Mata Wagner rehearses with the Golden Dancers at Casa Village.
As the song “All That Jazz” pumps from a CD player, Ginger Green, 90, steps out in time to the music.
Dressed in black top and pants and a silver sequined vest with red tuxedo lapels, Green kicks, bounces, shimmies and spins, keeping up with younger members of the Golden Dancers in their 70s and 80s.
About the only dance move they don’t do is the splits.
During the group’s twice weekly practices, dancers rehearse numbers they regularly perform at senior centers, retirement homes and birthday and anniversary parties.
Comedy, too, is part of the routines.
At the end of “All that Jazz,” most of the dancers move off the dance floor, leaving Green to ham it up in front of an imaginary crowd.
As part of the gag, fellow dancer JoAnn Sowden is sent out to push a protesting Green into the wings.
In the next number — Elvis Presley belting out “All Shook Up” — the dancers swivel their hips and shake raised hands.
When a large black flower pinned to the top of Green’s head loses it mooring, Green picks it off the floor and pitches to the side without missing a step.
The group started in 1987 as part of the Widow and Widowers Association. It later opened membership to married dancers. Mana Lesman Seward has instructed the group since then.
Birdie Dapples, 70, a retired Rocky Mountain College math professor, joined the group three years ago because it looked like fun.
Although she had taken ballet when she was younger, Dapples hadn’t danced in years.
Several other members, including Sowden, 77, and Joan Dimick, 76, and have no background in dance and it hasn’t held them back.
Mata Wagner, 81, grew up in a Baptist home in which dancing was considered a sin.
When she was about 65 years old, “I decided it was no longer a sin” and joined the Golden Dancers, she said with a smile.
Sonya Skaggs, 72, started taking dance lessons after moving from teaching Spanish to a desk job. When she began gaining weight, she knew she had to be more active. An instructor she was taking clogging lessons from suggested she might be interested in the Golden Dancers.
Not only has dancing been a fun physical workout, it keeps Skaggs’ mind sharp, too.
Ginger Green joined the Golden Dancers in 1989 after reading about them in The Gazette.
The dancers practice on Mondays and Thursdays. In addition to dancing to Broadway tunes, they learn western and Spanish dances as well as the Charleston.
Dancing in front of an audience sharpened the group’s routines.
Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/golden-girls-dance-for-audiences-and-themselves/article_e7823083-c84c-5399-82d5-dcb07f6d2abf.html#ixzz2SVFh8hri
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