RANGE-OF-(E)MOTION DANCES

"Range-of-(e)Motion Dances" is the latest incarnation in my evolution as a solo dancer and choreographer – and an “elder" at 60 years of age!

2011, signifies for me a time of change. Dealing now with the fact of aging and being a dancer in a society which is obsessed with perpetual youth, I want to nestle now into the burrs and the thistles  – the sweet, honeyed paradoxes which life has bequeathed me. I also want to affirm the possibility of change at every juncture of life.

Although now more dancers than ever continue to dance on into their 30's, 40's or beyond, many feel constrained to retire from performance in their 30's. And the paradox is that while aging actors may continue in roles that use their wealth of experience and maturity, the richness of mature dancers is often absent the stage.

Inevitably, a kind of paralysis creeps over me when I am not dancing. But when I snap out of the that anesthesia, I realize that in-between things is where the dance is also – that there is life in the spaces between dancing and not dancing, having and not having, being and not being – all are part of the same river feeding back into me.

That river now is rich with a tide of emotions and experiences, many joys, sadness’s and longings – of songs and stories and dances still waiting to be expressed. There is a wealth of movement still to be explored.

Like most dancers I started out with the urgency to move, to dance. In 1986 I launched "Man-in-Motion Solo Dance Theatre" in South Africa. My premise was that dance is primarily a kinetic and motional art, and that 'discovered' movements should arise out of a keen awareness of the body's sensuousness and  sentience, in relation to itself and the environment.

Now in the 6th decade of my life, I'd like to continue that premise but range also into the depths of the river where motion broadens into emotion, and the range of motions/emotions for my present age may be explored with both subtlety and boldness.

As a solo dancer I formed Man-in-Motion with a determination to "share, express, and celebrate the wonder of the individual persona, and to affirm through the dance a search for positive human values." I've come to realize since, that our individual lives are so inextricably bound up with the web of life we are surrounded by – the people we love, strangers, acquaintances, plants, animals, things, places, and events – that the smallest ripple of thought or word or action has its effect.

"Range-of-(e)Motion Dances" is about those connections.