The Elders Project

Great dancers come out of retirement

Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall

The ‘best dance moment in 2014’ returns to Purcell Room.

In September 2014, Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion took a rare break from their renowned duets to invite a group of extraordinary UK-based dancers out of retirement and back onto the stage.

With the help of former artists of London Contemporary Dance Theatre, The Royal Ballet, Second Stride and the Siobhan Davies Dance Company, the two men drew a hopeful and irreverent picture of the body as an archive of rooms, steps and forgotten stories, revealing the power of physical memory in the face of the most transitory of art forms.

The event is part performance and part sharing of personal memories in an illumination of some of the key decades of UK dance history.

The specially commissioned cast features Christopher Bannerman, Brian Bertscher, Anne Donnelly, Linda Gibbs, Lizie Saunderson, Betsy Gregory, Geraldine Morris, Namron and Kenneth Tharp.

The Elders Project was picked out by Sarah Crompton, Arts Editor in Chief of the Daily Telegraph, as the best dance moment in 2014 and received an Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.

Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall