My Golden Dancers

By Elita Clayman

Elita is a wife, mother of two, grandmother of four and has been dancing socially and competitively since 1977. She has 58 trophies and medals for her dancing. She has been writing dance articles to encourage seniors and non seniors to go out and ballroom dance since 1990. Her articles appear in dance magazines and on websites. She can be reached at elitajerrydancing@verizon.net. Now she is honored to have her articles on the Fred Astaire website. Elita believes that dancing enhances our lives physically and emotionally. She loves dancing so much she even named her little doggie Rumba.

I have been invited to write a column for the Fred Astaire newsletter online. I am honored to do so. I have been writing dance columns since 1990 and in all of them I try to encourage seniors, not yet seniors, and just about everybody to do what I love the most – ballroom dancing.

Of course I love my husband, my two children, a son and a daughter, my son-in-law, my daughter-in-law, my three grandsons and one granddaughter the most and then comes this exciting hobby, sport or whatever you want to call it – ballroom dancing.

To the general, public ballroom dancing is a new phenomenon. It is as if the everyday public has discovered something new that we all were aware of for many decades. Since the television program Dancing With The Stars hit the scene, people are seeing stars dance with their professional teachers. The stars take a lesson lasting about six hours a day for four to five days a week and learn a new dance and all the moves that go with it. They dress up the ladies in the skimpiest outfits with their hair swinging and the men, whether pros or amateurs, keep their shirts open to show off their bare chests.

Some of the routines they learn are quite hard and would be difficult for any student who had taken many lessons for numerous years. This is a show business reality show and is very popular. Many dance studios are reaping the benefit of the community’s interest in dance due to this show. It is not a logical way to learn ballroom dance and the average person will realize that they cannot afford six hours a day for many days and neither could their bodies take on such a strenuous effort.

The proper way is to take one or two lessons a week at a dance studio and go to a social dance on the weekend to practice and socialize. This is the best procedure to continue this sport or hobby and to learn to love it as we all have done. A slower course will reap benefits for the new dancer, and she or he will be able to tolerate the changes in his or her life as this is happening.

Many seniors who take up ballroom dancing are hesitant at first and then they realize that they are capable of learning and absorbing this information in their minds, their souls and their soles (of their feet.) They realize that this new thing called dance in their life will enhance their days to the point that they will crave the moment to come for their next lesson or social dance. A senior in California named Jeanne wrote me that she hesitated at age seventy-nine and a half (her words) to take up ballroom dancing. She read some of my articles of encouragement and finally went to a group lesson at a recreation hall and loved it so much she started private lessons at a studio. In fact, she did so well in a few years, that one day she took several lessons from Ron Montez. She sent me pictures of her lessons with him and she enjoyed taking coaching from such a celebrity teacher who was a champion dancer for many years with his partner Liz Curtis. This lovely senior was now about eighty-three years of age and had the courage to go to a teacher of the caliber of Ron Montez. This was the most demanding and exciting time in her late years. Her husband was in a nursing home and had been for twenty years and her mind was cluttered with despair, sadness and loneliness. Upon dancing and learning and going to Saturday night events at the studio; her life was lighting up with hope, desire and excitement.

Ballroom dancing appeals to so many of us whether we be in our early twenties, our forties, our seventies or older and is like a light shining on our souls and we decided to include this in our every day living. I heard a nice slogan that said something about “a gift of promise” is something to dream about. It meant that we can think about something and promise our self that it is a gift and we promise to accomplish it. That is what dancing is to me – a gift and a promise to do it.

My favorite all time movie that I saw in the theater way back in the late fifties was called “Love is A Many Splendored Thing,” starring William Holden and Jennifer Jones. Many reading this will not know of these two delightful actors but they were quite popular in their time. In the movie, he says to her upon going off to war as a journalist correspondent that if he does not come back – that “you and I have had the many splendored thing.” He meant that even if never seeing one another again, their love story was so splendid and beautiful that they had not missed out.

So when we ballroom dance whether we compete, whether we go to social dances, whether we showcase and dance before our peers at the studio or even if we go to a wedding or anniversary or confirmation party dance and we show off our accomplishments in our performing dancing -then we have not missed the many splendored thing I call dancing.

So the gift of promise we pledge to ourselves when we take up ballroom dancing is one we will give to our person and we will be so much richer because our minds, our bodies and our hearts will not have missed the many splendored thing. We will continue to learn, to love and to be positive in our thinking of what we are. We are special people, young, seniors, not yet seniors and even super seniors who are up in age and we benefit from this achievement, fulfillment and realization that we can accomplish at any age this fantastic and beautiful thing called ballroom dance. We need no television reality show to tell us this; we know it and knew it long before this show came on the scene. The reason being that we were tuned in to the knowledge that dance is for everyone and everyone will be richer for undertaking this delightful event called dance.

When I was a little girl, I loved to watch the movies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. I imagined I was Ginger and when I went to Florida to visit an aunt when I was fourteen, I told the new teens I met that my name was Ginger. Now I feel like a Ginger when I dance or a Cyd Charisse or a floating angel who accomplished this feat of moving my feet and holding out my arms and painting a picture of movement, just as an artist paints a canvas. It is truly an art form and the body is the canvas that was painted upon and the final viewing of it is our dancing for others to see.

So I say to all males and females, ballroom dance, love it, never leave it and you will have had and do have the continuing ‘many splendored thing.’ Your promise to yourself is a gift of love, the love of ballroom dancing. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Art is an instant captured in eternity.” Your dancing is that instant. It is art for sure and you are the artist at that moment.

Keep On Dancing.