FIGURING AGE
by Boglarka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm
Figuring Age is a performance-installation that portrays three elderly dancers from Budapest, aged between 90 and 101. The work consists of a durational performance and a two-channel video installation running simultaneously in separate spaces.
In 2015, choreographer and performer Boglárka Börcsök had the chance to meet several elderly dancers in Budapest. Wanting to work with some of them and knowing that their age would make it impossible to bring them back on stage, Börcsök and filmmaker Andreas Bolm decided to create a documentary called The Art of Movement. It portrays Irén Preisich, Éva E. Kovács and Ágnes Roboz, who were once part of the early development of modern dance in Hungary. During the filming, Börcsök’s role alternated between dialogue partner and dance student to stimulate the elderly dancers’ bodies and memories. The physical engagement continued during the editing process. Börcsök and Bolm watched the footage again and again to study the gestures, movements, and personal stories of Irén, Éva and Ágnes. The three ladies entered Börcsök like ghosts and she began to perform them. The embodiment of Irén, Éva, and Ágnes is a continuous work of transforming and becoming – a Vertigo. The aging body does not contain only one body. Rather, it is multiple bodies layered in time and decay, in memories and experiences. In Figuring Age, Börcsök interweaves the stories and memories of the elderly dancers with their everyday gestures, postures and dance movements, tracing how the three women changed their lives and movement practices to survive the sociopolitical shifts of the 20th century. The slowness and fragile heaviness of their bodies demand a different economy of attention, giving visitors space to rethink and negotiate their relationship to aging and death.
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 last performances on screen.
concept, direction & production Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm performance Boglárka Börcsök light & sound Andreas Bolm english translation David Robert Evans video editing Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm camera Lisa Rave cast Éva E. Kovács, Irén Preisich, Ágnes Roboz video’s production manager Elisa Calosi video commissioned by Montag Modus/MMPraxis video founded by: Tanzfonds Erbe – an initiative by German Federal Cultural Foundation, La Musée de la Danse, Rennes, Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, Berlin performance produced by Die Irritierte Stadt Festival of Arts - a project by Akademie Schloss Solitude, Theater Rampe, Freie Tanz und Theaterszene, Musik der Jahrhunderte, Produkcionszentrum Tanz + Performance performance supported by Montag Modus/MMPraxis, PACT Zollverein: Atelier No.63 - Platform Experimental Platform for the Arts, Hellerau – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste - Residency Program. Part of the work was developed in the frame of the performance exhibition „20 Dancers for the XX Century by Boris Charmatz/Terrain“ at MACBA Barcelona 2018 and Zürcher Theater Spektakel Festival 2019.
The introduction speech of the performance is based on Jacques Derrida’s reflections on ghosts in Ken McMullen's film 'Ghost Dance' (1983).
photo: Andreas Bolm