A Labor of Love: The Dancing Over 50 Project

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT; PHOTOGRAPHS BY GREGORY BARTNING

It’s Labor Day, and thus I want to share with you my recent labor: the Dancing Over 50 Project, a collaboration I have had the honor of working on over the past two years with photographer Gregory Bartning.

We have just completed a two-week tour from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area to Portland to Seattle, interviewing 25 dancers total and hosting five events (one in each city and two in the Bay Area) to promote the project and raise awareness.

This is in addition to the over 30 interviews we have done over the past two years.

Through this process, I have learned one important thing: you have to shamelessly plug what you’re doing if you want people to get behind it.

Let me be clearer: for $50, you can pre-purchase the book, a compilation of interviews and photographs with over 50 dancers over age 50 along the west coast. Go to our Indiegogo campaign and purchase the book at the $50 level. Next summer, you will receive a beautiful book full of beautiful photographs and beautiful reflections on motivation, success, legacy and advice.

In other words, this project is big. It is way beyond Gregory or I, and way beyond the singular dancers we’ve interviewed. It’s about being in a body, having a passion and aging in that body with that passion.

So please, consider supporting the project by buying a book. It will surely be easier than endlessly referencing Stance on Dance for your favorite quote or photograph.

Thanks in advance for all the love and support!

2015_promo_1

2 Responses to “A Labor of Love: The Dancing Over 50 Project”

  1. stanceondance

    Thank you Tracey! I appreciate your support and encouragement! It sounds like Christina is doing wonderful work in the Detroit dance community, and I hope to visit one day and see it for myself! Until then, take care, and happy dancing! -Emmaly

  2. Tracey Homberg

    Bravo! I will buy your book and applaud you for your hard work at looking at the many sides, issues, and complexities of what it is like to “need” to dance at any age, especially over 50. I invite you to visit our website and view what I have never found anywhere else…older dancers coming together and learning from a masterful teacher who particularly loves working with adults and who asks us to keep pushing ourselves to be the best we can be. Our teacher Christina Kammuller, former principal dancer of Guaira Ballet Theatre, Curitiba, Brazil, has a following of over 100 women and men with a quarter of us dancing 4 to 5 times a week! We work on traditional form and turnout/placement but also expression and feeling. We dance with Christina for exercise and health reasons but also for spiritual fulfillment! We have a demonstration class at a high school running on youtube that has over 100,000 views!
    SO when you go to do “Dancing Over 50” part two, please stop by the midwest, Detroit area actually, we would love to speak with you!
    I wish you much success on your book!
    Tracey

Comments are closed.