Senior dance troupe gets residents to bust a move

They were dancing and singing and moving to the grooving at the Town Village Retirement Community in Oklahoma City.

Elsia Jackson says she thinks dancing keeps her young, but she sometimes has trouble keeping pace with some of the more senior dancers.

“Like after today’s dance, as always, the younger ones, we’re always just fanning and dabbing and dabbing and fanning,” Jackson, 66, says to The Oklahoman. “The older ones are fine, perhaps a little dewy. But they’re not gasping for air or anything. They’re in great shape. I don’t care what disabilities or handicaps they supposedly may have with the knees and the hips. When they start moving, they forget it all…so I’m trying to keep up with them.”

Jackson, 66, is one of the younger members of the Older and Boulder Dancers of Oklahoma City, a nonprofit dance troupe of men and men age 62 and older. They mostly perform in area nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, assisted living centers and adult day care facilities.

Jannie Endres, activities director of Town Village, says she was pleased with their debut performance.

“We want them to be inspired to get up and move because if you don’t use it, you will lose it,” Endres says. “We do lots of exercise: We do chair yoga, we do laughing yoga, we do all kinds of things to keep them young and active. I think it inspires them that at least they can do is get up and wiggle.”

One resident leaning on a walker did just that to a remix of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy.”

Watch a video of the Older and Bolder Dancers here


Topics: Activities