Elixir Extracts 2022 is our mini festival that celebrates creative ageing and presents a range of performances by mature performers. The festival includes performances by acclaimed professional artists along with the opportunity for non-professional dancers to showcase their work.

This afternoon performance celebrates the joy that dancing has on people’s lives, whatever age you may be. The show features performances by a range of non-professional groups from the UK and beyond, including Sadler’s Wells’ Company of Elders, Dance On Lab from Berlin, and Three Score Dance Company.

Sadler’s Wells’ Company of Elders presents Relive on stage, and in its original form – a short dance film created during lockdown in early 2021. Created by Eleesha Drennan, both the film and performance poignantly look at human connection and isolation. Relive unpacks the theme of memory through stories about what matters most in life: the people we share it with.

Dance On Lab, a group of mature non-professional dancers based in Berlin, presents Tideland. Working together since 2016, they are part of the DANCE ON initiative that values age in dance. This performance reminds us that only very special images remain in us, our bodies and our memories. In Tideland, they search the common and individual understanding of things.

Linked to the work of psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin, Alone Together by the Three Score Dance Company looks at the motivations of human action; the need for different types of attention and the reaction to the attention we receive. The work utilises Harry Escott’s score to create a haunting atmosphere that evokes the human experience.

Elixir Extracts 2022 – Workshops and Talks
The Elixir Festival also features workshops and talks for older dancers from all backgrounds, professional and non-professional. Click here for details and bookings.

Image description: Six people in their sixties or seventies, all wearing smart or sparkly black outfits, stand side by side. A black woman wearing a turquoise and gold headwrap looks ahead with focus, a tall white man seems about to speak, a white woman turns to listen with a smile.

Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union as part of DANCE ON, PASS ON, DREAM ON.

Header image © Ellie Kurttz