We are artists and we are beautiful! Older artists in the workforce

By Guest Writer, Geraldine Montgomery

On International Day of Older People, 1st October 2023, Leeds based company The Performance Ensemble marked up six months along our journey in becoming the UK’s first collective of older artists that is a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO).

Founded by Director Alan Lyddiard in 2016, we are a unique company of people aged 60 and over – both of those whose working lives have been spent in the professional arts and those who have followed other paths. People of all backgrounds, faiths and lived experience, now in their later lives, fuelled by creative passion and an urgency to be seen and to be heard.

We make art with the experience of age… and we are now making an arts organisation from the same focus. We are passionate about developing the skills, confidence and voice of older people and this is at the heart of the way that we will operate as we move from a project-to-project approach to a permanent organisation within the wider arts sector.

Whilst rooted in lived experience, our work seeks to create high quality art for all audiences. Our performer, John Poulter, shared his experience of the ‘physically demanding dance’ that has been an enduring element of our performance work:

“We were throwing ourselves down on the floor jumping up again. Up down up down up. And just at the end, and the people doing that dance. Some of them were in their mid seventies. I think that sort of thing in a way shows a vitality…”

We aim for our artists to also act as activists, disrupting narratives about ageing and demonstrating this vitality; advocating for platforms for older voices. As an organisation we work in partnership, drawing on the support available to us across sectors. Whether from established NPO arts organisations or researchers and academics, health and care professionals or hyper local community groups, advocacy organisations and national networks, we seek to build on good practice, understand the difference we can make and the gaps that our work can fill.

Our policies and our processes – from risk assessments to employment contracts and evaluation approaches – are gradually being co-produced with ensemble members, drawing on decades of experience. We have already revised how we pace our work with a focus on conserving health and energy and our ongoing conversations are developing new perspectives on travelling for work in later life, on wellbeing in the context of long term conditions and disability, and the support we can offer in becoming an arts professional after retirement.

At this point in our work our team are encouraged to take a creative approach in all things and our performer, Pat White, volunteered a piece of writing on ageing to conclude this blog: