Becoming a Dancer in Later Life by Bren Neale

October 14, 2024

If you rest … you rust

Becoming involved in a new love affair in your 70s may not be considered a common experience. But it has happened to me. Over the past year I have fallen in love, hook, line and sinker, with Ascendance. It isn’t simply the dancing (although free-flowing contemporary dance is at the core of what we do). It’s also the music, the creative expression, the fun of dressing up, the performances, the hugely gifted and inspiring team who lead, mentor and dance with us, and, perhaps most important of all, the camaraderie of our Ascendance collective.  

Ascendance has its own unique cultural brand: an ethos of creating expressive forms of dance, in a supportive and joyful way, that bring together dancers of different ages and  (dis)abilities (our oldest dancer is nearly 91). Whether our dances are lyrical, poignant, or fun-filled, there is an underlying theme that is powerfully conveyed through the interactions of the dancers: an ethos of inclusion, mutual respect and support, and of valuing difference and diversity. This is the unique strength of Ascendance: it offers a powerful way to challenge outmoded cultural stereotypes and build bridges across diverse communities.   


My own journey into dance has been a long and slow one, punctuated over my adult years through work and family commitments. Dance was always in my blood. Here I am in the late 1950s (aged around 5), second on the left, alongside my lovely friend Pat. We are on the edge of a band of sassy, tutu-toting ballerinas in our working-class neighbourhood in East London. Sadly, I don’t recall that we ever joined in – I suspect our mothers couldn’t afford to kit us out in the right costumes.  

But I continued to dip a toe into dancing through my years of growing up and into adulthood. This included appearances in various disco dancing routines for my school talent shows, and learning some ballroom dances from my father and brother. I enjoyed waltzing around with them on our Butlins camp holidays (and I still dance with my brother when we meet up). In more recent times I have flitted back and forth between Contra (a form of Ceilidh) dancing and Ballroom sessions at the Yorkshire Dance Studios, where David (my friend and dance partner), and I would twirl and glide through Quick Steps and Rumbas, and Jive to swing music.


Over the decades, I have also been entranced by contemporary dance performances by companies such as Ballet Rambert and Phoenix Dance Theatre.  It was a revelation when I first discovered that trained dancers could dress in cabaret style clothing and totter around the stage wearing fish net tights and red stillettos! Such experiences transformed my understanding of dance from something that was necessarily formal, controlled and balletic into something that could be wild, free flowing and theatrical. In 1992 I went to see Mikhail Baryshnikov at Sadlers Wells, and was awestruck as he danced magnificently with a chair. I still treasure the poster from that show. 


Perhaps the biggest influence on me during my childhood years was my glamorous Aunt Hazel  (Hazel and my father, Leon, were part of a group of seven siblings from a close knit East End family). Unlike other members of my large family tribe, Hazel frequently stood on her hands and did somersaults and cartwheels. So I set about copying her from a young age and started a ‘handstand’ trend in my school playground (Benhurst Primary, in Elm Park).  I can still recall rows of ‘upside down’ young girls, dresses over their heads and knickers on full display, learning to do handstands against the playground wall (until this practice was curbed by our rather decorous head teacher, Mr. Clayton). 


But Hazel’s main claim to fame was that she had been a Topper Girl:  a version of the famous Tiller Girls – dance troupes of glittering girls with feather plumes in their hair, who linked arms and did the high kicks at Royal Variety events and venues such as the London Palladium and the Palace Theatre in Manchester. No wonder I was in awe of my Aunt! And I thought of her yesterday, when, in an entertainment full of gusto for the International Day of Older People at Headingley Stadium, we Ascendancers dressed up, linked arms and kicked our legs in homage to the Cabaret dancers of the past. My life seems to have come full circle, revitalising my dormant instincts to dance that were simply waiting to flourish.

Photo - Hazel Dulley Aged 26 ( 1943)

Through Ascendance I have experienced at first hand the power of dance to tell a story, to convey deep emotions, to powerfully evoke time and place, and to reflect and celebrate our connections to each other. After ten years of so called ‘retirement’ I have finally let go of my busy academic career and found a new lease of life as a dancer. Thank you Ascendance – long may the love affair continue.


Fancy writing a blog post for our Dance Wellness series?

Get in touch with Rachel at classes@ascendance.org.uk

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