‘The audience chucked food at us!’ Emilyn Claid on angry shows, her ballet shame and gardening for Martha Graham
As she unveils The Trembling Forest with an ensemble of clay-covered performers, the great dance disruptor looks back on decades of radical and autobiographical showsMaybe it’s inevitable by the age of 75 that you’ve lived a number of lives. For Emilyn Claid, that’s meant the leap from ballet dancer in Toronto to the squats of grungy 1969 New York (via Martha Graham’s garden), to pioneering the New Dance scene in 1970s London, to artistic director, academic and psychotherapist (not to mention mother, grandmother), and then in her eighth decade, full circle to being a performer again.It was after realising “I was leaving three-quarters of myself out” that Claid made 2022’s comeback solo show Untitled, appearing strong, sensual, funny and provocative, dressed in leather vest and a fur cloak. She put the work in to get back on stage at 72 (“A lot of press-ups and sit-ups”) but at the same time, she says, it was absolutely natural, like coming home. “Not being at home like a comfortable sofa,” she clarifies. “The excitement of knowing a whole world that’s familiar to me and yet is always constantly changing.” Continue reading...
