SENIORS, STEP UP! - Come dancing with Susan

EN POINTE! THE BALLET TEACHER WANTS PENSIONERS TO JOIN THE MOVEMENT

- Leena Tailor

Granny isn’t just the old person who watches from the audience or sits at home reading you stories – she can perform, too!” says Susan Jordan, a 72-year-old dance practitioner, who runs dance lessons for seniors and curates ASPiRE, a concert starring performers aged 60+.

“Grandparents always go along to see their grandchildren performing and when it’s suddenly reversed, everyone’s thrilled. Seniors get such joy from performing.”

Getting Kiwis to dance away their sixties and beyond is part of Susan’s passion for “creative ageing”, which encourages older people into the arts, whether it’s dancing, singing or playing an instrument.

And if anyone knows the power of the arts, it’s Susan – she started dancing at seven, a saving grace while struggling through her school years with undiagnosed dyslexia.

“I didn’t discover I was dyslexic until I was doing my Masters,” tells Susan. “It was never acknowledged at school – I was put in the slow learners’ class, so I always thought of myself as dumb. But the one thing I could do was dance and I knew I was good at that. You have to know you’re good at something, otherwise your self-esteem gets drained.”

By the age of 10, the Aucklander was performing with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, but eventually realised her passion lay in choreography. “But I hadn’t seen roles like that for women in ballet. I thought only men choreographed.”