As part of the Triennial Fringe there was a subversive catwalk of ‘Older Women Rock!’ poetry and poetic clothes in the ballroom of the Burstin Hotel Folkestone, followed by a wild tea trolley dance with bMoSo Academy of Song and Dance
There are two exciting ‘Older Women Rock!’ events taking place during the Folkestone Triennial
Firstly a screening of documentary and experimental films celebrating older women and made in and around Folkestone. The Quarterhouse on Sunday 24th September at 7.30pm. Tickets £4 from the Box Office https://www.quarterhouse.co.uk/whats-on/
Secondly a subversive catwalk featuring Older Women Rock! poetry clothing, followed by a tea trolley dance and a meal.
The Burstin Hotel on 1st October at 5.30pm. Ticket £10.70 including meal available through https://billetto.co.uk/e/owr-fashion-show-tickets-211006
In collaboration with Keele University and with Arts Council funding, ’Older Women Rock!’ is now in North Staffordshire with a project ‘Poetry [E]motion’, bringing together poetry-writing and listening partnerships.
The base for the project is an ‘Older Women Rock!’ pop-up exhibition in an empty shop at York Place, 27 High Street, Newcastle-under-Lyme, ST5 2AE [next to Holland & Barrett]
The exhibition runs from 13 June – 29 July 2017
Tuesdays and Wednesdays 11am-2pm
Thursdays 11am-4pm
Lines on the window are from a group poem written by local older women
‘Speaking as an older woman who is sick and tired
of this novel paunch and the need to nap,
speaking as an older woman from India who rearranged her life
for a Stokie man fifty three years ago and loves it still,
speaking as an older woman who is witnessing family
slipping through her fingers like fine sand,
I see that hope is the burst of a sherbert lemon on the tongue
and a lump of sugar, brittle and dense, that never quite dissolves
Speaking as an older woman who asks you to look into her eyes
to see the youth and fun within her,
speaking as an older woman who doesn’t feel old,
whose mind still races as it always did
but whose body tends to lag behind,
speaking as an older woman who is not the reason
for the collapsing NHS and pension funds,
I see that hope is the ascent from base camp
up the crevices of determination, pain and love
to the oxygen burst at the summit’
A poetry film made for Tammy Whynot’s YouTube channel and based on ‘Don’t Buy the Hype’, my poem about society’s pressure on older women to ‘age agelessly’
FiLiA, a fantastic charity effecting change for women and girls, has uploaded the report about the pilot phase of the project that took place recently in Folkestone
https://filia.org.uk/news/2017/4/26/older-women-rock-a-report
We made a short Public Service Announcement film with Tammy Whynot yesterday for her YouTube channel, using one of my ‘Older Women’s Rock!’ poems about the way the beauty industry impacts older women. An amazing day. Photos of Maiuko, Anita and Ebun.
The film should be out by the end of April ’17
This precise and perceptive review of ‘Older Women Rock!’ by Michael Ohajuru makes me very happy-
http://assistedreadymade.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/leah-thorn-older-women-rock.html
Local knitting artist Tatty Bunting on her way to Wilko to set up a display of two dresses made from Wilko wool and adorned with words from an ‘Older Women Rock!’ group poem –
Tatty went on to lead a well-received ‘Arm & Finger Knitting’ workshop in Dance Easy
Older Women Rock! 