For many women over a certain age, ‘old’ is a dirty word – although renowned Canberra multidisciplinary artist Judith Clingan believes it shouldn’t be.

Combining her lived experience and that of other women, she created Threshold – a music, art, and theatre production, coming to the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture on 4-5 March.  

“Most young people can’t yet envisage what it will feel like. I know that when I was not this age, I had no idea the number of things that would be tricky; no idea at all,” says Clingan.

Originally meant to hit the stage last year, the artist was inspired by a video for International Women’s Day 2020 of a woman discussing feminist issues through word and song. Clingan loved the format and wanted to create something in a similar vein, which spoke to a topic that wasn’t mentioned in media as much – what happens to women as they age.

The script came together through emails, phone calls, and in-person meetings when permitted, with input from peers and submissions from other artists and women. Scattered around the country, all the women who shared their experiences were over 70.

“I thought of all the angles that are relevant and important and I wrote down a big list that touched on the ageing process and death itself and sent it to over 100 women that I knew,” Clingan says.

Divided into two parts, the first covers the experience of ageing – what it is like when your body parts stop working, the way your life may change, and how other people start to look at you differently.

“You are sort of fighting the word a bit, you’re not especially wanting to think it applies to you. By the time you get to 70, you sort of have to accept the fact people will look at you and say ‘there’s an old person’,” she says.

With humour, a touch of flippancy and heartfelt honesty, in the second part, the four women spread across the stages discuss what happens when life comes to an end. Looking at it through different lenses, they touch on the moment of death, what it means to be dead, what it feels like when you’ve lost someone, and remembering someone who went before you.

The stage is set like a café, which Clingan says, allows friends to sit together and between moments, discussing their experiences and ideas, which is something most women want to do, the research suggests . 

The artist says the issue of ageing and how society treats those people who are ageing needs to involve those who are living the reality. She says people who aren’t there yet won’t understand the small, practical things that make you feel like a lesser person.

“Certainly losing one’s independence is a gradual thing; all of those things that we tend to in our society think ‘oh, it’s too hard, put them away in old people’s home’ and actually it is a terrible result, we haven’t worked it out at all,” Clingan says.

“It gets talked about by people who aren’t yet even remotely there. They won’t say the right things, and they won’t understand the right issues, even if the person has an aging parent. They will have some of the ideas if they’ve got an aging parent, but the aging parents themself if they haven’t lost their marbles entirely could say more,”

Once the words were on the pages, the artist knew she needed music to set a mood, a live band would be the best way. The band is formed with a piano, string quartet, flute, clarinet, singing bowls, recorders, a 15-piece choir, and two solo sopranos.

Knowing sometimes music can drown out words, Clingan decided that poignant and meaningful lyrics and quotes would be projected alongside music. From there the words grew to include images, telling a story of their own, including the lifelong commentary of a boy from the Shakespearean era and a girl from now.

The pictures also accompany personal stories and poems. One was written by Clingan’s mother, famous poet Marianne Clingan after the death of her father.

“It’s a very beautiful poem, she talks about the peach tree which he said, how many more springs do you think I’ll see and then he died. My mum was standing in the graveyard down at Woden where there were trees losing their leaves and just thinking about the peach tree.” She smiles.

See Judith Clingan’s Threshold at the Chapel, Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, 4-5 March; judithclingan.net.au

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