The Threshold
Event description
'The Threshold' by Judith Clingan combines music, theatre, dance and visual art to explore the taboo surrounding ageing and the end of life for women in the Western world. Judith (Judy) Clingan, born in Sydney in 1945, is a composer, writer, artist, educator and multi-arts creator/director. From early 2021 she interviewed many women aged seventy and older, asking them for their thoughts on a range of issues related to the ageing process, as well as our varying attitudes to the end of life. Their answers helped her greatly in writing the script of The Threshold. She also composed fourteen short pieces of music (for choir, strings, wind and piano, bells and singing bowls) for the work, as well as creating a series of visual images to amplify its shifting moods. The ambience Judy has aimed for is a subtle mix of humour, grief and transcendence.
Judy says: "I have been very interested to discover, across the twenty four months I have spent on this project, that while some women are unwilling to explore their thoughts on the topic of ageing and death, others are delighted to be given the opportunity. Maybe death is our last great taboo. At least, those of us living an affluent, western lifestyle very rarely experience the raw reality of death, and very rarely live day by day alongside a person dying slowly. I expect that in those societies where multi-generational families exist together in the one home, the realities of ageing and thoughts about the end are experienced daily. In our society older people are usually sequestered away, out of sight even of their families for most of the time. Certainly it isn't often that our artists dare to think about the void or perhaps the unknown something which awaits us all. I hope that The Threshold might be a step towards a more vigorous exploration of this topic."
Performances:
Friday 8th March, 8 -9 pm: Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, 15 Blackall St, Barton ACT
Saturday 9th March, 4 -5 pm: Soldier's Memorial Hall, 3 Railway Ave, Bundanoon NSW
Sunday 10th March, 2 -3 pm: Kamaroi Steiner School, 220 Forest Way, Belrose NSW