An Unconventional Uptown Company Turns Seniors Into Dancers

A former ballet dancer’s company of adults aged 55 to 90 performs across New York City.

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By Keshav Pandya

Naomi Goldberg walks among 20 dance students in an airy studio while K’naan’s rap hit “Take a Minute” plays in the background. The students, dressed in tights and short-sleeve shirts and barefoot, follow her lead as she demonstrates leg and arm stretches.

She corrects one student’s hand placement and applauds another who shows confidence.

The students, all 55 to 90 years old, take Goldberg’s class to learn dance and then showcase their talents at performances around the city.

Goldberg, 55, a former ballet dancer and choreographer, runs Dances for a Variable Population, whose classes at various uptown locations promote strong and creative movements, primarily in older dancers.

Her company has performed at events in places like Times Square, Washington Square Park and the High Line.

“I love to explore what different bodies can do,” says Goldberg, a former member of Pacific Northwest Ballet, who founded the company in 2009.  “The body becomes more of itself the older you become. The capacity to move, the vitality to embrace movement is important for the older adults.”

Hope Reiner, 74, has danced with the company for four years.

“In the beginning I felt uncomfortable, awkward and out of place, so I decided to quit,” says Reiner, after the class. “Now, I have a different attitude and feel like improving.”  Goldberg is a tough teacher, she says.

“I think the idea of who is a dancer needs to be opened up,” Goldberg says. “We as a society need to broaden our understanding of who is able to dance and what makes a dancer. These adults are dancers. That’s how I see them, and when I teach, that’s how I approach them.”

Goldberg recently started Movement Speaks, a free program for low-income students in senior centers across the city, including East and West Harlem. Other classes for seniors cost $18 a session and run 16 to 18 weeks.

The Movement Speaks program is the heart of the company, Goldberg says, because it provides a liberating experience to low-income seniors.

As a student in the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, Goldberg learned the athletic and at times asymmetrical technique of famed choreographer George Balanchine, who founded the school and led the New York City Ballet. While dancing for Pacific Northwest, however, she tore ligaments in her ankle and could no longer perform as a ballet dancer.

Despite the injury, she still wanted to dance and joined the Flying Karamazov Brothers, a juggling and comedy act that largely toured with circuses.

“I felt confined before by the world of ballet,” she says. “I saw that dance had potential to help different kinds of people when I began working with the street performers and circus group. I was fascinated to see the world of dance was much bigger than ballet.”

Goldberg, who is certified to teach at senior centers, requires her instructors to have certifications in fitness or a master’s in dance. Some teachers are senior citizens themselves, and former dancers.

All dancers, regardless of age, are prone to injury. Older dancers need to be particularly mindful of “Vitamin D deficiencies, less balance and bone stiffness,” says Shubh Pohane, director of rehabilitation and a physical therapist at the Alameda Healthcare Center in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

Dance instructors need to be mindful of conditions like arthritis and osteoporosis, common in older adults, she added. “The instructors would need to know that the abilities of each senior individual are different.”

Still, Pohane says, dance can benefit seniors. “It will enhance their flexibility and endurance,” she says.  “It helps in cardio and provides more motivation for them to move and live a healthy life in a fun way.”

Goldberg agrees. She says she’s noticed that her students walk better and are able to participate more in daily activities.

Her students also see positive effects. “Dancing in Naomi’s class keeps my body in shape in a different way from the gym,” says Barbara Nagel, who has been in the program for four years, but declined to give her age. “Movement is joyful for me.”

Aby Zonies, 66, an artist and former Tufts University art professor, appreciates having a class for older adults.

“When a teacher is very serious about what she does and cares about what she does, you feel like you’re being taken seriously,” Zonies says.

The students create original works by choosing themes based on community issues they would  like to explore and dance steps they want to use.

“We would do brainstorming sessions where we would have the students improvise dance moves and scenes they would like to show in their performances,” says Juan Coel Rodriguez, 26, who teaches Movement Speaks.  “It’s been fun to see how excited people get when they get to create their own work. We gave them a lot of tools, so they can make their own work.”

Margaret Yuen, who has taught at the company since 2014,  says she loves seeing seniors improvise and be fearless.  “It feels good when you’re able to bring so much joy to these seniors,” says Yuen, who studied Chinese folk dance at the Beijing Dance Academy and started dance troupes in Chinatown 35 years ago.

Goldberg and her teachers want to expand their program nationally and internationally. Inspired by her work, organizations in  Massachusetts and upstate New York have produced similar dance performances.

Among older people, “we have an epidemic of a lack of mobility,” says Magdalena Kaczmarska, 35, an instructor.  The company’s programs “not only help the seniors from a fitness point of view,” she says. “They become performing artists as well.”

Students are often surprised to see what dance does for them, says Goldberg.

“There is so much meaning and purpose to dance if you give these seniors access and opportunity,” she says. “When they come, they don’t see themselves as dancers. But when they perform with us, they know that they are.”

(Photo by Keshav Pandya)

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