unlearn

Bodies move with quiet conviction. They are not young, not trained in the traditional sense, and yet they dance. This is the world of Galit Liss, an Israeli choreographer whose work dismantles conventional notions of dance, age, and beauty. Her practice is about unlearning; releasing the expectations imposed on the aging body and reclaiming movement as a form of personal truth.

Liss is the founder of the Gila School of Movement and Stage Art for Mature Women, where she has developed a unique methodology known as the Gila Practice. Working with women aged 60 upwards, most of whom are non-dancers, she cultivates a space where the body is not corrected but listened to.

The process is somatic and personal. Dancers begin on the floor, tuning into breath and sensation. They move through memory, through imagined strings and shifting weight, until the room pulses with intensity. What emerges is not choreography in the traditional sense, but a collective re-establishment of what movement “should” be.

Her dancers do not strive to be young. They embody the fullness of their age with all its stories, its scars, its wisdom. In doing so, their movements and presence challenge the cultural invisibility of older women and assert their right to be seen, heard, and felt.