OLDER (SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE POSH CLUB)
Phyllis and Robert Deacon in 1967 and in 2023 (Visiting Christchurch Park, Ipswich)
One of the reasons I came back to live in the UK after ten years abroad was to be closer to my parents. Both are in their 80s now, and whilst they are active and in good health, I have a distinct memory of how the pandemic led me to question my assumptions of being able to hop on a plane to go and see them, whether in an emergency or otherwise.
In the 2019 book Elderhood by American clinician Louise Aronson, it is pointed out that how we define ‘old’ (in Western cultures) has shifted according to extensions of life expectancy. According to Aronson, for more than five thousand years, ‘old’ has been defined as being between the ages of sixty and seventy. But with humans now living longer than ever before, many people alive today will be elders for forty years or more. Yet despite the fact that many of us will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, old age still remains ‘…a condition to be dreaded, disparaged, neglected, and denied.’
I have similarly come to think of age as somewhat taboo in terms of identity, especially for artists. If you are a regular reader of these posts, you might remember a previous one where I discussed the idea of the ‘submerging artist’, the fate of the mid-career artist who is no longer the young, new thing.
As a teacher of performance in universities and art schools, I remember a period in the mid 2000s where I would share with my students a text by Yvonne Rainer, the seminal American experimental dance practitioner and filmmaker. At the crux of the essay were multiple descriptions of ballet dancers on stage at an age where the physical capacity for these exertions begins to elude them. Yvonne Rainer asks us to consider when it might be time to just stop:
‘So when is it time to say “farewell to dance?” When and how must we begin to think of ways to avoid becoming objects of pity or caricature as we attempt to engage movement that is ever — and obviously — more difficult?’
Despite my finding this text both beautiful and fascinating, it never seemed to land with the students. In conversation, the students (mostly in their early twenties) would often say they could not conceive of being old in the way that Yvonne Rainer described. In many cases, they would talk about ageing as it relates to career, and what the ideal age would be to have ‘made it’ as an artist; i.e. before you got ‘too old’. I asked one of them to define what old was to them, and whether I (as somebody in their forties at that time), would be described in that way. The answer to the latter question was always a resounding yes.
Fast forward to June 2024, and I am standing in the Grand Hall of Ipswich Town Hall, watching what I would consider to be old (or rather, older) people dancing. This is The Posh Club, an afternoon tea event for patrons over 60, or as the flyer describes the suggested clientele, ‘…swanky senior citizens, elegant elders and glamorous golden girls and geezers.’
Posh Club, Ipswich Town Hall, 4 June 2024 (Photograph by Alexander Ward)
Programmed by SPILL and attended by 220 guests, the event had sold out many days in advance, primarily due to the incredible advocacy of Julie Stokes, CEO of ActivLives, a charity working across Ipswich and Suffolk to keep older people active and connected to their local communities.
The Posh Club is the brainchild of Duckie, a London-based artist collective and, in their own words, ‘a group of veteran LGBTQ club runners that emerged out of the wasteland of south London’s Vauxhall a quarter of a century ago.’ Posh Clubs happen all across the South East, with regular events in Hackney, Brighton and Crawley.
Simon Casson from Duckie (Photograph by Robin Deacon)
Flyering for Posh Club on the Cornhill, Ipswich (Photograph by Robin Deacon)
Posh Club, Ipswich Town Hall, 4 June 2024 (Photograph by Alexander Ward)
When Duckie’s Director Simon Casson contacted me last year to see if there might be interest in SPILL working with them to bring The Posh Club to Ipswich for the first time, my mind went back to my first experiences with Duckie – probably in the early 2000s in London, with their legendary night club events at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London.
As a much younger artist (I must have been in my mid-twenties), I performed at one of these Duckie events. Despite my developing reputation at that time for my rather strange little performances, I was a shy young man; straight, in all senses of the word. My experience that night was both terrifying and exhilarating. I did a 5-minute turn on a tiny stage to a crowd who were as rowdy and boozy as I had ever experienced as an artist still finding my feet and my voice.
For the performance, I had (for some reason) come dressed as a chef, and used a saw to chop off fake parts of my body made from papier mache and filled with tomato ketchup and strawberry jelly for blood and guts. I remember cooking these dismembered body parts on a portable hob, the pink and red goo spilling all over the place. The audience were a noisy bunch, as they reacted with horror and amusement to the bloody mess I was making. My gestures became increasingly exaggerated and frantic to keep their attention, as well as hecklers at bay; a clear and present danger at Duckie it would seem.
It was funny having these memories bubbling up in response to Simon's proposal to SPILL. This expansion of my perception of Duckie as hip London nightclub impresarios to them also providing experiences specifically designed for older people - especially those who may be lonely or isolated - has always fascinated me. How can we make sense of the contrast between tea and cake in the afternoon in Ipswich relative to the edgy London club nights they still do, where a young, queer crowd parties and dances into the wee small hours.
In a public talk at our Think Tank venue held in the run up to the Posh Club event, both Simon from Duckie and Julie From ActivLives presented the ethos and histories of their organisations. It was only through witnessing the following conversation that I began to see more clearly affinities between them that went beyond questions of age or ageing. Simon and Julie spoke about the importance of breaking bread for the kind of social events organised by both Duckie (afternoon tea) and ActivLives (lunch clubs). Both talked about service in this regard.
Posh Club, Ipswich Town Hall, 4 June 2024 (Photograph by Alexander Ward)
ActivLives state that their remit is to support not just those of a particular age (55 or over), but also those who live in ‘hard pressed areas in Ipswich and across Suffolk’, whereas Simon’s perspectives on the importance of class (or, as he put it, ‘the C-word’), also position The Posh Club in a wider conversation about tackling societal disadvantage. Something that Simon said in a BBC Radio Suffolk interview stayed with me: that British people don’t always look after the elderly well.
If you have been following American politics in recent weeks, questions of ageing remain current. Watching the dancing at Ipswich Town Hall continue into the late afternoon, I was conscious of the fact that in less than 10 years, I myself will be eligible for entry to The Posh Club as a punter. Something to look forward to of course, but combined with my recent acquisition of an over 50’s railcard, such a realisation makes me even more aware of the accelerated passage of time that comes with ageing. These days, a decade can fly by.