This contribution illuminates the fluid gender and age identities performed in the Belgian theatrical dance piece Gardenia (2010) and its re-staging, Gardenia — 10 Years Later (2021). This dance piece blends and contrasts bodies of different ages and genders by staging older trans, queer, and gender-non-conforming drag performers alongside younger professional dancers. Its choreography and dramaturgy centre around tableaux, (un)dressing, and lip-syncing, invoking a plethora of queer gestures and images that play with temporality. The two authors converse about the fluidity and stillness enacted on stage and interrogate how Gardenia highlights non-linear trans life courses and counters normative ideas of gender and ageing by exploring the intersections of age, gender, and race.
Lee et al. (Wed,) studied this question.