Seniors Rocking

a film by Ruedi Gerber

SENIORS ROCKING, a companion piece to the feature length film Breath Made Visible, is a short documentary that unveils the artistic process and captures the communal energy behind the unique performance created by American dance pioneer Anna Halprin with senior citizens from all walks of life from the Redwoods Community of Seniors and the Sunshine Club in Marin County, CA.
Led by Anna Halprin's belief in dance’s power to teach, heal and transform, the film portrays and follows these senior citizens expressing their legacy through dance -- from the initial tentative rehearsals to the joyful celebration of the culminating performance.

SENIORS ROCKING explores the artistic process of Anna Halprin, a pioneer of American dance, through the prism of a single performance piece. The film retraces not only the development of a unique performance with residents of two nursing homes in California, but also the growth of a sense of community when fifty people from various walks of life, age 65 to 100, join forces to perform together.

Underpinned by Halprin’s conviction that dance and movement embolden people to express themselves and, in so doing, change their lives, the film shows how the participants give physical shape to their personal messages for posterity through a dance performance.

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Festivals

Warsaw Film Festival 2011
Solothurnen Filmtagen 2011
Mill Valley Film Festival 2010

2010 | Switzerland | 30min. | Documentary
Dialogue: English
Subtitles: Deutsch

Cast

Anna Halprin, Lawrence Halprin, Jim Glyer, Verna L. Bynum, Ann Early, Doris I. Crittenden, Dorothy, Ida VSW Red, Fred Jackson, Patricia Garfield, Brian Hand, Larry Halprin, Alice L. Bachelder, Judi Wilson, Gracie Stover, Evelyn Magee, Dorothea Betts and all the participants and facilitators from The Redwoods Community of Seniors and the Sunshine Club.