TYPE OF WORK
Intergenerational dance projects

TARGET GROUPS

• Families - mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, grandparents, parents and children.
• Cecilia Macfarlane is a senior lecturer in arts in the community at Coventry University and undertakes teachers' workshops and training days, hospital workshops for mental health workers, occupational therapists and physiotherapists and training of practising artists.

GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT
UK

COMPANY POLICY
The belief that dance can change people's lives and is a fundamental form of expression and communication.

Aims: To promote dance in the community to participants of all ages and abilities. To give adult and child the chance to create and play together, focusing on the equality of both generations in the creative process. To show that creativity in dance is achievable, normal and vital regardless of ability. To build towards a performance or sharing. (The process is more important than the product. The product celebrates the process for its participants and makes it accessible to more people.) To work as a facilitator, empowering others' creativity.

SCALE OF PROJECTS
Number of practitioners: 1-5
Number of participants: 1-30
Preparation time: 1 day - 1 month
Contact time: 1 day - 1 month, continuous or over time

So That's What Parents Were Created For (UK, 1997)
A pair of new works devised and directed by Cecilia Macfarlane, in collaboration with musician Carolyn Harrison Ganberg, with 20 Oxford parents and their children. Over two weekends, 10 mothers and their daughters created My Mother Won't Mind and 10 fathers and their sons created Stand by your Son, the two pieces exploring, through dance and theatre techniques, the relationships between parent and child. These pieces were intended to be humorous, entertaining and moving; and immediate in their physicality.

The Toast and the Toaster (UK, 2002)
Two family days of dance devised and directed by Cecilia Macfarlane as part of the Oxfordshire County Council National Family Learning weekend, in collaboration with musician Anna Ryder. Participants came a intergenerational pairs, one adult and one child (including parents and children aunts and nieces, etc) and were of all ages (including 20-year-old mothers and 40-year-old daughters). Dance and music pieces on the theme of household objects were created and performed at the end of the day to invited audiences.

Crossover Intergenerational Dance Project
Intergenerational dance project devised and directed by Cecilia Macfarlane for four male and four female dancers, aged between 10 and 60 years. It is a four-stage piece, which looks at the stereotyping associated with specific ages and particularly researches the movement that can accompany these conventions. Each stage will build towards separate performances in Oxford, Swindon and Coventry and the final work will be toured in the south-east and will include workshops and family days. (UK January-October 2003)

Cecilia Macfarlane
16 Portland Road
Oxford OX2 7EY

T +44 (0) 1865 515 576
M +44 (0) 7968 073 763

E ceciliamacfarlane@talk21.com

“The values that your work promotes; respect, individuality and groupness are so important. As a mum, this work expressed the preciousness and vulnerability of my relationship with my daughter.”
Sue Davies, audience member and mother

“Thank you for providing…this very special opportunity. I have found it profoundly moving. Another thread in that beautiful and, at times, unbearable bond with my mother.”
Mathilda Leyser, participant and daughter

“It felt like a great honour to be given the opportunity to explore and express some powerful and intense emotions in such a new and creative way.”
Jeremy Spafford, participant and father

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