For Margie Gillis, dancing at 71 years old is less about moving and more about yielding.
“I think at every stage of your career, every stage of your life, there’s things that are strong and there’s things that are weak. Obviously, as you age, everybody’s pretty clear about what doesn’t work. So, the exploration is within what was does work.”
That work will be on display starting February 7 when the acclaimed contemporary dancer and Order of Canada recipient will take the stage at the Rachel Browne Theatre with Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers. Gillis will be sharing her final full-length solo performance called OLD, which explores the uneven process of aging and how to navigate it with grace and honesty.
“There is a quality of perfection in humanity we’re trying to create,” Gillis said in a conversation on the set of OLD ahead of its opening. “It’s the qualitativeness of what that experience is and making that visible for the audience from a dance perspective and from a set perspective.”
That set, which features broken-down rustic furniture, faded art and discarded toys that wouldn’t be out of place in a Victorian play chest, was designed by Gillis’s frequent collaborator and, Winnipeg director and designer Randal Newman. Gillis describes how the set makes her feel held, and how easy it was to yield in this creative space. “He’s an inspiring person,” smiles Gillis, with a pat on Newman’s knee. “How the pieces are put together, how they intertwine, how they respond, one thing to another, it’s really, really fun.
“One of my favourite sections is the section where I wander through, touch and play with the different aspects and discover, as one would in an attic or in your own memory thought process. So, it was great to be held. That was really important.”
“I had a lot of fun giving personality to inanimate objects and forcing Margie to have conversations with chairs,” Newman laughs, adding that he would give her notes such as making her talk to the chair through movement like it was her grandmother.
Newman notes that though that vulnerability and trust has changed over the years, he’s still delighted to enhance her vision and her movement. “I think of the first time I saw Margie on how the work was based on energy and passion and volatility and just craziness,” he recalls, smiling at Gillis as he reminisces. “[Having] watched the career evolve into the mature artist that you are now... it’s so much more beautiful. It’s deeper and more meaningful, and it’s subtler and it’s more elegant.”
Winnipeg dance audiences will get to see that elegance and subtlety in Gillis’s performance of OLD at the Rachel Browne Theatre in the Exchange District on February 7 and 8 and 7:30 p.m. A matinee performance and a question-and-answer period with Gillis and Newman is scheduled for February 9 at 4 p.m. Tickets and more information can be found at the website for Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers.