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“It Can Be Magic:” Creating Age Awareness Through Contemporary Dance

Professional dancers typically retire before age 40. Although the physical requirements for dance performance are often considered the reason for retirement, there is an increasing number dance researchers who demonstrate that the idealization of youthfulness on the stage is also a result of complex...

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Autores principales: Markula, Pirkko, Metzger, Kathy, Bliss, Tamara, Gervais, Wendy, Rintoul, Mary Ann, Vandkerkhove, Jodie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8960028/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35356096
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.795541
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author Markula, Pirkko
Metzger, Kathy
Bliss, Tamara
Gervais, Wendy
Rintoul, Mary Ann
Vandkerkhove, Jodie
author_facet Markula, Pirkko
Metzger, Kathy
Bliss, Tamara
Gervais, Wendy
Rintoul, Mary Ann
Vandkerkhove, Jodie
author_sort Markula, Pirkko
collection PubMed
description Professional dancers typically retire before age 40. Although the physical requirements for dance performance are often considered the reason for retirement, there is an increasing number dance researchers who demonstrate that the idealization of youthfulness on the stage is also a result of complex cultural, social, and economic realities and as such, in need of critique. As a group of mature women dancers who continue to perform, we aim to critique the idealization of youthfulness as a form of ageism in professional dance. In this paper, we present findings from our feminist memory-work study in which we critically reflected the rehearsals and performance of a choreography titled “Initiation.” We detail three main themes—”It Will Only Get Worse;” “It Can Be Magic;” “Once a Dancer Always a Dancer”—that emerged from our study. We conclude that we gained critical awareness of the gendered and ageist construction of dance as a performing art. As a result, we now feel empowered to continue our work as mature dance artists.
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spelling pubmed-89600282022-03-29 “It Can Be Magic:” Creating Age Awareness Through Contemporary Dance Markula, Pirkko Metzger, Kathy Bliss, Tamara Gervais, Wendy Rintoul, Mary Ann Vandkerkhove, Jodie Front Sports Act Living Sports and Active Living Professional dancers typically retire before age 40. Although the physical requirements for dance performance are often considered the reason for retirement, there is an increasing number dance researchers who demonstrate that the idealization of youthfulness on the stage is also a result of complex cultural, social, and economic realities and as such, in need of critique. As a group of mature women dancers who continue to perform, we aim to critique the idealization of youthfulness as a form of ageism in professional dance. In this paper, we present findings from our feminist memory-work study in which we critically reflected the rehearsals and performance of a choreography titled “Initiation.” We detail three main themes—”It Will Only Get Worse;” “It Can Be Magic;” “Once a Dancer Always a Dancer”—that emerged from our study. We conclude that we gained critical awareness of the gendered and ageist construction of dance as a performing art. As a result, we now feel empowered to continue our work as mature dance artists. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8960028/ /pubmed/35356096 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.795541 Text en Copyright © 2022 Markula, Metzger, Bliss, Gervais, Rintoul and Vandkerkhove. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sports and Active Living
Markula, Pirkko
Metzger, Kathy
Bliss, Tamara
Gervais, Wendy
Rintoul, Mary Ann
Vandkerkhove, Jodie
“It Can Be Magic:” Creating Age Awareness Through Contemporary Dance
title “It Can Be Magic:” Creating Age Awareness Through Contemporary Dance
title_full “It Can Be Magic:” Creating Age Awareness Through Contemporary Dance
title_fullStr “It Can Be Magic:” Creating Age Awareness Through Contemporary Dance
title_full_unstemmed “It Can Be Magic:” Creating Age Awareness Through Contemporary Dance
title_short “It Can Be Magic:” Creating Age Awareness Through Contemporary Dance
title_sort “it can be magic:” creating age awareness through contemporary dance
topic Sports and Active Living
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8960028/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35356096
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.795541
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