THERE’S nothing like a milestone birthday to make one look back and take stock of our lives.

And as the self-professed “grand dame of anarchic dance” Liz Aggiss hit her 60th year, she used it as a basis for her first solo live work for six years: The English Channel.

“The performance is centred around the fact I have been performing for nearly 40 years,” she says, admitting the last time she played her hometown was two years ago with a performance of her 2008 solo work Survival Tactics at The Basement.

“When you hit a certain age there’s a cultural notion, especially as a woman, that you’re too old. I’m sure I’m still going to be an anarchic dancing pensioner when I’m 70.

“When I got to my 60th birthday I thought it would be a good opportunity to celebrate that I have been in performance so long and talk about some of the issues that have come up for me over the years.”

The English Channel began with 18 months of research before Aggiss even set foot in a rehearsal studio.

“I did a lot of research about my past histories and social history, the history of Britain in the 1950s,” she says.

“I did a lot of thinking around what had influenced me and the things that are important in my performance.”

Aggiss started late as a dancer, and admits she was 28 when she really embraced it as a career – an age when some professional dancers are expected to retire.

“I had an absolute desire to be creative and make my own work,” she says. “As I started to dance that late I could never be an interpretive dancer for other people – I always wanted to make my own work and challenge people’s expectations, as all art should.”

The English Channel weaves together text, movement and film, with heavy doses of humour.

“The work is always driven by questions about life, the universe and everything,” says Aggiss, who is a part-time professor at the University Of Brighton and has an honorary doctorate from Sweden’s University Of Gothenburg.

“The politics of the stage and politics of the female body on stage were part of the research.”

Channelling ideas

The title refers both to the UK’s geographical position “it’s no accident that we are an island and have to cross over to go anywhere else” and Aggiss’s role within the piece as a conduit for ideas she thinks are important.

“It allows me to channel those ideas and reveal them to an audience in a humorous and entertaining way,” she says.

“Humour is an incredibly good way to talk about important issues – humour is a part of me. Word-play, innuendo and the text itself drive the narrative.

“I like to be able to speak and move at the same time – a lot of dancers find combining those elements hard, but that is what I find really interesting.”

Another big part of the piece is the question of whether an artist should please you – the audience – or please herself.

“Hopefully people will come along and be pleasantly surprised that it won’t be anything they thought they might see,” says Aggiss.

“There are so many themes woven into this narrative and it moves swiftly from one thing to another.

“The audience is constantly being confronted. It’s a journey which is ever-morphing and shifting from one idea to another.

“It makes it a really good fun piece to perform.”

  • Liz Aggiss: The English Channel, Brighton Dome Studio Theatre, New Road, Saturday, February 8
  • Starts 8pm, SOLD OUT. Call 01273 709709