If a dance festival featuring oldsters sounds almost as dreary as aging itself, Elixir Festival 2024 should set you straight. Made up of a half-dozen performances with global reach, as well as workshops and films, this week-long event blooms from an E.U.-sponsored “action plan against age discrimination in dance.” The festival has its starry notes: the Senegalese postmodern maverick Germaine Acogny and Pina Bausch veteran Malou Airaudo in the spare prelude to the Bausch Rite of Spring with an all-African cast that recently toured the world; Montreal’s extreme-ballet icon Louise Lecavalier in her relentless solo Blue; and Merce Cunningham’s 1963 Story, performed by those over 40—that is, people with stories—paired with acclaimed French dancemaker Mathilde Monnier’s choreographic response. There are also novelties: a trio for dancers and tortoise; an ensemble piece about desires it has taken a lifetime to express.
—Apollinaire Scherr