Figuring Age

Figuring Age consists of a durational performance and a two-channel video installation running simultaneously in separate spaces.

© Andreas Bolm
© Andreas Bolm

The aging body does not contain only one body. Rather, it is multiple bodies layered in time and decay, in memories and experiences. Figuring Age portrays three elderly dancers from Budapest, aged between 90 and 101. In the performance, choreographer and performer Boglárka Börcsökinterweaves the stories and memories of Irén, Éva, and Ágnes with the embodiment of their everyday gestures, postures and dance movements.

In a separate room, the two-channel video installation reveals the elderly dancers in their private homes. The stillness of their rooms, filled with personal objects and memories, becomes the scenographic backdrop for their dynamic performances on screen.

Concept, direction, production: Boglárka Börcsök and Andreas Bolm — Performance: Boglárka Börcsök — Cast: Éva E. Kovács, Irén Preisich, Ágnes Roboz — Light and sound: Andreas Bolm — Video editing: Andreas Bolm and Boglárka Börcsök — Camera: Lisa Rave — English translation: David Robert Evans — Video’s production manager: Elisa Calosi — Video commissioned by: Montag Modus/ MMpraxis — Video funded by: Tanzfonds Erbe - an initiative by German Federal Cultural Foundation, La Musée de la Danse, Rennes, Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, Berlin — Performance supported by: Die Irritierte Stadt Festival of Arts, Montag Modus/MM Praxis, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, PACT Zollverein Atelier No.63 - Platform Experimental Platform for the Arts, Hellerau – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste - Residency Program, workspacebrussels, Neustart Kultur – an initiative for the Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media as part of the support program DIS-TANZEN, an Umbrella Association for dance in Germany. Part of the work was developed in the frame of the performance exhibition „20 Dancers for the XX Century” by Boris Charmatz/Terrain. The introduction speech is based on Jacques Derrida’s reflections on ghosts in Ken McMullen’s film Ghost Dance (1983).

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