“Savory Seniors” is a workshop for elders who want to move their bodies to rhythm. The classes give them the opportunity to regain some flexibility and stamina and teaches them to dance to live drummers.
Dance instructor Claudette “Adjoa” Hinds led the three-class workshop during June at St. Gerard’s Hall in Frederiksted. The Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts sponsored the event for the 55-and-older population, who came out in large numbers to participate.
The one-and-a-half hour classes gave participants warmup exercises, across the floor dancing, and movements for cooling down afterwards. African-rooted drumming offered high-energy rhythms for the elders who showed up and showed out.
Hinds brought a rich background in dance to the workshop. She began dancing as a youngster when she attended the after-school arts programs in the public schools in New York. Hinds continued after high school studying, performing, and teaching the African-rooted dances of Ghana, Senegal, Gambia, Haiti, Cuba, and the Caribbean Islands.
Although modern, jazz, and a little classical ballet were also part and parcel of Hinds’ studies, she found when working with bodies that haven’t moved regularly…engaging the Afro-Cuban rhythms provided an easier connection in her teaching, she said.
“The elders in the “Savory Seniors” classes were wonderfully enthusiastic. Watching 28 men and women of a certain age – smiling and encouraging each other was amazing,” Hinds shared.
Hinds did an evaluation of each participant in each class so she could get feedback about their experience. “There were folks with bonus knees, bonus hips and pacemakers. Someone had vertigo, others had muscle loss, and some came with ample buttocks,” she said with a chuckle.
“It was such a joy to see people inching away from their self-consciousness. The feedback she received was that folks became aware of parts of their bodies that they forgot they had. They appreciated having enough time to pay attention to those parts and to be able to move them.”
Based on Hinds’ studies in anatomy and dance, she focused on movement modalities that are embraced by those who practice yoga, tai chi and qigong. With 50 years of teaching and performing, Hinds put together an approach, which was effective for her and gave her the feedback that it was also effective for her students.
“I will modify a movement or give an alternative so that a student does not give up and stand on the side and watch but can be a part of the class for the whole class,” Hinds said.
She spoke about the importance of knowing how to work with the elder population. Hinds put together a teaching method back in 1975 at the South End Neighborhood Settlement House in Boston for folks 60 years and older. The approach is not a slower tempo or easier dance steps, it’s about giving the elder bodies a solid class of over 45 minutes, a warm up at the beginning and a cool down afterwards, and a time to refresh and hydrate with sips of water throughout. At the end of the class, the elders are no longer perspiring or out of breath.
In addition to classes for elders, Hinds has taught classes for women of differing abilities. There have been classes for women in different stages of pregnancy. “There is nothing more beautiful than seeing a room full of pregnant women loving to move, yet moving appropriately.”
Hinds recalls the times that women in their 50s, 60s, and 70s shared that they were told as young people that they could not dance. “We’re all dancers,” Hinds said. “We dance to a different beat. All cultures dance through different stages of life. The elders don’t just sit and pat their feet. They get up and do their thing. And it is wonderful to re-engage that.
“This is what I’m hoping will happen. There is a place for children, young adults and the elder population to take part culturally.”
Hinds envisions providing a workshop for younger dance teachers where they would take the opportunity to observe or co-teach through a practicum that would give them the tools to teach elders using their own approach or form that works for them. This would be a way to guard their health and longevity in the art of dance, as well as that of their students.
She learned from the masters and gives credit to that lineage: Lavinia Williams from Senegal, Baba Chuck Davis of African Dance Theater, Ibrahim Camara, and Dance Africa Festival at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. She performed with American Dance Festival and NY Dance Africa. Taught at Theater Dance and Music in Motion and taught/choreographed for Otis “Sule” Alexander’s Street Theater and Linda Lacey’s Karamu Afi. Hinds also performed at Island Center for the Performing Arts on St. Croix.
“I’ve been blessed that I can work successfully at my professional practice as a city planner, which goes hand-in-hand with my love of dance and with the success of my offerings as a jazz singer with the Blue Bay Jazz Festival or my series of Wine, Women & Song,” Hinds told the Source.
“It’s about using both sides of the brain,” Hinds explained. “Using the left and the right sides of your brain is a wonderful thing,” she continued. “When you can engage both, it makes each side better. The freedom and creativity you have in the arts can help when you’re stuck in your job life – your career, she said. “It has served me. I can find the muse(s) on both sides.”
When the Source asked how she sees herself and how she thinks people see her, Hinds replied with a laugh, “As Kermit the frog says, ‘What people think of you is none of your business.’” “I think people see me as a ‘jack of many trades and a master of some.’” “Whatever I do, I put my entire being into it. We do the best we can. This is a sacred endeavor for me,” she said.
Hinds sees herself as complicated…complex…yet too easy, peasy. “I can be very focused, detailed and driven by strategy and design on the left side [of the brain].”
This septuagenarian is older than the vast majority in the classes she teaches. Yet the “stars” in the “Savory Seniors” workshop were both over 80 years of age, Hinds said. At the culmination of the June workshop, she referred to her dancers as “Spicy Seniors!”
Hinds sends a shout out of thanks to CMCARTS for their support to the art of dance. “They jumped into a dance program in an amazing way,” she said. Classes were available to children and adults in Bamboula, Ghanaian, Afro Fusion, and Haitian dance.
“This is exactly what Candia Atwater [late founder and visionary of CMCARTS] envisioned…that this would go beyond a visual arts museum. That it would be a home that celebrates and teaches all of the arts,” Hinds said.
Hinds will offer her “Savory Seniors” two-class workshop Tuesdays, Oct. 15 and 22, at 3 pm. Folks who are 55 and older can register online at the CMCARTS website.
For more information or to register:
www.cmcarts.org
CMCARTS 340-772-2622
claudetteyh@gmail.com
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