Dancing through decades
When Marianne Schultz left New Zealand to return to her native New York last year, she didn’t put away her dance shoes. For more than three decades, Schultz, soon to turn 62, has been a stalwart of our contemporary dance scene performing with Limbs, teaching hundreds of students at some of our most well-recognised companies and eventually earning a PhD in history with a deep dive into New Zealand on stage, screen and the airwaves from 1862 to 1940.
She returned to Albany, New York, to help care for her 92-year-old mother and found adult dance classes to join. Did she think she’d still be dancing into her seventh decade?
“When I was a young dancer, my goal was to be in a dance company by the age of 25 and I did that and that was like, that was it,” said Schultz. “Now, reflecting on why am I still dancing, how am I still dancing, it’s almost like, ‘why am I still breathing?’ I can’t separate it from myself. It’s just who I am.”
When the chance to reprise her role in the dance work Orchids came up, Schultz returned to New Zealand. This week, a little under two years since Orchids was first performed, she rejoins on stage the sevenstrong all-female cast aged 9 to 61.
Choreographed by Sarah Foster-Sproull,
Orchids follows the story of women at various stages of life; mother, daughter, confidant, lover, fighter, child and goddess. Those working on the show include composer Eden Mulholland, set designer/dramaturgy Andrew Foster, lighting designer Jennifer Lal and costume designer Elizabeth Whiting.
Three years ago, when Schultz joined the team, she had all but given up dancing. But Foster-Sproull wanted her on stage because, she said, making an intergenerational work that lived up to that title required a truly diverse range of women.
Schultz worried she could no longer do what the younger dancers could do; that she’d face the criticism female dancers, even the legendary Margot Fonteyn, did when they kept going past a certain age. But FosterSproull said Schultz needed to be in Orchids.
“. . . there’s something quite different about seeing a woman performing on stage and seeing a young woman performing on stage and this is the reason why I wanted to work with Marianne because I’m seeing her experience; she’s carrying all of that life learning when she’s on stage and if we are talking about women, we need to be not just talking about a 20-year-old woman.”
Schultz always intended to return if Orchids was reprised: “I feel really honoured and privileged to be able to do it.”