Overview
Acting Our Age has grown organically through ongoing conversations and a shared interest in the ageing body in performance. It is an Israeli-UK co-production choreographed by Galit Liss & Yael Flexer with an intergenerational cast of professional performers between the ages of 24-77. In attempting to get on with the show, performers intervene, subvert or even hijack the performance, questioning to what extent we might be in/compliant in ‘acting our age’.
Further Details
Bringing together an international team of collaborators Acting Our Age collaborators include choreographer Galit Liss, who specializes in working with and creating professional touring works for performers over the age of 65, writer Wendy Houstoun, composer Karni Postel and dramaturge & live artist Nataly Zukerman.
Using the idea of beginnings and endings as a conceptual and choreographic starting point, Acting Our Age is constructed through beginnings/endings that are messy, unfinished or that fail to come to fruition. The work is interested in performers’ relationship to dance, the stage and performance at different stages of their lives. It plays with the idea of ‘ghosting’, referencing the theatre ghost in a tongue in cheek way,and re-visiting performers’ past works drawing on the body as a living archive, at once personal and collective. Wendy Houstoun, as an ‘absent’ performer directs the others through text, while the on-stage performers equally question or refuse to ‘act their age’. Other moments celebrate the ageing body and its embodied sensitivity in line with Galit and Yael’s other works (and community works with the third age).
Acting Out Age is currently at research stage the work is scheduled for touring in spring 2023 and beyond. Commissioned by South East Dance with Yael as Align artist and The University of Chichester the work is funded and supported by Arts Council England, Hull Dance, The Place Theatre, Galit Liss Company & Tzahalla Community Centre.
Video
Credits
Choreographers: Yael Flexer & Galit Liss
Writer: Wendy Houstoun
Composer: Karni Postel
Dramaturge: Nataly Zukerman
Performers: Luke Birch, Noa Dar, Orit Gross, Yael Flexer, Corrie McKenzie, Fiona Millward & Tirtza Shpanof
Creative Producer: Lou Rogers