Dears’ Diaries is a new series spotlighting the voices behind We’ll Take It From Here, Dear – our bold new theatre piece exploring the quiet ways older women are patronised, underestimated and stripped of agency.
Through conversations with Moving Memory’s core company, we’re sharing reflections on ageing, creativity, power and the process of creating this urgent new work together.
Dears’ Diaries: Ginette
Ginette has been part of Moving Memory’s core company since the very beginning – almost 15 years ago.
“We were a bunch of strangers sitting in a room looking at each other and wondering what on earth was going to happen. Little did we know!”
Since then, the company has evolved into something far deeper than a performance group: “There’s lots of trust and love between us now. We’re not individual parts any more – we’re one thing.”
That collective strength sits at the centre of We’ll Take It From Here, Dear – a bold new theatre piece created by the core company alongside composer and musician Nina Clark.
The work explores the quiet, everyday ways older women are patronised, underestimated and stripped of agency – often under the guise of kindness.
“We’ve been exploring permissions – how society expects you to behave as an older woman.”
As the process developed, Ginette says she began noticing these attitudes everywhere – often in ways people don’t even realise.
Recently, she was out late in London with a friend when two young men stopped them specifically to comment on the fact they were older women out late at night who looked “amazing”.
“They meant it kindly,” she says, “but what they really thought was: ‘You two don’t belong out here at this time of night.’ They would never have said that to younger women.”
For Ginette, that’s what makes this work so important – the fact that these assumptions are often invisible to the people making them. “People don’t even realise they’re doing it. It’s everywhere.”
At the same time, she says Moving Memory has helped her become more confident in herself, her body and her voice.
“Moving Memory has given me so much physical confidence and confidence in my own voice. I feel proud to be heard. Proud to be seen.”
Rather than telling a story of decline or quiet resilience, We’ll Take It From Here, Dear puts older women centre stage as powerful, complicated and uncompromising.
“I want audiences to go away and think about their own contribution to this. I want them to see powerful women – not women to tilt their heads at sympathetically.”
“I want people to be blown away by our power.”
On 17 June, We’ll Take It From Here, Dear (Work in Progress) is premiering at The Grand Folkestone as part of Wavelengths Festival.
Secure your free tickets here.
We’ll Take It From Here, Dear has been generously supported by Arts Council England.