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You're Never Too Old to Dance to Iggy Pop

At Munich's Ballet Festival Week, "The Passenger" provides a mean soundtrack for ballet dancers over 40.
Mature dancers Peter Jolesch and Martina Balabanova in The Passenger with choreography by Simone Sandroni and music by Iggy Pop. Image courtesy of Bayerische Staatsoper. © Wilfried Hösl

A professional ballet dancer usually reaches the end of their career around their mid-30s, a justifiable milestone considering the years of intense training and daily performance that their bodies undergo. Not far removed from the intense routine and lifestyle of an Olympic athlete—or even 1970s rockstar—ballerinas and ballerinos alike are often contrived to leave the pirouettes and plies to younger talent.

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That’s why, for one German opera company, it wasn’t so difficult to imagine a ballet composed to the lyric-fueled music of the almost 70-year-old punk rocker Iggy Pop: The Passenger. Based on the track from Pop’s 1977 album Lust for Life, the 25-minute contemporary ballet was chosen to be presented within Ballet Festival Week, a long-running event that takes place at Munich’s opera house Bayerische Staatsoper.

Ivan Liska, Judith Turos and Peter Jolesch dance in The Passenger with choreography by Simone Sandroni and music by Iggy Pop. Image courtesy of Bayerische Staatsoper. © Wilfried Hösl.

But a song that came out at the height of punk—with the likes of Ram Jam's "Black Betty" and The Clash's "48 Hours"—seems like an unlikely match for the classical roots and elegance of the ballet. Bayerische Staatsoper’s associate artistic director Bettina Wagner-Bergelt doesn’t think so. “The lyrics indeed accompany the ‘story’ of life and life’s journey on this planet,” says Wagner-Bergelt, who has been researching ballet specifically for dancers over 40.

“I’ve always realized that dancers 40-plus are very capable,” she says. “They don’t just dance but also move wonderfully and are so conscious of what they’re doing. Their 20- or 30-year-long experience in working with fantastic artists is all stored and recorded in their bodies.” In The Passenger— choreographed by Simone Sandroni—three mature dancers, including Ivan Liska Peter Jolesch, and Judith Turos take to the stage in a powerful dance in celebration of their bodies and generations of artistic achievement.

Ivan Liska in The Passenger with choreography by Simone Sandroni and music by Iggy Pop. Image courtesy of Bayerische Staatsoper. © Wilfried Hösl.  

“Iggy Pop’s hard rock also had a retrospective function,” says Ivan Liska, the piece’s lead dancer, retiring this season. “Over the past 50 years, I’ve danced to the music by Orlando di Lasso and J.S. Bach, as well as, to music by Arvo Pärt, Hans-Joachim Hespos and Schnittke. Iggy Pop was just one more step of this musical adventure.”

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In 2014, the German government agreed to fund Dance On, an industry-wide endeavor to expand the performance space and appreciation for dancers over 40. Now developing six choreographies, highlighting the unique aesthetics and movement of mature dancers, the initiative plans to tour internationally, changing the way that dance is viewed. Led by Madeline Ritter, the Dance On Ensemble currently has six principal dancers, all 40-plus. “I personally think it will become a great success,” Wagner-Bergelt tells The Creators Project.

Whether the "The Passenger" is a song embracing the wandering spirit of all things punk, or the perfect soundtrack for the journey of life,  Liska says the performance of The Passenger presents “all three seniors as very powerful memories of bodies.”

To find out more about Dance On, click here.

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