The dance class designed to keep you twinkle-toed
A third of over-65s fall each year. But help is at hand from a top ballet dancer . . .
ASPARkly blonde woman dressed in white is strutting her dance moves with style, and I’m attempting to keep up with her.
A red-head who has taken it upon herself to be my ‘support’ in the class smiles encouragingly when I wobble trying to stay up on my toes.
Across the room, an enthusiastic woman is the first to begin a fast sidestep, while a man in a turquoise turban lifts his legs high to the music.
But this is no ordinary dance class. It is a class designed to stop us falling over, part of the Dance to Health programme being pioneered across england for the over-50s.
Based on physiotherapy exercises and dance routines, it’s supposed to prevent tumbles, and boost mobility and co-ordination. It’s supposed to be fun, too.
But, dear me, what is going on? I had fondly imagined I would be a bit of a star performer. After all, I do a good deal of Pilates and yoga and, at one point, my other half and I went through a craze for tango.
But here I am being outdone by my Birmingham classmates.
Some are markedly younger than my 76 years, but others have a decade on me, and even the man with acute arthritis and a walking stick seems to be keeping up better than I am.
Our teacher, Jenny Murphy, 38, trained and danced with Birmingham Royal Ballet and has been leading Dance to Health classes since it started in 2017. Classes have since sprung up in Cheshire, norfolk, Oxfordshire, South Wales and yorkshire.
‘Some people have incapacitating arthritis and are very limited in mobility,’ she says.
‘Some have had one or two hip replacements, others have become increasingly anxious about falling when they go out, so it’s important the exercises build strength and confidence.’
Jenny adds: ‘Music and dance make what we do enjoyable, as well as help spatial sense and co-ordination. Dancing together with music to lift the spirits builds social bonds, too.’
My session is set to George Gershwin’s hits. We begin with warm up exercises — shoulder shrugs, leg lifts, arm stretches — then, before I have time to say pas de deux, we are asked to walk, alternating on toes then heels around the room.
Added on is a port de bras where we hold our arms out wide in a (hopefully graceful) ballet pose.
There are double side-steps across the floor, designed to raise the aerobic heartbeat, and next we are into a swaying motion with a high-stepping march, walking feet directly in front of each other — much harder than it sounds.
Then we try the flamingo swing: standing on one leg, raising the other and brushing it backwards and forwards. And guess who wobbles the most . . .
A third of people aged 65 and over and half of those aged 80plus fall at least once a year. Falls result in an annual bill for the nHS of £2.3 billion.
An evaluation by Sheffield Hallam University showed a 44 per cent reduction in the number of falls among those participating in Dance to Health, along with a growth in confidence and independence, and significant improvement for people who suffer with isolation and loneliness.
At the end of each session is a 30-minute gathering with coffee and cake, and this is where friendships are often made.
The Dance to Health programme, held in six regions around england and in Wales, was the brainchild of social enterprise charity Aesop’s chief executive Tim Joss, who asked the Arts Council to link professional arts organisations with physiotherapy-based classes as a way to make them more engaging and fun than plain exercise classes might be.
Aesop’s programmes have had nHS funding for their induction phases, and GPs can refer patients. After this, the maintenance and sustainability phases rely on fundraising by the individual groups. Tim Joss plans the first three years of Dance to Health to be followed by a drive to reach 10,000 people. ‘I am passionately determined that older people anywhere in the country have the chance to do Dance to Health,’ he says.
So bonded do groups become that they sometimes put on performances, or ‘celebrations’, as Jenny calls them. Her group performed a ballroom sequence to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet for an Aesop conference, for example, while a norwich group were trained for a performance of a short dance piece at the city’s Theatre Royal.
My hour-long session ends with us each being asked to create a movement to music for others to follow, and as I prance out the room humming to the music, I rather wish I could come back for more.