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October 14, 2012

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Home » Feature » People

Older women in dance about getting old

By Nie Xin | October 14, 2012, Sunday | Print Edition

SOCIETY'S cruel emphasis on - and women's obsession with - youth, beauty and the denial of aging inspired French choreographer Myriam Herve-Gil to create "Fleurs de Cimetière et Autres Sornettes" or "Age Spots and Other Tall Tales."

All the seven female performers - six dancers and an actress - are older than 50. Herve-Gil herself performs.

Her work from 2008, generous, joyful and humorous, was staged October 4 at the Shanghai Art Theater. The dance was staged earlier in Beijing and Jinan, Shandong Province. It was the first time Herve-Gil's innovative work was performed in China.

The performance is an encounter among women - dancers, choreographer, actresses - in solos, duets and trios. They dance in the present tense, never the past.

"Age Spots and Other Tall Tales" was presented at the Festival d'Avignon in 2009.

A choreographer, dancer and teacher, Herve-Gil created her dance company in 1985 and has won a number of awards, including the Volinine International Prize, and top honors at the International Choreography Competition of Groningen in the Netherlands. She has created 45 works, including 20 which were commissioned. Since 2008, she has been artist-in-residence at the Theater Louis Jouvet in Revel in Ardennes in northern France. She teaches, organizes workshops and creates choreographies.

Her latest creation, "Will There Really Be a Morning?" is a French-Taiwanese coproduction that premiered this year at the National Theater of Taipei and then toured in France.



Q: "Fleurs de Cimetière" addresses women's aging. What are your thoughts on this and what's your secret to staying young?

A: In the western world, a land that denies death, aging means decrepitude, especially for women. In the dance field of the whole world, the stage life of professional female dancers is believed to be very short. This is the reality of society today. But under different skies, old age is synonymous with wisdom. "Keep young" is a very strange question to me. Nobody can "keep young." Although a healthy lifestyle, cosmetics, an open mind, working out at the gym and traveling can help to delay senility, you cannot deny the truth of aging, which is a fact of nature.



Q: What inspired you to create "Fleurs de Cimetière"?

A: Several years ago, when I turned 50 years old, people around me kept asking the same question: "You are 50 years old! What do you feel now?" I have to say I feel no difference. When you get old, you will absolutely change in your appearance, body and moods, but that doesn't mean that the day (the 50th birthday) turns your life upside down. Society's attitude toward women's aging inspired me to create this show, an encounter between women, dancers, choreographers and actresses. Including me, the six dancers and an actress are over 50 years old. All of us started to dance and perform since we were young. Now is the time to raise a few questions and to listen more attentively to this body and its changes, a living memory which is transforming and has so much more to tell. These 50 years may have gone unnoticed, but are always noteworthy. If not, what would be the point of aging?



Q: Why did you decide to be a dancer and a choreographer?

A: In France and I believe in many places, most good choreographers were professional dancers, and so was I. When I was very young, I wanted to teach young children to dance. With this dream, I started to study in dancing school and entered this field.



Q: What are your plans?

A: Next year the company will create a work combining professional performance and cultural outreach to audiences in the Rethel region and other semi-rural areas.

People


 

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