DenkArt: Alt? Erfahren! Wie wir als Gesellschaft vom Alter profitieren

In the organizer's words:

Old? Experienced! How we as a society benefit from old age

Being productive is a basic human need and does not stop with age. Ageism, on the other hand, is a phenomenon of our current (working) society. The intergenerational approach to productivity, work, learning and knowledge transfer runs counter to an ideal of youthful energy and fixed age limits. No society can do without the expertise of people with professional and life experience. Especially not a demographically ageing one. And yet, in application procedures, people over 50 are more likely to receive rejections or be sent into partial retirement. Dance is a good example of age-discriminatory thinking and action. Dancers usually have to say goodbye to the world's ballet stages at the age of 40. And then? Who prepares them for a professional life afterwards? One initiative against age discrimination in dance is DANCE ON. An ensemble with dancers aged 40-70. It focuses on precisely this approach of further development and new forms of dance and choreography for older dancers. It is not only for cross-generational companies that structures and attitudes need to change. An ageing society must also be able to answer the questions of productivity and further development in old age with all its peculiarities in terms of understanding performance, the exchange of experience between generations and lifelong learning for the future.

We want to discuss a new understanding of the importance of ageing in culture and society with:

Madeline Ritter (Bureau Ritter / Project: Dance On)

Prof. Dr. habil. Eva-Marie Kessler (Gerontopsychologist, Medical School Berlin)

Sebahat Atli (Member of the Berlin House of Representatives)

Moderated by Silke Burmester (journalist and moderator)

Find out more: www.fes.de/denkart