Woman hasn’t lost a step on dance floor
According to one longtime friend, Josie Howser is “a budding young talent, even though she started at age 67.”
Howser is now 79 — at least until June 3, “when I hit the big eight-oh,” she said — and her talent is dancing. This explains why on a recent afternoon she found herself between two much younger men on a polished maple floor in Cordova.
One of these men was Anthony Parks, 34, a former Marine turned dance instructor. The other was Iura Kora, 27, who was born and raised in Ukraine and who — like many immigrants — came to the U.S. in search of the proverbial “better life — ‘American
dream,’ if you will.”
“I started dancing when I was 7,” Kora added. “In Ukraine, it is like sport” — an activity a boy is likely to pursue, like baseball or basketball in the U.S.”
Kora, on this afternoon, was “Tony,” while Parks was “Rico.” Howser, meanwhile, was “Lola” — and perhaps now a bell has been rung and is reverberating with the warning that your brain it is about to be infiltrated after a long hibernation by the invasive-species earworm that is Barry Manilow’s 1978 Grammy-winning Top Ten hit, “Copacabana.”
“Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl/ With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there…
“His name was Rico/ He wore a diamond…
“And while she tried to be a star, Tony always tended bar… “
Howser and her two Ultimate Ballroom Dance Studio instructors, Parks and Kora, will perform a choreographed dramatic dance to “Copacabana” on Monday during what is a billed as the “Copacabana Fashion Show, Silent Auction & Luncheon” at the Hilton Memphis, 939 Ridge Lake Blvd.
Organized by retired Memphis City Schools music instruction supervisor Tommie Pardue (source of the “budding young talent” quote above) and presented by Saddle Creek, the event — which begins at 10:30 a.m. and includes a noon luncheon and dance/fashion show — is a fundraiser for the Josephine Circle, which is one of the oldest continuing charity organizations in Memphis.
Founded in 1913, the Josephine Circle raises money for scholarships and interest-free loans for young men and women who need assistance to attend college. (In other words, most of the students the group benefits are Howser’s and Pardue’s juniors by several decades.)
Howser’s performance will include elements of samba and salsa. She’ll wear a yellow feather boa and a purple sequined dress. In the song, “Lola’s dress is ‘cut down to there,’ but mine’s not,” Howser explained.
Howser has always been around music. “We don’t have a TV in our big room, we have a Steinway concert grand,” she said.
Howser’s use of “we” is somewhat poignant. Her husband, Dr. John P. Howser, a neurosurgeon by vocation and jazz musician by avocation, insisted on the piano. He died from cancer in 2009 at the age of 73.
Josie Howser had started dancing seriously close to a decade earlier, taking lessons and participating in national ballroom competitions. “Growing up in Memphis, going to Snowden and Central, we had a lot of parties and I always loved to dance, but I just ‘party danced,’” she said. That changed on the fateful day she had to call a wrecker to tow her car. The wait was so long she wandered into a nearby dance studio, and the rest is personal as well as terpsichorean history.
John Howser supported his wife, but he wasn’t interested in ballroom dancing.
“He said ‘I can’t foxtrot to jazz, so I’m saving this body for the golf course,’” Josie said.
After John died, however, “It was very difficult for me to come back to dancing,” Josie Howser said. “I didn’t have dancing in me. We’re happy when we dance, and I wasn’t happy.”
Ultimately, it was her memory of that same husband that sent her back to the dance floor.
“What would John want? Had it been the reverse, I would want John to continue working, continue playing his music...”
Dance can be a hard physical sport, especially for someone nearing 80. Howser has had knee surgery, a dislocated toe and a hip replacement, yet she feels rejuvenated “from my toenails to the top of my head” when she’s on the dance floor. “On the day I’m going to dance, it motivates me to get up and get going. Otherwise, I just might pull the covers back up over my head.”