The Wise Ones celebrates the powerful gifts of our older people and explores the forces that have shaped them. It asks: what is wisdom? How do we gain it? How do we use it? And how do we pass it on?
First performed in 2021, The Wise Ones has the framework of three older people passing on their life and creative skills to their younger counterparts.
The Wise Ones is a joyful celebration of age, of who we are and how we make sense of the world through dance. The show’s sections pass through the worlds of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, through Indian stories of the Gods, European folk tales and the poetry of Rumi and TS Eliot. The piece culminates in a moving retelling of the nativity story.
The Wise Ones‘ premiere at Kala Sangam in Bradford featured Bisakha Sarker and Guru Pratap Pawar – both towering figures in the world’s history of dance with careers spanning many decades. The other ‘wise one’ was Villmore James, one of the founders of Phoenix Dance and a true dance hero. They were joined on stage by a supporting cast of established dancers Abirami Eswar, Kali Chandrasegaram and Vince Virr and live music composed by Jesse Bannister.
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