World’s oldest contortionist Christine Danton, 71, bends the rules
by Beverly Hadgraft
WHEN she was aged only seven, Christine Danton perfected a trick where she balanced a glass of water on her forehead, then doubled up her body to fold it through a 33cm hoop.
Sixty-four years on, her lithe body can still perform that remarkable feat.
Did she imagine, as a little girl, that she’d still be doing those tricks, bending over backwards to collect a $10 note with her teeth or lowering herself into the splits?
No, she replies. She’s as astonished as anyone.
“At 18, I thought, ‘I’ll quit when I’m 25’, because that seemed very old, especially for a female contortionist,” she recalls. At 25, she decided to continue until she was 40.
“At 40, I decided I’d just keep going.”
Christine is 163cm tall with long, lean limbs that look and move like those of a woman in her 20s.
Since the age of 13, she’s been performing on TV shows and in clubs, cabarets and circuses all over the world as The Amazing Cristina.
She’s still a regular at fringe festivals, although her favourite venue now is her own theatre, The Spud Shed, on her property in Langhorne Creek, SA, and she continues to bust all the boundaries.
“People have this set idea of what you should or shouldn’t do when you’re 71,” she says, recalling a time recently when she really put that to the challenge by performing in the nude.
“I’d done it when I was 40 so I thought why not when I’m 69?”
Not everyone agreed. Was it her nakedness or her age that offended?
“I think it was my age,” she admits, “But the people who came loved it. They understood it. It was beautifully lit and the most pure form of art you could have.
“It took all my courage but you have to have courage to challenge people’s thinking. You have to stay creative or you’re in a nursing home.”
LIMBERING UPCHRISTINE trains twice a week with a 75-minute routine of backbends, forward bends and the splits – most contortionists can only go backwards or forwards but not both.
She does each set three times, gaining more flexibility with each repetition.
She stopped briefly in her mid-50s, weary of performing in venues “full of dickheads drinking”.
“They weren’t interested in my art,” she says.
“They weren’t sleazy or anything but I felt I was casting pearls before swine.”
Two years later, however, she “felt like a blob”.
“Physically and mentally I wasn’t good. I felt I’d lost my purpose and identity,” she says.
“I didn’t like where my body was headed and wanted my flexibility back. I had to do a lot of [mental] imagery, remembering how it felt, and it took three months of really hard work but I did get it back and have had a career ever since.
“Getting back on stage was amazing.”
Not surprisingly, Christine has attracted the interest of doctors who’ve X-rayed her in all kinds of positions and tell her she has the spine of a woman half her age.
Photos of her still appear in medical journals and she has no pain or arthritis at all.
ART OF CONTORTIONSOME contortionists are born with the right physicality. Many are double-jointed or have loose ligaments and can dislocate joints to twist their bodies into grotesque positions.
Christine has good genetics, but says her flexibility is down to training, and her act based on ballet and “beauty”.
She eases herself into every position and never forces her body or causes herself pain.
Although Christine is extraordinarily strong, she doesn’t do any strength work, feeling that the contraction of muscles makes it harder to later lengthen them.
Watching her bend with ease, I regret not keeping up yoga. I struggle just to pick stuff off the floor, I tell her.
“Get out there and start again,” she insists.
“Do you think I feel like training all the time? It takes discipline.
“I think I’m of more value as I get older. People believe certain things have to stop at certain ages but then they look at me and say, ‘Hang on. Maybe I need to rethink this’. It inspires them to get back into it.”
Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/health/body-soul-daily/worlds-oldest-contortionist-christine-danton-71-bends-the-rules/news-story/e1a1848f366e6dc04db0bc8eef251cdd
Sixty-four years on, her lithe body can still perform that remarkable feat.
Did she imagine, as a little girl, that she’d still be doing those tricks, bending over backwards to collect a $10 note with her teeth or lowering herself into the splits?
No, she replies. She’s as astonished as anyone.
“At 18, I thought, ‘I’ll quit when I’m 25’, because that seemed very old, especially for a female contortionist,” she recalls. At 25, she decided to continue until she was 40.
“At 40, I decided I’d just keep going.”
Christine is 163cm tall with long, lean limbs that look and move like those of a woman in her 20s.
Since the age of 13, she’s been performing on TV shows and in clubs, cabarets and circuses all over the world as The Amazing Cristina.
She’s still a regular at fringe festivals, although her favourite venue now is her own theatre, The Spud Shed, on her property in Langhorne Creek, SA, and she continues to bust all the boundaries.
“People have this set idea of what you should or shouldn’t do when you’re 71,” she says, recalling a time recently when she really put that to the challenge by performing in the nude.
“I’d done it when I was 40 so I thought why not when I’m 69?”
Not everyone agreed. Was it her nakedness or her age that offended?
“I think it was my age,” she admits, “But the people who came loved it. They understood it. It was beautifully lit and the most pure form of art you could have.
“It took all my courage but you have to have courage to challenge people’s thinking. You have to stay creative or you’re in a nursing home.”
LIMBERING UPCHRISTINE trains twice a week with a 75-minute routine of backbends, forward bends and the splits – most contortionists can only go backwards or forwards but not both.
She does each set three times, gaining more flexibility with each repetition.
She stopped briefly in her mid-50s, weary of performing in venues “full of dickheads drinking”.
“They weren’t interested in my art,” she says.
“They weren’t sleazy or anything but I felt I was casting pearls before swine.”
Two years later, however, she “felt like a blob”.
“Physically and mentally I wasn’t good. I felt I’d lost my purpose and identity,” she says.
“I didn’t like where my body was headed and wanted my flexibility back. I had to do a lot of [mental] imagery, remembering how it felt, and it took three months of really hard work but I did get it back and have had a career ever since.
“Getting back on stage was amazing.”
Not surprisingly, Christine has attracted the interest of doctors who’ve X-rayed her in all kinds of positions and tell her she has the spine of a woman half her age.
Photos of her still appear in medical journals and she has no pain or arthritis at all.
ART OF CONTORTIONSOME contortionists are born with the right physicality. Many are double-jointed or have loose ligaments and can dislocate joints to twist their bodies into grotesque positions.
Christine has good genetics, but says her flexibility is down to training, and her act based on ballet and “beauty”.
She eases herself into every position and never forces her body or causes herself pain.
Although Christine is extraordinarily strong, she doesn’t do any strength work, feeling that the contraction of muscles makes it harder to later lengthen them.
Watching her bend with ease, I regret not keeping up yoga. I struggle just to pick stuff off the floor, I tell her.
“Get out there and start again,” she insists.
“Do you think I feel like training all the time? It takes discipline.
“I think I’m of more value as I get older. People believe certain things have to stop at certain ages but then they look at me and say, ‘Hang on. Maybe I need to rethink this’. It inspires them to get back into it.”
Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/health/body-soul-daily/worlds-oldest-contortionist-christine-danton-71-bends-the-rules/news-story/e1a1848f366e6dc04db0bc8eef251cdd