Daring and adventurous pensioners embrace contemporary dance

[Sue Brett]

I was interested in Alistair Spalding's widely-reported comments today, re his proposed new additional venue for Sadler's Wells, that the growing demand for dance is being driven by the newly-retired and over 65s, who are seeing ballet and dance as a 'satisfying alternative to theatre and opera'. Any views? Anyone noticed this trend?  Do balletco-ers have some thoughts on this new generation of ballet goers who are 'embracing challenging contemporary works'?

[chrischris]

Most of the times I have been to the ROH I would say that around two thirds of the audience are over 60. I'm not sure if that's a new thing though.

[Jan McNulty]

Over the last couple of years it seems to me that the audience for Rambert at the Lowry Seems to be teenagers and twirlys so there may be something in this.

 

What a great topic!

[LinMM]

Does twirlys refer to old people! A lovely word but what does it refer to......curly hair!!!(as permed)

[Jan McNulty]

Oh, I thought everyone used that expression these days. It refers to people who qualify for free travel passes due to age as in "Am I too early to get on the bus?".

[LinMM]

Thanks I love it.....so I'm a twirly now!!

 

Well I am of the generation referred to in the initial post but am not new to supporting dance.

It seems to refer to recently converted twirlys! Who've just discovered dance in their old age!!

 

I'm not sure how much support there is for contemporary dance among twirlys (sorry love the word) generally but this is one who is up for some new dance experiences though ballet is still my real love.

 

I suspect though that like myself there are quite a few twirlys out there actually doing the dance rather than just watching it and that includes contemporary. Quite a few classes now for both adults and over sixties!!

[LinMM]

Just seen a new dimension to the word twirly......people of the older kind doing their ballet and contemporary twirls!

[Beryl H]

I was surprised when I read the article in yesterday's Times that Alastair Spalding thought the core audience for his new 500 seat modern dance theatre would be the over 65's, I'd agree that two thirds of the audience at the ROH are that age but mainly for the classics, of course SW draws en entirely different audience anyway and maybe lots of them are "twirly's"

[Sue Brett]

Twirly - brilliant!  On 'types' of audiences I have always been struck by the preponderance of groups of women attending ballet performances. But at Le Corsaire in Oxford I did notice a much higher than usual proportion of men in the audience, of all ages too. The ballet was certainly marketed in quite a macho  way - the black and white images, bare chests, pirates. Seems to have done the trick for ENB. I think they are doing a lot to extend the audience for ballet. Maybe they will pick up the young, male audiences and Sadlers Wells will get the oldies!

[Kitschqueen_1]

Thanks I love it.....so I'm a twirly now!!

 

I'm not sure how much support there is for contemporary dance among twirlys (sorry love the word) generally but this is one who is up for some new dance experiences though ballet is still my real love.

 

My beloved parents definitely qualify as twirlys and have always been avid ballet and theatre goers . Due to my dd attending a contemporary CAT scheme they have been exposed to contemporary dance and are now converts!

(Though do tend to cope better with Matthew Bourne than Michael Clarke! :-D)

[LinMM]

I'd love to see some of the new programmes that Diana Vishneva has been putting together for her American and then Maryinski audiences. She is going for more and more contemporary style ballet and maybe these sort of works with more true contemporary style could keep this newly proposed theatre ticking over!!

 

I do notice though that on the whole the audience members tend to be younger for contemporary than for ballet and even more so opera.