Trace – Work in progress

In Trace, our upcoming creation, premiering in April 2027 in WUK (Vienna), we plan to work with three artists above the age of 60, who have been involved in contemporary dance practices for decades (performing, choreographing, teaching, training, etc.). This creation would be an invitation for performers, who may or may not have been active in the dance field for a while, but still have the desire and drive for movement and for opening themselves up to the public. A chance to find and show what they would like to do with their physicality at this point of their lives, to realise things they may not have had the opportunity to do before, or to present how they relate to and work with their bodies. The whole process would be focused on sharing and exchanging the accumulated knowledge, experiences and qualities of these people, who are not commonly seen on stages.

It is typical of dancers’ careers that many professionals move away from performing after 40, whereas the movement practice itself is something that could continue throughout their lives, but an embedded aesthetic or set of expectations “pushes” them off the stage. It should be shown that these performers have a place in dance. The further a dancer gets in time away from schools and training, the more they find their individual movement, shed learned techniques and copied styles. In this sense, the physicality of older dancers can be more unique and personal than that of the younger ones. If we consider the body as an archive, as time goes by a dancer’s body just becomes richer, carries more traces of personality, life itself, fulfilled events, missed opportunities, etc. These bodies, of course, have a different meaning for the viewer’s gaze, they contain different themes and associations. We want to find those: the fragile contents that these bodies create, which are rarely articulated in contemporary dance.

Although the rehearsal process would contain autobiographical interest, the performance itself is imagined more through physicality and the emergence of individual movement strategies and unique corporal qualities. Moreover, of course, the physical approach enters a dialogue with discourses that address the problems of our societies, in relation to age, the body, productivity and embedded biases.