the mainstream. Festival Guide Friday 23 June KnowBody II Sadler’s Wells 7.30pm Saturday 24 June Elixir Extracts Programme A Lilian Baylis Studio 4.30pm KnowBody II Sadler’s Wells 7.30pm Sunday 25 June Elixir Workshops 11am - 12.30pm Pass On: Forest Revisited Workshop 11am - 12.30pm Company of Elders Repertoire Workshop 1.15pm - 2.45pm Choreography Workshop 1.15pm - 2.45pm Company of Elders Experience Workshop Elixir Extracts Programme B Lilian Baylis Studio 3.30pm Elixir Extracts Programme C Lilian Baylis Studio 7.30pm Monday 26 June Elixir Conference Rosebery Room 11am - 5.30pm 7 Dialogues Lilian Baylis Studio 8pm Tuesday 27 June 7 Dialogues Lilian Baylis Studio 8pm Echoing through the generations Lyndsey Winship Photo: Johan Persson “Every gesture is important,” The dancers in the studio hang on to from person to person, the physical Cohan’s words. And with good reason. equivalent of an oral tradition – at first says Robert Cohan, a sage The 92-year-old is, you could say, the because there was no satisfactory way figure in a floral shirt, godfather of modern dance in the of recording it, and then even when sitting at the back of the UK, instrumental in bringing Martha notation was developed, and later Graham’s teachings to London in the video technology, because knowing rehearsal studio. Cohan late 1960s as founding artistic director what to do does not teach you how lines up his dancers and of the London Contemporary Dance to do it. asks them to breathe, School and London Contemporary Dance Theatre (LCDT), the training “As dance was traditionally handed on, bending their legs into ground for those who went on to shape the psychology was handed on at the a plié with each breath. British contemporary dance. same time,” says Cohan. “Sensitivity, It’s one of the most basic that’s the thing that video never catches,” Today, Cohan is recreating his piece says Martin Welton, who is co-directing exercises in dance training, Forest, originally made in 1977, with this restaging of Forest. “How to get the one these dancers will a cast that spans the generations. sense, not just of movement, but the have repeated thousands Half of the dancers are alumni from tuning of it,” he explains, or as ex-LCDT LCDT who danced for Cohan in the dancer Kenneth Tharp puts it, “how to of times, but Cohan wants 1970s and 80s. They are now teaching direct the energies of your body.” them to think about it again. the work to five dance students and He asks them to grow taller former members of the National Youth A good teacher is not only Dance Company, who are taking the communicating the external shapes of as they bend lower; and first steps in their own careers. In the body, but what’s happening inside to breathe in a complex this one room, there is a direct line as well. “You have to be constantly rhythm that forces them to that spans a century, from Martha aware of intention, showing the secrets Graham’s beginnings of modern dance of movement,” says Cohan. “Sometimes deeply concentrate on this in the early 20th century, through to you send a video to a company to simple exercise. He’s asking the young dancers of the 21st, and learn a piece and when you go and them to be completely precious artistic knowledge is being watch them you don’t know what you’re passed down that line. looking at,” he says, “because it’s being in the moment, “to be so performed from totally the wrong point totally there that there We may think of dance as the preserve of view. We do the same steps but it’s is nothing else,” he says. of youth – the pure physical demands how we do them that matters.” feed those cliches about a dancer’s “That’s the way the whole career being over at 35 – and we may For the LCDT alumni in this restaging of dance should be.” think of modern culture as a process of Forest, they are literally doing the same constant renewal, with contemporary steps they last performed in the mid- dance in particular aiming for 80s, and despite the intervening 30-odd ceaseless innovation, but this is never years, the memory is still held deeply in really the case. Everything builds on their bodies. But while the older dancers what has gone before, and so it should, are getting back into a familiar mindset, because as Cohan warns, “if you throw the young dancers are discovering a history out you’re bound to repeat it.” completely new one. “The sensation of doing the movement is fresh and radical Dance, perhaps more than any to us,” says Luigi Nardone, despite it other art form, is passed on directly being created long before he was born. “It’s amazing to learn it and understand meaning, yes this is very...” – she the process, not just of the body but of stops to put her hands over her dad’s the mind. You can see how it’s influenced ears – “inspiring.” today’s dance; you can see where other choreographers have taken But Dominique insists that he has their inspiration.” something to learn from working with younger dancers too. “It shows you “Bob [Cohan] comes across as an other possibilities, other ways of absolute master and everything he doing things, and it helps you to says makes perfect sense,” says better understand what you’ve got Nardini.