The New Kid in Town Has Been Around.

"FORTY IS the new 30. Instead of a decade to fade, 40 has bet come a time of endless possibility," proclaimed a cover of Mirabella magazine. Meanwhile, a study by the MacArthur Foundation reveals that people aged 35 to 74, on average, feel years younger than their actual ages. With hordes of baby boomers rounding the midlife mark, people's minds about aging are changing fast. That includes a dance organization choosing not only to beat the odds but to flout them. Its members call themselves 40Up and they are all dancers 40 years old or older. "Forty is the age when most dancers stop," says Robin Staff, the 48-year-old director of the 40Up Project, "except this new generation. We just keep on going."

June marks the fourth season for this loose collective of seasoned modern dancers who cut their performance teeth in the companies of Merce Cunningham, Murray Louis, Paul Taylor, and a slew of other dance luminaries. From June 22 to 25, 40Up will perform at Danspace in New York City in a program highlighting performers Christine Wright, a former Lar Lubovitch dancer; Heidi Latsky, a Bill T. Jones alumna; Lisa Nicks, an original member of Doug Elkins Dance Company; and Robin Staff, who's been sidestepping age bias throughout her dance experience.

When Staff was 10, she dropped out of her studies at New York's School of American Ballet, only to find herself belatedly but earnestly pursuing a ballet career at age 24. "Everybody was like, `There's no way you can do it,'" Staff recalls, her slender face accented by red hair pulled into a tight ponytail, "but I said, `I'm going to do this. I'm going to do what I can do.'" Staff went from apprenticing with the Dance Theater of Harlem to forming Colloquium Contemporary Dance Exchange, a troupe that features classical and modern repertory.

Staff's resolve to keep dancing was challenged once more when she was approaching 40--that juncture when many dancers drop out to have kids, make more money, or simply relieve themselves of the daily physical grind. Staff watched as many of her peers moved on and were replaced by younger dancers. She, on the other hand, felt no desire to stop. Upon hearing that choreographer Jiri Kilian had formed Nederlands Dance Theater III, a company of outstanding, over-40 dancers, Staff turned to her long-time company member Cherylyn Lavagnino and said, "Let's do that. Let's develop a company that will keep inspiring us and using us for the mature dancers that we are."

Gus Solomons jr, 61 (a Dance Magazine New York reviewer), believes that creating dance companies on the basis of age is both a trend and a good survival technique. He adds, "Dancers are being thrown away because they are no longer doing tricks." Solomons is a member of Dancers Over 40, Inc., an organization for older performers (the oldest is in his 80s) in New York City that quickly grew to over 500 members in five years. But unlike 40Up, which is a performance vehicle, Dancers Over 40, Inc. is primarily a support group for what are largely former Broadway performers. Solomons, who was an early dancer for Merce Cunningham and still enjoys performing, has formed an over-60 performance trio called Paradigm, along with Carmen de Lavallade and Dudley Williams, two original Alvin Ailey dancers. "There are lots of older dancers now who are feeling their oats and looking for opportunities to perform," he says. "We can, just because of our experience, bring additional layers to what we do."

Rob Besserer, a mature performer who never seems to run out of performance opportunities, agrees. "Dancing feels totally different now. It's a much deeper experience and I enjoy it much more." At 49, Besserer has performed with Lar Lubovitch, Mark Morris, the White Oak Project and Martha Clarke. "Usually I find myself to be the oldest one around," he jokes. But Besserer has no plans to stop dancing, nor does he want to join a group of dancers over 40. "I don't see the point of it," he says. "I love to watch people dance no matter what the age, and I hate it when the point is, `I'm so old and I'm still here.'" At the same time, Besserer acknowledges the dilemma that many dancers face, in particular, ballerinas, whose careers are sometimes curtailed as early as 30. "Dance is such a youth-oriented thing," he says, and suggests with a smile, "maybe I'll join `50 and Up.'"

Staff admits the first year of 40Up was slow. "People did not want to be associated by their age," she recalls. "Some would say, `I'm not 40 yet,' even though they were." But after three seasons of sold-out performances, Staff says, "there is so much interest I had no idea what I was getting into." 40Up currently boasts eight to twelve core stalwarts who, consequently, cannot hide their ages.

Six years ago, at age 43, Kate Johnson, who reigned for many years as one of Paul Taylor's most outstanding dancers, had a baby. Becoming a mother has kept her from touring, but it hasn't stopped her from performing with 40Up. June marks her third season with the troupe and she says it's inconceivable to think of not dancing anymore. "You can't do certain things but you can do other things better," says Johnson. She says she loved performing Taylor's challenging repertory but her decision to move on had everything to do with the repetition. "I was wearing out and couldn't keep going at that pace," says Johnson, who then joined the first company of Baryshnikov's White Oak Project, which was at first entirely made up of dancers over 40. She recalls, chuckling, "We made a list where we said, `We don't do this anymore.' However, everybody ignored it."

One choreographer who derives great pleasure from working with mature dancers is Mark Morris. His current troupe is primarily composed of dancers in their mid-30s, but also includes three dancers over 40. Morris says he has no problem adjusting his choreographer for anyone in the company. "If someone says, `Oh, my right knee hurts,' well, go down on the left." What he likes about his oldsters is that "these are people who've been in love, read books, traveled, and simply lived in the world longer." But he adds, "Just because you've survived doesn't mean you're a good artist."

Certainly it's nothing new to see older dancers still hoofing it. Tappers can often charm audiences along every step of their lives. And the artistry of butoh is sometimes best served by the most ancient of stage mariners. At age 93, Kazuo Ohno is probably the world's oldest performing dancer. When he recently performed butoh's stylized post-war Japanese dance form to sold-out houses in New York, he was described by the New York Times dance critic Jennifer Dunning as appearing to do little more than "take a few crabbed steps about the stage." Yet, she went on to say, "the flamelike intensity of his movement and presence, so hobbled and yet so serenely certain, made wondrous magic ..." But in the field of modern dance, if a dancer is considerably older, chances are he or she is also a choreographer. Take that Titan, Martha Graham. Dance critic Deborah Jowitt says, "She was a powerful dancer at 50 as the bride in Appalachian Spring, but when she turned 70 it wasn't so appropriate because she was presenting herself like she was a younger person. She still saw herself as a seductress." Jowitt views Merce Cunningham, still performing at 80, as staging himself more naturally "as a remote figure from the young ones or a guardian to them," she says. "I think he is phasing himself out now, but he created roles that allowed him to be himself at any stage of his life. He has not accorded that privilege to his dancers."

Understandably, many choreographers don't want their vision restricted by a dancer's physical limitations. The really popular, mainstream modern troupes--such as the Paul Taylor Dance Company or Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater--tend to display an acute technical prowess that is inherently easier for younger dancers to execute. By contrast, work by and for older modern dancers "tends to be lovely, thoughtful, caring work," says Village Voice dance editor Elizabeth Zimmer. Dancer Rob Besserer jokes that he declined to dance with NDT III, in part, because "every piece had chairs in it."

However, Staff is quick to point out that "we didn't want 40Up to be about what we can't do. We want to be challenged." The troupe's programs have included text/performance pieces by Claire Porter and David Dorfman and a diverse range of choreography by Janis Brenner, Tere O'Connor, Molissa Fenley, Doug Varone, Zvi Gotheiner, Gina Gibney, David Parsons and many other mature, respected choreographers. And while Jowitt did recently describe several solos on a 40Up program as "gentle explorations," she also declared the dancers to be "as limber and powerful as they ever were ..."

Funders are also beginning to take notice. The manager of the Contributions Program at Philip Morris, Marilyn Donini, recalls first hearing from Staff in 1997. Donini says she funded the project because she found Staff's program intriguing. "We thought it was a noble thing," she said. "Them is a lot of commentary in the dance world as to what happens to older dancers. They are a great resource and then forgotten. There are a lot of great dancers getting older now and I think it's going to plant a seed."

The bottom line is, can these mature dancers attract large, steady audiences, or are they going to be seen as more of a novelty act? Demographics are on their side. It isn't only dancers who are aging, and fighting it all the way. There is an ever-widening population of middle-aged Americans who work out and are determined to stave off that spare tire for as long as possible.

After all, says Kate Johnson, "We are the baby-boom generation and we're still trying to take over the world." She adds with a laugh, "Now we're turning our interests toward Social Security and medical care. There's going to be a lot of improvements in nursing homes." By then, there may be an 80 and up dance troupe.