A brief exercise in the mobilising pleasures of risk-taking in older age - or how to move into less comfortable spaces and times of day.
This facility operates between the sheltered space of an elders-only dance class in East Ham and a local park after dark. Read more >>
A brief synopsis:
at 8:50pm, on Tuesday the 9th of June, a Monday morning dance class from a community centre in East Ham is demobilised to go dancing outdoors in a park at the end of the road. For one night only, this smallish group of 60-plus-year olds takes over the games area of a park that is, by this time of day, officially out of bounds. For the next 90 minutes, from dusk til dark, the class breaks the limits of its own routinised norms (of dancing indoors every Monday morning from 10 til 12).
Based on a self-initiated dance class “residency”, this exercise in the disruption of institutionalised routine is built up gradually over the course of 6 months through regular, weekly attendance at the dance class in East Ham. The one-off disruption of institutionalised routine is built up over time, through the construction of 1:1 relationships made possible through the partnered activity of learning to dance (with a group of 60+ year-olds) one to one.