SANTA ANA : Dancers Twirl for Fun, Health

As a young girl, Concepcion Juarez whirled and twirled across the floor as she did the dances of Mexico at school.

Now, at 75, she joins a group of other women at the Santa Ana Senior Center every Friday morning to recapture the folklorico dancing of her youth.

“I joined the class when I heard about it because I liked doing it as a little girl and I thought it was good exercise and healthy, too,” Juarez said.

Rosalie Deverona began teaching the festive dances to about a dozen women almost a year ago. Since then, the group’s skills have improved greatly and the women have even staged a few performances, she said.

“They’re starting to feel better, and they can go longer,” Deverona said.

Deverona, 23, who also teaches children, has the seniors warm up with stretching exercises. The women then follow her through a series of steps set to lively Mexican music.

So far, the class has been strictly female, with male dancers limited to occasional visitors such as a bespectacled man who did a few token dance steps as he strolled through in search of lunch recently.

But the dearth of male dancers doesn’t slow the women down.

“Pretend you’re in someone’s arms,” Deverona told her students. “You’re dirty dancing with Patrick Swayze.”

“When does he kiss?” joked Elsie Mercandante, 80, who wore brightly colored beads and, beneath her full skirt, a lacy petticoat at a recent session.

But Mercandante and the others said they don’t mind that there usually are no men to twirl or dip them.

The women have performed several times at the senior center for other seniors and for their families.

“My children came to see me and they were so impressed,” said Juarez, wearing a silk flower in her hair. “They said, ‘Mama, Mama, we didn’t know you could do that.’ ”