“That might have sounded selfish when I said I would only bake cakes for myself.

But the truth is: that you only really succeed with the cakes that you like yourself too. The other ones you just mix together. You only succeed with what you yourself enjoy too.

And that's the case with everything in life.”

(My grandmother, March 2025)

THE CAKE SESSIONS

A Series of Intergenerational Encounters

Women* that are listening to and learning from each other.

We are interested in the stories of a lifetime: narratives that show how individual and beautiful we are – and how we find each other. What are the cherishable moments and pleasurable stories that revive us, give us strength and let us blossom?

Hi! My name is Anno.

Welcome to a celebration. Welcome to my archive.

Welcome to: THE CAKE SESSIONS!

In spring 2025, I started a project in which I invited women* over 60 to spend a day at the dance studio with me. We started the day with an interview session that then evolved into a conversation expanding into a shared dance. And there always was cake!

The conversations - verbal and embodied - tell the stories of a lifetime, always through the lense of celebration, joy and pleasure. Because I think it is deeply important to tell stories of embodied joy. In a world that often prioritizes pain, we need to be able to access memories that strengthen us.

Pleasure is relational. And pleasure is political.

"Pleasure activism is the work we do to reclaim our whole, happy and satisfiable selves from the impacts, delusions, and limitations of oppression and/or supremacy." 

(adrienne maree brown, from: 'Pleasure Activism', 2019)

This embodied online archive is not finished. It will hopefully grow and expand, like a cake in the ofen, get layered with sugar icing - and, most importantly: shared with more and more people. 

Let me be your host for now and invite you to the conversation. Enjoy!

LEMON DRIZZLE

“What needs to be there for a good celebration? Music, music has to be there. And dancing, certainly! For me, this is really the biggest joy. It's just such a wonderful way of being with people that isn't talking or … I don't know, I feel it is the warmest way of being with people, actually.”

(Roberta Giannotti, May 2025)

Fotocredit: Lizzie Johnstone and Anno Bolender

VICTORIA SPONGE

"We have been organizing the Over 50 Party group for more than 20 years now. It’s hard work at times. But it’s good. It gets a lot of people out. A lot of them are sick, they are older people. There’s nobody at home. So it gives them somewhere to go on a Friday evening for a few hours. And makes it possible to be with and talk to others. Keeps them alive, keeps them going.“

"I shake my bones to everything that is going!"

(Mabelyn Dick, May 2025)

Fotocredit: Lizzie Johnstone and Anno Bolender

APPLE STRUDEL

„I suppose, in the parties that generations before us had, people just knew the songs that people sang. And that became a very communal thing, which was very sweet. Everybody could join in or not, you know? It's a very nice thing to sing together, to be part of that creative process –

and I wouldn't do it on my own.“

(Philippa Abrahams, May 2025)

Fotocredit: Lizzie Johnstone and Anno Bolender

The CAKE SESSIONS are an ongoing research and archiving project.

The first sessions have been recorded in spring 2025 in the UK. They where premiered at the 

performance "THE CAKE SESSIONS" at Stanley Arts in London.
The performance will be re-shown in November 2025 in Frankfurt in collaboration with

elderly choreographer Petra Lehr.

**We use the term "women*" to include women, lesbians, non-binary, trans- and agender people.