When the Bleeding Stops / Because I Can review – unexpectedly joyful reflection on menopause

Contemporary dance about the menopause? A dancer’s career derailed by injury? When the Bleeding Stops sounds like an earnest, even depressing evening, but turns out to be something utterly joyful.

Icelandic dancer Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir is a warm, engaging narrator, telling us her story: from dancing around her living room as a kid to becoming a member of Iceland’s premier dance company – and then suddenly seeing the clock ticking on her career, and her fertility. Her central idea is a neat one, the parallel of a dancer’s career ending and a woman’s menopause, one’s purpose on the planet over. “Now just choose a corner and prepare yourself for death.” she says, with an amiable smile.

Or not. Recovering from a back injury, Gunnarsdóttir has a sudden urge to dance (to a Simply Red song, no less) and begins a daily ritual at home. She encourages others to do it too, and here’s where it gets revelatory. Away from the professional dance institutions, sculpted bodies, edgy choreographers and cult of youth, just a video of Gunnarsdóttir’s sister-in-law, a middle aged woman in comfy sweats, bopping along to her favourite song. No shyness, no shame. It’s genuinely powerful. A return to the four-year-old dancing in the living room, but at 44, or 54 or 64.

The show is crafted with a light touch, a life-affirming piece of theatre on how much we still don’t know, and don’t talk about, menopause, and the power of movement and community. Take note: the volume of middle aged women in the audience – and the volume of their cheering – suggests this is much needed.

When the Bleeding Stops is paired with another piece on ageing, Because I Can, created by choreographer Eva Recacha for Lauren Potter. In her fifth decade of performing, Potter remains a captivating presence. Her distinct, articulate movement; her precise, expressive arms. It’s the opposite of just bopping along to the music. She enacts playfully defiant moves, “Because I can!” she says, a foot in the face of any expectations or limitations on older women’s bodies. But in contrast to the specificity of her dancing, the stream of consciousness voiceover meanders through thoughts and memories without great purpose. Potter’s dance, however, proves its power in its own quiet way.