Having just turned 70 (which seems like saying 180) I am very grateful to still be teaching, still demonstrating my entire class - including jumps (touch wood), and I seem never to have been entering a more challenging and exciting season since the inception of the company in 1997.

The two sold out summer schools provided a forum for the creation of new work on my part. My working title is Night Garden and the music is Johannes Ciconia, a Flemish composer who had an illustrious career in Italy around 1400. I’m planning two eventual realizations of this project - Part I in October for Bill James’ revolutionary company in Peterborough (where my soul was born) called Old Men Dancing (OMD) - I actually have a relative (Peter Earle) performing with that company - all men - and all over 50!

Part II will be in Banff in November with some of the same material and some new selections created in France in September at La Roche d’Hys, a Canadian Arts centre in Burgundy, where we performed last year.

The 09/10 season seems daunting for the small scale of our enterprise - but we have so many highly gifted dancers to show to the world that, as always, we feel we are on a sacred mission. I had scarcely imagined it would be possible to resume touring my works, particularly in this cultural climate - yet maybe even because of it, performance dates are appearing well into the future. It seems that there is indeed an audience for the passionate and highly skilled presentation of dance.

~ David Earle, September 2009