Elderly Dancers Put Best Foot Forward

The gym doors are open, and from a distance it looks like the Branford Recreation Center is hosting a gentle session of geriatric aerobics. More than 100 senior citizens stand in rows and sway their booties to a song of another era.

Blame it on the Bossa Nova

With its magic spell

Blame it on the Bossa Nova

That she did so well . . .

They got rhythm, they got music. Max has Sophie, and Tom has Annette. Contrary to first impressions, they’ve got music of the ‘90s, too, though it isn’t exactly rap.

Don’t tell my heart,

My achy-breaky heart,

I just just don’t think he’d understand. . .

Well, yee-ha. If it’s Tuesday morning, it isn’t aerobics. It’s the Tuesday Senior Dance Club, a 35-year-old social club dedicated to the proposition that folks who are even older than Dick Clark should have some fun, too. With religious regularity, folks from all over the San Fernando Valley gather in this Pacoima rec center, where waltzes are preferred to hip-hop and country line-dancing gets the nod over limbo. Maybe MediCare doesn’t cover the question of “How low can you go?”

Club President Harry Lichtman, who is 75, would have you believe it’s just a dance club for folks over 55. Your intrepid reporter uncovered a hotbed of political activism, volunteerism, friendship and romance. They dance to a variety of agendas.

When he isn’t shaking a leg, Meyer Bernfield, a 78-year-old Encino resident, marshals gray power for a variety of causes affecting senior citizens, from transportation to proposed cuts in Social Security. “We’re all political forces,” he says. “If we don’t do it, who’s going to do it for us?”

Selma Acks isn’t just a dancer, she’s the president of the Valley Federation of Senior Citizen Clubs, an umbrella organization of 68 clubs. The federation coordinates activities with the city’s Recreation and Parks Department and sponsors such annual events as a senior talent show and a luncheon for residents over the age of 90.

Gisha Blumenthal, 68, still comes despite recent knee-replacement surgery. Blumenthal, who is president of the Duo Club, a fund-raising organization for the City of Hope, is one of several members who cope with artificial joints.

Tina Foldvary, 71, certainly has good reason to dance.

“I want you to put in the paper that dancing is very therapeutic,” she demanded.

Two years ago, Foldvary explains, she was diagnosed with cancer. A doctor gave her a slight chance of living another year. But by all appearances, she’s the picture of health.

“Dancing really helped me,” she says. “The exercise, the friendship, the support. . . . Look at me! I was supposed to be dead!”

Inevitably, of course, some members move on to the great beyond. Sophie Miller and her husband, David, had been members since 1981. A few months after David’s death in 1987, Sophie returned to the club and found herself paired with Max Stovack. Max, who is 80, and Sophie, who is, well, not crazy about the idea that her age would be published in the newspaper, are newlyweds again. They were married on April 29, 1992.

Tom and Annette Irwin also met each other on the basketball floor at Branford Rec Center. “Well, Tom didn’t know his left foot from his right foot,” Annette recalled. “So I took him over.”

Like many couples here, they are also active in other dance clubs. Annette, who is vice president of the Los Feliz Dance Club, taught Tom well enough so that they’ve picked up trophies for the tango, the samba and the mambo.

Sometimes couples perform exhibitions at the Tuesday Seniors Dance Club, but competition really isn’t their style, Lichtman says. “If we had a contest,” he says, “we’d have to have 94 people win.”

They dance for other reasons. Rosie Kamins, the club’s 81-year-old secretary, remembers the depth of her grief after her husband’s death a decade ago. It was her friends, Selma and Harold Acks, who made it their business to lift her spirits and remind her that life was meant for living. Every Tuesday morning, she catches a ride with them to the dance.

Selma is standing there as Rosie tells the story. “This woman!” Rosie declares. Then she kissed her friend on the cheek.

Your correspondent never did learn whether Rosie, like Sophie and Max and Tom and Annette, has found someone new. But she did seem to be a bit of a flirt.

“You’ve got to watch me doing the merengue,” Rosie said. “Then you’ll know what dancing is.”