Moving Memory's Sian Stevenson: ‘The piece is about saying sod off, we deserve a break’

“It does things to you,” says Sian Stevenson, Creative Director of Moving Memory, as she describes the luxurious gold four poster bed made for the company’s show Golden Slumbers. “Liz [White, Set Designer] has made it so sumptuous. You get in there and think ‘no one has been this nice to me in years’.” 

The bed is the hero stage piece in Golden Slumbers, a show that explores the unthanked domestic and emotional graft made by women. It also builds on the Welsh notion of cwtch (pronounced cootch) - a kind of super hug that envelops you in love and comfort. 

The Folkestone-based theatre company, which challenges preconceptions of ageing, brings the show to Margate on Saturday, March 8, as part of POW Thanet’s Decade of Dissent festival. 

Golden Slumbers expands on themes already explored by the company in previous shows. “Ideas for new shows grow from old shows; you will see echoes as we go,” explains Sian. It’s a conscious decision, she goes on to say, because issues around misogyny “continue to occur”, and as they age, the ensemble revisit ideas from slightly different perspectives.

Both political and personal, and performed by older women, the show’s roots go back to Covid times and revisits themes of ageing and death. Although Moving Memory has dealt with these subjects “from the beginning”, Sian says they became more relevant when two company members - the oldest and the youngest - were diagnosed with lymphoma. 

“I was struck that despite all the health issues, company members were running around like blue-assed flies looking after others. I was aware of how little value was put on emotional and domestic labour and was seeing women - primarily women -  do all the donkey work. It’s invisible, it’s not celebrated.”

The performance’s press notes describe the show as exploring the “endless cycle of labour”, which brings to mind the point in life when a mother is still working, still rearing children but now also looking after elderly parents and relatives. While only partially accurate, Sian says her mum, who was from a Welsh background and who died not long ago, impacted the work. 

“For me, my mum influenced [Golden Slumbers] a lot,” Sian says. “She was a midwife, worked nights, and she raised five children. She provided endless care and logistical sorting.

“But we work with women who don’t have children and I see the same in them in terms of sorting friends, others’ children, whatever. There’s a sense of, if you don’t do that, you’re a bad woman.”

It’s a universal story that women carry out the lion share of unpaid work. Globally, women carry out around 75% of all unpaid work, committing more than four hours a day to caring and domestic work, as well as household chores. In the UK, women do 60% more unpaid work than men, with the economic value of unpaid care work alone estimated to be around £184 billion per year.

“The piece is about saying, sod off, we deserve a break,” Sian says. “All that unpaid labour that is done by women - a lot of men are having a laugh, and if we didn’t do it, the economy would fall flat on its face.” 

Sian has more than 35 years working as a choreographer and director, and left her lecturing role at University of Kent two years ago to work on Moving Memory full time. She set up the company in 2010, after she became “aware of a lack of older women centre stage”. 

“At the same time, my dad was dying of cancer and I saw how he was treated both in hospice and in the NHS and I became aware of ageism in all its forms. And as an older woman and as a performer, I began questioning where the older bodies and older stories were,” she adds. 

A University of Kent associate company, Moving Memory was set up following a project between the university and a care home. 

“At the care home, I met a very lovely couple,” Sian recalls. “The woman was in the very late stages of dementia and she was visited every day by her husband.

“I was struck by the tenderness of these people and the huge amount of stories we’re not hearing.” 

While Sian says Moving Memory “honours those stories via the core company”, over time the company’s work has become autobiographical. Indeed, Golden Slumbers draws directly from the performers’ experiences - some of whom have been with the company from the beginning. 

Of the seven core ensemble members, three or four original members remain. Aged between 52 and 92, and trained up to be professional performers by Sian, the women all come from non-traditional theatre backgrounds, with ex-teachers, designers and secretaries amongst them. “It’s a very tight ensemble,” she says. “They've grown up together for 13 years - their relationships are very close.” 

The combination of personal experience and political drive runs through Moving Memory’s heart, with performers’ stories used as a starting point in the rehearsal room. 

Following the success of that very first care home project, Sian had intended to start touring. However she became “incredibly frustrated” by “unspoken resistance” to the idea that a show performed by older women could put “bums on seats”. 

Knowing there was an appetite for the ensemble’s work, Sian says she “didn’t expect it”, adding: “I thought ‘sod it’ and I created works for the street.” 

“I thought how do we overcome this ageism and misogyny [and the idea of] why do we want to see an old dried up prune at the heart of the work,” she adds. “All the work we do is in response to that.”

This initial resistance also opened up a creative opportunity for the company. After touring one of their early shows, Cracking The Crinoline, guerilla-style across Kent, the South East, London and Paris, working in public and community settings became one of the company's central principles. 

“People were just not seeing themselves represented,” Sian says. “On the streets, we met people from non-traditional theatre backgrounds and it was really exciting. Now our work is about reaching these so called hard-to-reach audiences, about creating a practice and a programme that is accessible to all. 

“It’s not a prescriptive approach. It’s about what are the stories you want to tell. It’s about empowering and giving agency to our participant movers and makers so they are the producers of the work - they’ve got the juicy stories.” 

In fact for Golden Slumbers, the core company is joined by ‘The Glories’, an ensemble of women who have participated in Moving Memory’s Groovin Well workshops. These movement-based sessions are held in the “hard-to-reach” communities around Kent, and as a gradual development over time, participants have had the opportunity to work alongside the core performers. 

Moving Memory doesn’t just challenge the public’s perceptions of ageing - setting up the company has changed Sian’s own perception of ageing. 

“I was challenged by an older tea dancer, who pulled me up short and sent me back to question myself,” she says. “I’m very glad they did because it has led me down a different path of working with older people. I find older women so interesting and such a joy.”

Moving Memory brings Golden Slumbers to Margate as part of POW Thanet on Saturday, March 8, at Ark 10am and at Turner Contemporary at 2.30pm and 3.30pm. The workshop (10.30am) following the Ark performance is suitable for all ages. Tickets are free and can be booked at powthanet.com