Dance artist Joe Laughlin excavates aging and finds new freedom in I remember…
At the Firehall Arts Centre, the 64-year-old soloist interweaves storytelling and video to explore his past and present
Joe Laughlin’s I remember…. Photo by Michael Slobodian
The Firehall Arts Centre presents Joe INK’s I remember… from January 15 to 18
WHEN VETERAN VANCOUVER choreographer Joe Laughlin set about creating a new dance solo for himself, at 64, he knew he’d be working with the limitations that come with an aging body. But what he ended up finding was a new freedom.
“I didn’t have any expectations, which is the place I’m at in my life,” the founding artistic director of Joe INK tells Stir over the phone on a break from rehearsals for his new I remember…. “I don’t have any expectations anymore, and in a very strange way, that makes me feel like I did when I was younger, because dancing can wear you down, especially the external forces of it, and you can lose your love for it. I wanted to excavate that, and I wanted to feel that again. And somehow I found it.”
The result is a work that breaks new ground for an artist who has been conjuring eclectic, hyperphysical works for four decades. Interweaving storytelling, dance, and video, I remember… marks the first time that Laughlin has penned a script for a show.
“I was writing these things down about aging, and then I said to myself, ‘Well, you could just speak in your piece if you needed to, and you could just give an honest take on what it's like,’ ” the artist says. “Nobody talks about your 60s and what happens. Nobody talks about this shit. These things are changing, and nobody really talks about it, and you just discover them.
“When you're aging, you become invisible in some senses,” he adds, “and then there’s this push for you to be, ‘Oh, I feel great, and I feel young.’ So there’s some balance about accepting your age and your limitations and aging and still doing what you want to do.”
Reflecting on a career that has taken him from gymnastics to contemporary dance, and from South Africa to Europe and South Korea, Laughlin says the new full-length solo brings together the past and present—sometimes quite literally. In one of I remember…’s most moving sequences, Laughlin dances with projected video footage of his much younger self. In clips from the work, it’s obvious his body has changed: the honed young artist flips and whipsaws across the stage in the original 1990 footage from Remember Me, while the older artist responds with movement that focuses more on expressive arms and hands. But Laughlin notices that he feels more comfortable in his own skin now.
“Does it matter that you can’t do these physical things anymore?” he asks. Then, referring to a career that has found him staging works around everything from scaffolding to teacups to giant chess boards, he adds: “I mean, I’ve always liked limitations and parameters in choreography, whether it’s objects or a set or whatever. They bring a certain restriction, but also opportunity.”
He felt drawn to take the stage alone after his ambitious, interdisciplinary last piece, Dance: Craft. Debuting after years of work and a pandemic pause in 2022, the production brought two dancers into an elaborate world of clay, glass, wood, and textile works by four local artisans. During that process, Laughlin found himself alone one day at a makeup mirror in the dressing room, and started wondering if he had another solo in him.
“I just thought about the simplicity of working on your own, which I have done before in my career,” says the artist.
And so he started weaving together a piece that digs into his past, shares lessons he’s learned, and enacts a straightforward message: You are never too old to do what you love. James Proudfoot has designed the lighting, while the score alternates between spoken contemplations, piano, and classical music (by Kate Potter, Dirje Childs, Sylvester, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Giuseppe Giordani).
Along the way, Laughlin promises a few surprises–including tributes to the artists who have influenced him most. And so I remember… ends up giving Laughlin, and his fans, a new appreciation for the art form he chose as a young man—and how much life experience he carries in his 64-year-old body.
“There’s a certain freedom, because I don't have any judgments on myself, which I think I did so much in the past,” he reflects. “But I've kind of worked through that. I've allowed myself to just be free in the studio and somehow moving again has just woken everything back up in me.” 
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